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mother's reaction to the dream, which had confused me. She'd been intrigued and quite tender, yet at the same time seemed to be holding something back, as if she was purposely trying not to make too much of it. Even after she learned of my grandfather's death, she seemed to write off my dream as coincidence. But something in her eyes said she didn't fully believe what she was telling me. And neither did I. I was certain my grandfather had come to say good-bye. The way he looked and the sound of his voice had been too alive, too real, to be mere imagination. Unable to resolve this puzzle, I'd wondered if somehow I was to blame for my grandfather's death.
    Grandpop and I had always been close. Years before, he would hoist me up on his shoulders and promise that even after he died we'd never be apart. All I'd have to do was look up at the brightest star in the sky to find him. Our love ran deep, and it was unbearable that I might have hurt my grandfather.
    My capacity to bring up these feelings was enhanced by a growing romantic relationship I was developing with Terry, an artist I eventually moved in with for two years. He lived across the street from the halfway house in an old two-story converted brick Laundromat with enormous clear glass pyramidal skylights in practically every room, including the bathroom. As the sun shone through them, the light was pristine. Terry also used the space as his studio. A few inches taller than I, twenty-five, Terry had a short, blond ponytail and piercing blue eyes. He habitually wore a pair of paint-splattered jeans that mimicked the colorful brush strokes of a Sam Francis canvas.
    Terry was one of a four-member group of male muralists, who were futurists of a sort. They painted visionary disaster scenes such as earthquakes, snowstorms, and floods. Their murals so closely resembled some of my own premonitions that it seemed they'd been painting my inner life. The group called themselves the Los Angeles Fine Arts Squad and did their artwork on huge bare walls of commercial and residential buildings all over the city. A first of their kind, they were a central part of the Venice art scene.
    Terry and I related to each other through the world of images and dreams. I used to speak a lot to him about the dreams that I'd written down for years. I dreamed voraciously, and relished waking up in the morning and retrieving my dreams. On the days when I couldn't hold on to them, I felt empty and vacant, as if I'd missed out on something important. When the images lingered, their richness filled me up like the finest food. They were sacred to me.
    Terry and I used to take long walks at night in front of the deserted amusement park—Pacific Ocean Park—where he shared his artistic visions and I shared my dreams. With our faces eerily lit up by the blue mercury lights lining the boardwalk, Terry said that sometimes he could see the images shining right through me. He believed that my ability to generate them indirectly influenced the quality of his art.
    Terry's only desire since he was a little boy was to be an artist, to create. As I watched him, so calm and directed, sketching at his rough-hewn pine drawing table late into the nights, lost in the world of art, I prayed I too might find a calling that could give me so much joy.
    When at the last minute I decided to forgo college in favor of living with a struggling, long-haired artist eight years my senior who wasn't even Jewish, my parents were exasperated. Having already paid thousands of dollars for my tuition at Pitzer College in Claremont, where I was supposed to begin the following semester, they forfeited the money and refused ever to meet Terry. Convinced that at seventeen I was throwing away my future, they couldn't support that. Not knowing what else to do, my parents decided to withdraw all financial help except the fees for my therapy sessions.
    To help earn living expenses, I got my first job as a salesgirl in the towel department at the