Her face crumpled and she made an involuntary sound, the beginning of a sob. I watched her regain control, and she stared at me, smooth and full of rage.

“I don’t deserve this,” she said. “Not any of it.” Her voice was icy.

“Neither did she,” I said.

We watched one another for a long moment. Her hands shook, I noticed. I was shaking, too. Finally she turned away, to face the pool and the privacy fence beyond.

“I’m going,” I said to her rigid back.

“Wait,” she said, turning. “One more thing, please.”

“What?”

“I know you saw her, you spoke to her.”

“Yes.”

“Did she say anything about me?”

“Not really,” I said.

“What does that mean, not really?”

“She asked what you wanted,” I said. “That’s pretty much it.”

I could have told her about Danielle refusing the money, but I didn’t want to get into it. I walked around the house and let myself in to get my purse. I drove and got lost in the curvy River Oaks streets, then headed west on Memorial, past the park and the Loop, through subdivisions. I kept driving, hoping to dislodge the film of sorrow and anger that clung to me, clutched at my heels, my hair. Hoping to get away from the difficult world. I drove until I didn’t feel anything anymore. I drove and drove, the radio silent, the windows open to the soft wet air.

The air had a sound as I moved my car through it. I listened and thought of physics, the behavior of sound in outer space. It must be different, faster or quieter, maybe. If sound had no atmosphere to travel through, did it arrive more quickly or did it simply die? Maybe the emptiness trapped it so it couldn’t go anywhere, forever stuck at its source. I couldn’t remember how it worked, though I’d surely learned it in school. The question was like a koan, except that it was science; I had simply forgotten the answer.

This one night—it was maybe junior year—Danielle and I took some pills, I don’t remember what, and cruised around. I’m surprised we didn’t wreck. We were on the east side, near the ship channel, a part of town I never went to. Danielle turned on a side street near a big refinery and we parked facing it, watching the flames atop the towers. It looked like a miniature city, futuristic and menacing. Its smoke lit white in the sky before fading into general smog.

“It’s cool, isn’t it?” Danielle said. We walked over the weed-cracked asphalt and tar seams still soft from the day. We stretched out on the hood of her car, leaning against the windshield, smoking a joint. We’d left the radio on. Contaminants laced the air.

“Too bad it smells so weird,” I said.

“My uncle used to bring me out this way, to the Ninfa’s on Navigation. We’d get dinner the nights Sally worked late.”

“I didn’t know you had an uncle.”