Father: His greatest desire is to punch his father in the face, not simply to harm him, but to make a notch in the man’s reality.

Twin: Only the silence that comes before the sob.

The cars crawled along the freeway. It soothed me that in spite of modern attempts to increase the speed of life, L.A. traffic did not comply.

Exiting onto a suburban street, I made a few turns and ended up in a lower-middle-class neighborhood, where houses still had peach carpets and rusty screen doors. The house was a split-level ranch with a hand-painted mailbox that read THE CHASES. A flowering orange tree grew out of the letters. How antiquated.

Blithe’s battery-powered car might give me away as an outsider, I thought.

I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. I wanted to get a cup of shitty coffee and spy on them, like a true detective, but I was supposed to knock on their door.

Eventually a woman came to the door, using a walker. She looked worn, in slippers and a sweatshirt from a long-past sports event. Could it be?

She let a Jack Russell terrier out on the front lawn. The dog barked in my general direction and I slouched down. I waited for him to go inside.

I pretended that I was not Pen but a fleshy extension of the Rhiz simply carrying out a mission for the good of all. I walked up to the door, smelling a whiff of gasoline, a neighbor probably filling their lawn mower.

I really didn’t want to go in.

The Rhiz would have to deal with my executive decision to drive away.

Inside the flower market, I paused at a rose stand, looking down into the twelve cells of a rose box, pulled into the spiral of the petals. Hello, my friends, I whispered to them. Micro-dosing was an excuse to be able to say what I wanted to the flowers and other entities.

When I got home with daylilies and a bouquet of carnations for Blithe, I sat in my room, rolling the Bio-meter around in my palm, watching it remain a neutral yellow. I didn’t bother to summon the Operatrix. I simply left the file and the Bio-meter outside the door.

In Blithe’s condo, I spritzed eucalyptus into the air and wiped down the bathroom sink. Blithe was leaving for China, and Aiden was coming over to say goodbye. I was relieved that Blithe had a decent excuse for missing the wedding. He was going to let me stay in the condo and pay whatever rent was comfortable for me.

The buzzer sounded. Aiden walked into the condo, carrying a woven tote. As he shut the door, I saw gardening gloves tucked into his back pocket.

His luster had dimmed a few shades.

“I think I’m losing it, guys,” he said, hardly registering the suitcase or the two of us.

He threw himself down on the couch and picked up a pillow to hug.