Later that morning, when I was brushing E’s teeth, one of her molars popped off as if it had been adhered with rubber cement. I reached into her wet mouth and took out the tooth. It had no roots. When E spat out her toothpaste, there was blood mixed with her saliva. I remembered that Totals had only one set of teeth. This was the beginning of the end. I looked at my sister, who was playing with the hotel soap, letting it slip around between her bony fingers.

Holly and the band were all still sleeping. I walked E along the highway to the Dollar Store in the strip mall. I had not yet taken her out in public, but this area seemed so isolated from the rest of the world, so beyond the realm of The News, I couldn’t imagine it would be a problem. Or maybe by then I had started to wish I would be caught. Anyway, we walked about five minutes in the blazing heat to the Dollar Store. I shielded E from the heat with a black umbrella I had packed just in case. It was my mother’s. A minivan passed and a whole family of people turned their heads to stare at us.

Inside, the Dollar Store was too cool, almost frigid. I immediately became frightened that E would catch cold. I pulled a terry-cloth robe from a rack and pulled it over her. A scrawny woman who was pricing mugs saw this.

“I just don’t want her to get cold,” I said. She stared at E. Maybe she didn’t know about Totals. She certainly had never been the owner of a Total Phone.

“Sure, honey,” the woman said. “God bless.”

The pool was tepid. E stood with her stick arms pushed out by the rubber rings around her biceps. The bathing suit I had bought at the Dollar Store was sky blue, with a little frill and a picture of a big-eyed mermaid drawn in sequins on the tummy. E was covered in a whitish layer of sunscreen and wore a terry-cloth hat. I had bought an extra-large hat, and even that barely fit over the corners of her skull. Still, I thought she looked cute like that. I led her to the edge of the pool and walked into the water while still holding her hand.

“It’s kind of like a bath,” I said. E stared at the glimmering water, transfixed. I took her under the arms and held her over the water. She pulled her feet up, not wanting to get wet. Still, I dipped her toes into the pool, then raised her up high. A sound came out of her that sounded like a chirp. I did it again, skimming her feet along the surface of the water, then lifting her up. She chirped again. By now I had become wary of E’s emotional signals. I was ready for her to start screaming. But each time I dipped her into the pool, the little chirp flew out of her. Gradually I realized that she was laughing. I dipped her a little farther in each time, until she was really getting wet, and the chirps became shrieks of delight. After a long while of plunging her in and raising her up again, my arms got tired, so I just cradled her like a bride and whooshed her around in the water. She let her body relax and set her head in the crook of my arm. She looked up at the sky. Her blue eyes were tranquil. She looked happy.