“It was twilight,” Chyna told Laura, putting into words the images behind her closed 
eyes, “so the headlights were on, still on even after the Mercedes sank, and there were 
lights inside the car. They had airconditioning, so all the windows were closed, and 
neither the windshield nor the driver-side window had shattered when the car rolled. We 
could see inside, 'cause the windows were only a few inches under water. There was no 
sign of the husband. Maybe he was knocked unconscious when they rolled. But the old woman 
... her face was at the window. The car was flooded, but there was a big bubble of air 
against the inside of the glass, and she pressed her face into it so she could breathe. 
We stood there looking down at her. Woltz could have helped. My mother could have helped. 
But they just watched. The old woman couldn't seem to get the window open, and the door 
must have been jammed, or maybe she was just too scared and too weak.”
  Chyna had tried to pull away, but her mother had held her, speaking urgently to her, 
the whispered words borne on a tide of breath sour with vodka and grapefruit juice. We're 
different than other people, baby. No rules apply to us. You'll never understand what 
freedom really means ifyou don't watch this. Chyna had closed her eyes, but she had still 
been able to hear the old woman screaming into the big air bubble inside the submerged 
car. Muffled screaming.
  “Then gradually the screaming faded ... finally stopped,” Chyna told Laura. “When I 
opened my eyes, twilight had gone and night had come. There was still light in the 
Mercedes, and the woman's face was still pressed to the glass, but a breeze had risen, 
rippling the water in the canal, and her features were a blur. I knew she was dead. She 
and her husband. I started to cry. Woltz didn't like that. He threatened to drag me into 
the canal, open a door on the Mercedes, and shove me inside with the dead people. My 
mother made me drink some grapefruit juice with vodka. I was only seven. The rest of the 
way back to Key West, I lay on the backseat, dizzy from the vodka, half drunk and a 
little sick, still crying but quietly, so I wouldn't make Woltz angry, crying quietly 
until I fell asleep.”
  In Laura's Mustang, the only sounds were the soft rumble of the engine and the singing 
of the tires on the blacktop.
  Chyna finally opened her eyes and came back from the memory of Florida, from the 
long-ago humid twilight to the Napa Valley, where most of the red light had gone out of 
the sky and darkness encroached on all sides.
  The old man in the Buick was no longer in front of them. They were not driving as fast 
as before, and evidently he had gotten far ahead of them.
  Laura said softly, “Dear God.”
  Chyna was shaking uncontrollably. She plucked a few Kleeney from the console box 
between the seats, blew her nose, and blotted her eyes. Over the past two years, she had 
shared part of her childhood with Laura, but every new revelation-and there was much 
still to reveal-was as difficult as the one before it. When she spoke of the past, she 
always burned with shame, as though she had been as guilty as her mother, as if every 
criminal act and spell of madness could be blamed on her, though she had been only a 
helpless child trapped in the insanity of others.
  “Will you ever see her again?” Laura asked.
  Recollection had left Chyna half numb with horror. “I don't know.”
  “Would you want to?"
  Chyna hesitated. Her hands were curled into fists, the damp Kleenex wadded in the right 
one. “Maybe.”
  “For God's sake why?”
  “To ask her why. To try to understand. To settle some things. But ... maybe not.”
  “Do you even know where she is?”
  “No. But it wouldn't surprise me if she was in jail. Or dead. You can't live like that 
and hope to grow old."
  They drove down out of the foothills into the valley. 
  Eventually Chyna said, “I can still see her standing in the steamy darkness on the 
banks of that canal, greasy with sweat, her hair hanging damp and all tangled, covered 
with mosquito bites, eyes bleary from vodka. Laura, even then she was still the most 
beautiful woman you've ever seen. She was always so beautiful, so perfect on the outside, 
like someone out of a dream, like an angel ... but she was never half as beautiful as 
when she was excited, when there'd been violence. I can see her standing there, only 
visible because of the greenish glow from the headlights of the Mercedes rising through 
the murky canal water, so ravishing in that green light, glorious, the most beautiful 
person you've ever seen, like a goddess from another world.”
  Gradually Chyna's trembling subsided. The heat of shame faded from her face, but slowly.
  She was immeasurably grateful for Laura's concern and support. A friend. Until Laura, 
Chyna had lived secretly with her past, unable to speak of it to anyone. Now, having, 
unburdened herself of another hateful corrupting memory, she couldn't begin to put her 
gratitude into words. 
  “It's okay,” Laura said, as if reading Chyna's mind.
  They rode in silence. They were late for dinner.
  
  To Chyna, the Templeton house looked inviting at first glimpse: Victorian, gabled, 
roomy, with deep porches front and rear. It stood a half mile off the county road, at the 
end of a gravel driveway, surrounded by one hundred twenty acres of vineyards.
  For three generations, the Templetons had grown grapes, but they had never made wine. 
They were under contract to one of the finest vintners in the valley, and because they 
owned fertile land with the highest-quality vines, they received an excellent price for 
their crop.
  Sarah Templeton appeared on the front porch when she heard the Mustang in the driveway, 
and she came quickly down the steps to the stone walkway to greet Laura and Chyna. She 
was a lovely, girlishly slim woman in her early or mid forties, with stylishly short 
blond hair, wearing tan jeans and a long-sleeved emerald-green blouse with green 
embroidery on the collar, simultaneously chic aq motherly. When Sarah hugged Laura and 
kissed her and held her with such evident and fierce love, Chyna was struck by a pang of 
envy and by a shiver of misery at never having known a mother's love.
  She was surprised again when Sarah turned to her, embraced her, kissed her on the 
cheek, and, still holding her close, said, “Laura tells me you're the sister she never 
had, so I want you to feel at home here, sweetheart. When you're here with us, this is 
your place as much as ours."
  Chyna stood stiffly at first, so unfamiliar with the rituals of family affection that 
she didn't know quite how to respond. Then she returned the embrace awkwardly and 
murmured an inadequate thankyou. Her throat was suddenly so tight that she was amazed to 
be able to speak at all.
  Putting her arms around both Laura and Chyna, guiding them to the broad flight of porch 
steps, Sarah said, “We'll get your luggage later. Dinner's ready now. Come along. Laura's 
told me so much about you, Chyna.”
  “Well, Mom,” said Laura, “I didn't tell you about Chyna being into voodoo. I sort of 
hid that part. She'll need to sacrifice a live chicken every night at midnight while 
she's staying with us.”
  “We only grow grapes. We don't have any chickens, dear,” Sarah said. “But after dinner 
we can drive to one of the farms in the area and buy a few.”