It makes its own kind of sense. Not the kind I can explain to anyone else. Maybe not even the kind I can believe in. But as I pick my way toward the café, this nagging instinct is burrowing in my belly and laying its young. There is a connection between my cards, my dreams, and the man in the church. I am reminded of my mother and her insinuation that Butcher was watching her. Of the ease with which these small nuances of life can be ascribed meaning and strung together like pearls, blown to monumental proportions in the lens of one’s own mind and contorted into monstrous, looming shapes, like shadows that stretch out and overwhelm their source. I am reminded that—like it or not—I am my mother’s daughter.

I turn from this uncomfortable truth to the promise of Daniel’s dimples and strong shoulders. Moony would not be pleased, I think, as I cross Chartres Street. She would not have approved of Daniel’s darker skin and curly hair. She never spoke her racist thoughts out loud, but there are things you can see moving inside a person, like snakes under their skin. I do not share her sentiments, but I am haunted by the memory of this flaw in her character. After learning there was no college money, it makes me wonder what else I missed or ignored or excused. Why do we only want to remember good things about the dead?

As I pass the large picture window of a gallery, I can’t miss catching a glance of myself in its reflection. I am all wrong for this city. My hair is flat, my jeans are torn, and I am too pale. Not in the pretty porcelain way either, but in an I-hate-the-outdoors way. I don’t picture myself in my own mind the way normal people do. I see myself outlined in charcoal pencil and washed over with watercolors. I see myself in two dimensions, a soft and hazy replica of the real thing. It fits better with my superstraight hair and equally straight body. It fits better with the flatness of my life. But it doesn’t work here. New Orleans is multidimensional. Nothing is as easy as it appears on the surface.

In the plate glass, I am taller than I remember and thin. My hair is parted down the middle, blunt cut just past the shoulders. It looks dark in the glass like a mahogany halo. My blue-and-white striped shirt is too plain, and my sneakers are too dirty. I don’t know how to dress for the Quarter, so I just dress the way I always do.