I had been in Los Angeles a week before I saw the city, or anything beyond the Safrans’ house and garden. I felt as if I’d landed on the surface of the moon, so far away was my normal life. My college friends, Suzi and Becks, and my on-off boyfriend, Ryan, had all promised to email, but I’d no access to the Safrans’ computer, and wasn’t even sure if they had the internet here. We were up in what they called ‘the hills’, where the sun set orange every night, and on a rare clear day you could see the sea. Usually, a smoggy haze weighed over the city and you could see nothing at all. The house was wide and low, two storeys, the air churned to a conditioned coldness that felt like being touched with frozen hands. I struggled to sleep in it, with jet lag and the constant whir of the ceiling fan, outside the sirens and police helicopters that hovered sometimes for hours. Every house in the street had a sign on the lawn stating which alarm company they used.

The street curved up towards a wilderness, where you could hike a steep sandy trail to the top of a hill and look down on the city. Everywhere were signs warning of coyotes. I had only been outside to the garden, the grass so green and level it looked fake, where José kept his things in a little shed. He didn’t live in like me; instead he drove from the San Gabriel Valley three times a week. I gathered this was far. I had seen one neighbour – the woman across the street, who had dyed red hair and looked at me suspiciously over large glasses, asking what I was doing with the baby. There was a pool, but it was always covered over as Abby was paranoid about the kids falling in. No one seemed to spend much time outside – Abby even drew the blinds against the sun when it was bright. The heat was merciless, beating down on your head during the few steps between the car and the door.