A minivan spun them to where the landscape blanched. Wasn’t the Dead Sea also a saline promised land? It was inevitable, then, that a tribe of faithful would settle there, by God’s blankness. The trunk was unloaded, gingham spread against the white, along with tinfoiled wedges of tuna and wheat, grapes, seltzer, plastic utensils. There was a scooping of chips into an avocado, then it was a ripe reminder on the paper plate.

Benjamin, the boy, bounced a tennis ball off a racket while his greyhound watched in anticipation, curved like the handle of a water pump. He got around to throwing the ball for the dog, which left divots as it ran with a puff puff puff of crust. Lily paid attention to Benjamin by way of the dog.

“What a wholesome family you are,” Hannah mused. “We try to raise our kids with proper values, to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ to listen to their elders, to treat the body as a temple,” the father replied. “I thought people preached that the body is a temple to prevent girls from living in theirs,” Hannah countered. “Female or not,” he said, “if they don’t respect themselves, then who will?” The sisters screamed, “Benji! Lunch! Lunch! Benji!” until he jogged in their direction. Dutifully, Lily accompanied him, a shadow of his shadow, but as she closed in, the wind kited her careful wrap into the air. She didn’t move, as though if she didn’t, no one would notice.

There was a struggle against tears, then the tears. The wrap had landed on the crepitant grate of the van, so Benjamin went to the rescue, mumbling to her, “Here you go,” as he offered it up, crudely folded. “That fabric is so pretty,” the older girl said. “Where did you buy it?” the younger asked. They sat her down, untangled the fringe, and rearranged the wrap around her neck. The boy scarfed his food and was off, but Lily let him go solo. He adventured a long distance, the pale dog in alto-relievo over the pale dust. On the ride back, the sisters quarreled and the mother warned that she would confiscate their cell phones; meanwhile, Benjamin irritated almost everyone by thrusting his knees into the seats. During departure, the girls hugged tentatively as girls do, avoiding a pressing of breasts yet with genuine affection. Lily blatantly ignored the boy as he said goodbye.

The family was like a saintly family with their haloes turned up too bright as they waved in the headlights. Passing through Vegas, Lily relinquished the silence she had been fattening to say, “This is the brightest city astronauts can locate in orbit.” There was the replica of the Eiffel Tower, the pyramid of the Luxor with its fake Sphinx, the Doric-columned Caesar’s Palace. Miles out, where lodging was cheap, they checked into Motel Apocalypse, a science-fiction vision of the future from the past, each room a unique calamity.

The apocalypse they picked was a virus-ravaged colony on the moon, a lunar Roanoke, though the Rapture was debated. “This is stupid,” Lily complained, throwing herself on the bed in the way of girls who yet throw their limbs too hard at objects, before they’re indoctrinated in modesty, into taking up as little space as they can. As Hannah knelt to offer comfort, brushing cheek against cheek, she felt shaky, sacrilegious. It was the first time they had touched since setting out, and while she knew they had time, nothing but time, it also felt like she would never be good enough for her daughter. She’d had the same feeling when holding her in the hospital for the first time. “No one will ever love me,” Lily moaned into her pillow. Kissing her on the slope of her nape, Hannah said, “Not true.” If Lily wasn’t good enough for Helen, and Hannah wasn’t good enough for Lily, but Helen wasn’t good enough for Hannah’s family, was there anyone who was suited for each other? Later that night, police escorted her from Motel Apocalypse; strobes revolved in the lobby like a junior high dance.