A knock at the front door startles Rose out of sleep. She lifts her head from the kitchen floor. Drool has stuck her cheek to the tile, and it comes free with a faint kissing sound. The cell phone has slipped from her hand. Touching the button, she checks the time. She’s been asleep for a couple of hours. Listening to the castanet pops of knees and ankles, she climbs stiffly to her feet. Rest has been good for her. Marion has been good for her.

She has her hand on the doorknob before it occurs to her that it might not be Melanie. Rose wants to return to Longwood on her own terms, in snappy clothes, her hair expensively cut and her eyes clear. Being snatched and dragged back by the Tweedles—or the Charlotte police—kicking and screaming, with drool on her face and her hair standing on end, is not part of her plan.

She is contemplating hiding behind the boxes in the living room, when a small voice says, “Gigi?”

Mel is carrying three grocery bags. Rose looks both ways to see if the neighbors have noticed. No one is on the street or the sidewalks. If this were New Orleans, Rose would think she’d missed an evacuation order.

“I don’t have a key,” Mel says. “I couldn’t find Dad’s. How did you get in?”

“Where are Honey Cat and Laura Lei?” Rose demands.

“Grandma Nancy took them,” Mel says, walking past Rose toward the kitchen.

“To the pound?” Rose is too loud, too strident.

“No. Grandma likes cats. She adopted them. They seemed really happy last time I was over there.” Mel says this like it is the most normal thing in the world.

This hurts. It is, of course, better than them being put to death in a concrete room. Still, it hurts. Nancy should get her own damn cats. Rose is grateful and relieved. Relieved is good. Grateful is not as much fun as usual. “That’s nice,” Rose makes herself say, but she’s thinking of the email, and wondering if Nancy somehow put this whole thing in motion so she could steal Rose’s cats. Rose doesn’t believe this—she isn’t crazy—but she thinks it.

“Wow!” Mel says as Rose empties the sacks into the cupboards and the refrigerator. “You look way better than you did this morning. Way better.”

“Don’t flatter me,” Rose says. “I don’t want to get attached to my physical beauty. It’s impermanent.”

“Gigi, you are attached to your physical beauty. Don’t you remember? You got a face-lift when you turned sixty.”

Rose nods. “Like I said, it’s impermanent.”

“Do we just plug this back in?” Mel asks. Rose feels behind the refrigerator and plugs it in; then the two of them shove it back into its niche.