Jil sighed and shook her head. “I’m ashamed of being a relapser. And you know what? Maybe I’m not ready to be sober again. Life is too raw. It drives me crazy to have Jayjay here all the time: this delicious snack I can’t eat. And, yes, little Thuy, I feel like shit about my kids. I wish I was dead. I want another hit of sudocoke.” Jil fumbled in her pocket.

“Oh, Jil, don’t. Sleep it off, and when you’re yourself again, call up your old sponsor. She’ll help you.”

“Oh, what do you know? I’m on a run, Thuy; I’m not gonna be sleeping at all.” Jil set the stash box on the table with a click. The orphidnet showed a sinister glitter in the sudocoke.

“I’m going outside,” said Thuy. “You got a raincoat I can use?”

“Over there,” said Jil with an abrupt jerk of her hand toward a rack with several of those cuttlefish-stenciled ponchos. She took another quick hit of sudocoke, and the bitter energy surged into her. “A fresh costume for Hipster Goody Girl,” said Jil as Thuy slipped on a poncho. She raised her voice to a mocking soprano lisp. “Ooo, does this make my ego look too big?”

It was definitely time to step outside. The rain had subsided to a drifting mist. A dozen iridescent piezoplastic crows were wandering about the deck, shaking out their wings and clacking their beaks. Mr. Peanut was standing on his tripod of legs in the not-so-deep water, scanning the bay and brandishing his cane like a fencer’s foil. Jayjay and Craigor were excitedly fiddling with piezoplastic bands stretched among the joints and pistons of a small steel backhoe, which had a Happy Shoon perched in its driver’s seat, his fingers grown into spindly tendrils which twined around the machinery to touch each of the stretchy bands. The bands were taking the place of the beat old machine’s unfueled gasoline engine.

“Jil is—” began Thuy.

“We know,” said Jayjay. “It’s been like this all week. I feel bad about it. Like it’s partly my fault. But I don’t know what to do.”

“What about you, Craigor?” said Thuy. “Don’t you care?”

Craigor looked Thuy over again. “It’s gonna be me in my coffin when I die, little girl. This is my only run. No way I can paddle back upstream, back to what Jil and I had before.”

“You could try,” urged Thuy. “Love her, Craigor. Save her. And what about your children?”

“My parents stayed together for the sake of the kids,” said Craigor, tall, stiff, unhappy. “It was hell for all of us. Why am I even telling you this? Words suck. You are what you do. If Jil wants to save herself, that’s her call.” Seeing something in the bay, Craigor whooped with a warrior’s fierce exultation. “Yeah, baby! Here he comes!”