“Not crazy. Just people with psychological problems, people in hospitals or undergoing analysis. It’s a tool, that’s all. A medicine.”

“I know that,” he said. “You already told me. But if you aren’t crazy yourself, then how can you tell if it works?”

She laughed. “Maybe I am crazy. I have you, don’t I? And your father?”

“Come on, Mom, I’m serious.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” she said.

“What way does it work?”

The slush had melted in her drink and it was thin now and acidic. She lifted it to her lips and set it down again. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s hard to put in words.”

“Is it bad for you?”

“Bad? No, not at all—just the opposite.”

“You’re not just saying that, are you?”

She made herself look into his eyes so he could see she meant what she was saying. “I would never lie to you.”

There was a sudden sharp crash from the direction of the patio, which made them both look up. She didn’t realize it yet, but that crash was the sound of the aquarium shattering on the tiles and sending five gallons of murky water and a spangled assortment of tropical fish out across the room in a miniature tidal wave. Somebody cursed, and then Brenda’s voice rose up, harsh, shrill, shot through with rage. “You bitch!”

And then Peggy: “You call me a bitch? You’re a tramp, that’s what you are, a common tramp!”

In the aftermath, both of them appeared at the top of the steps to the pool area, shoving and snatching at one another, and there was blood on the tiles all over again, Brenda’s blood, because Brenda, as it turned out, had flung the aquarium at Peggy and then, in the struggle that followed, wound up stepping on a fragment of shattered glass. Tim was right behind them, and everybody else too, and Tim was saying, “All right, all right, enough already,” to no effect whatever. Brenda had Peggy by the wrists, trying to force her down the stairs and into the pool, but Peggy sidestepped her and broke free, and it was Brenda who missed her step and flailed backward into the water to come up sputtering an instant later while Peggy, her shoulders rigid and her teeth clenched, stalked off down the path to the beach.

Brenda was a bobbing dark spot in the pool, treading water and cursing. Tim seemed to be at a loss. He stood there at the edge of the pool looking down the path where Peggy had disappeared, until Brenda slashed her way to the coping and thrust both her elbows and her face up out of the water and in a low nasty voice demanded, “Are you just going to fucking stand there or are you going to help me out of here?”