I understood that my mother had no choice, that there was no hope, that he was gone, as gone as the rest of the men whose pictures had appeared on the evening news. She lifted her pen, paused above the first space for her signature, and stared at me. She waited to sign until I nodded at her. I still think I will never forgive her for looking to me before signing that paper to remove him from life support, for making me be the one to say yes, go ahead. Take him away. I remember the sound of the pen on the page, the way her hand shook, and then we were left to listen to his body take its last rattling breath. How could we continue, how could we still squish through the grass barefoot to water the basil in the garden, how could we hug the same way, laugh over white wine at lunch, when we had colluded like that?

I jumped when a man pushed his way through the beaded curtains at the entrance of the shop.

“I’m here for a, uh, a private reading?” He seemed anxious, an apron of sweat on the front of his pale blue T-shirt. His skin was the tender-looking pink of a whole pig slow roasted over an open flame. He looked like he belonged in one of Brueghel’s carnival scenes, a beery shopkeeper draped over a keg.

Clara looked at me as she spoke to him, as though she were trying to tell me something instead. “Ah, yes, please let me show you in.” She rose from her chair and showed him through the door at the back of the shop, raising her finger behind his back to me to tell me to wait a minute.

I thought about what Emily had said to me back at the spa—that Des and Clara were up to something else, something secretive, illegal. I knew it was irrational, but I was angry at her for bringing him into the shop while I was there. I felt like it cheapened what she had just told me, the intimacy of it. The pain.

“What’s a private reading entail?” My voice was mean, snide.

“Shh. Keep it down.” When she’d spoken of my father she seemed open, unguarded, almost dreamy. But now her eyes were narrowed, her jaw clenched.

“How much does it cost?”

“More than you can afford.”

“Do only men get them?”

She sighed. “It’s not what you think. It’s just a … it’s just a date. ”

“Jesus. I can’t believe this. Emily was right. At least tell me you’re still in school?” She looked away, and I knew I’d hit a nerve. It might have been a trick of the light, but her eyes shone. Though she turned back to me with venom in her voice.