Martha tried eating a little of it, but it was too hard to chew. How can the chickens chew it when they got no teeth? How come they like that better than the bread? Mr. McRae knows.

Martha’s hands told her when the dough was ready. She greased up a big mixing bowl and plopped the dough in it, turning it once to oil the top. Then she put a clean kitchen towel over it and sat down to watch it rise.

Now she could think about the sparkling wall. All those pretty glasses lined up in front of the mirror. All those bottles with different-colored waters in them. The cool empty room. No, not empty. There were those men. And that funny feeling when her feet wouldn’t go straight.

She thought about that drink in the bar only when she had time to sit down and concentrate. She knew there was more to it than she remembered. She knew there was more to it than she would ever even know. She didn’t understand a lot of things. Most of all, she didn’t understand the moments of clarity she had, when the whole world looked sharp, in focus, and her mind understood.

It was as if she lived her whole life under water—no, under oil. Greasy oil that coated her whole perception of things, but once in a while, her subconscious would break through the surface, take a roaring gasp of fresh air, and look around while the filmy sheets of grease ran down her eyes. And at those moments, understanding would rock her soul with great heaving sobs of newness. Then she would slide under again, swimming in murky clouds of distortion.

Somewhere, though, those pieces of understanding were stored. She thought of them as little golden eggs—no, little fragile bubbles—with knowing stored inside, and they were stacked up in little triangular piles in some unused storeroom of her mind.

Martha gave the table a slap that stunned her hand. Now where did I get such a thought as that? What kind of an idea is that, anyway, bubbles in my head? Bubbles in my head all right. Bubbles in that drink they gave me.

She wanted to go back to that place with the shiny wall. She wanted to see the man with the apron, the one with the toothpick in his mouth, and the one without a tooth in front. She wanted to feel a part of something, a part of a friendly something.

Oh, I wish could understand.

Then a new thought came to her and her brow furrowed, her curly gray hair slid forward toward her eyebrows, her lips circled up, and her twisted lump of a nose wrinkled.

If understanding is in the bubbles, maybe I can pop one and catch it.