Cocaine made the pain go away. She didn’t miss Mickey. And men’s staring eyes were no longer a sacrifice but a score. The dancing was once again for her. They were irrelevant. She was good. And beautiful. She danced all night. Snatched a few hours’ sleep. Read books to Peter, took him for walks, watched Sesame Street, slept when he napped. The cocaine helped her stay awake for her time with him. Then the babysitter would arrive and Vera would put Peter to bed and go to work.

One morning she fell asleep on the couch and woke up to see Peter dusting the coffee table with cocaine. “Look, Mama. I found some sugar.” He licked his finger to pick some up and taste it.

Vera bolted upright. “That’s not sugar. That’s bad.” She whipped the cocaine away. “That’s bad. Bad for you.”

“Why you have it?” Peter asked. He had one crossed eye and it drifted toward the sofa.

She shook her head, still struggling with pieces of a dream, a dream in which a cat got in a fight and her side split. In the still flickering image, Vera could see into the body cavity of the cat as it lay with its inner lids covering the eyes, gruffly moaning.

Vera clenched her eyes, pushed away the image of the red muscles and curved ribs glazed with blood. She gazed at smears of white dust, rinsed a dishrag with water, swabbed the table, and then threw the cocaine and water-soaked rag into the garbage.

That next afternoon she went to an NA meeting. And two days later, I met her at the Gandy Dancer Restaurant.

When people ask how we met, I tell them I trained her at the Gandy. Period. I know she told Charlene about the abuse from Mickey, but not that he was her pimp and not that she was stripping. Not that he was a heroin addict and that she occasionally used with him when she was out of Dilaudid. And when she’s asked where she met Finn, her current husband, she never says in NA. Instead, without a beat, without a downward glance, without a smile or a shift of weight, she says, “At some meeting. Parents without Partners, I think.”

Now he’s a contractor and she is my best salesperson. Peter repairs computers and is married with a son. All the remnants of drugs and the debasement they caused seem erased.