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thing that triggered the spurt of normalcy, she could pass it on to the doctor and maybe he could invent a solution.
    As they talked about the need to get Mama into Tanya’s shop for a hair-do, they ate a simple lunch of leftovers--reheated baked chicken and steamed broccoli. After a hamburger for supper and Cheerios for breakfast, Marisa wanted to provide her mother with something healthy.
    Marisa herself ate healthier these days. Back when she was cooking in various fast food joints, convenience had driven her to sample all that fried food, and thus, she had put on weight. In the year that had passed since she came back to take care of Mama, she had lost thirty pounds.
    She also had been walking and jogging, more to fight a deep-seated anger straining to escape
    than out of any fierce dedication to physical fitness. Sometimes she trekked as far as five miles
    thinking and talking to herself about the mysteries of life, before she realized how far she had traveled and then she still had to turn around and walk back. She had worn out three pairs of name-brand running shoes and her legs and butt muscles had become as firm as when she was a kid. Her thirty-four-year-old body looked better than when it was twenty.
    “I’m going to change clothes and we’ll take that walk,” she told Mama after they finished lunch. She had her mother swallow the handful of vitamins she fed her every day, having read somewhere that some of the vitamins showed promise in halting the progress of Alzeimer’s Disease.
    Marisa changed from her cowgirl clothes to sweats and Reeboks. She covered Mama’s head with a bonnet and her own head with a bill cap. Then they strolled up the driveway toward the XO ranch, engaged in a discussion of Lanny’s cows. Being able to discuss Agua Dulce’s uncertain future or to cry her heart out to Mama about Woody would be nice. But while Mama’s thinking appeared to be slightly better, an in-depth conversation was impossible. An empty discussion of Lanny’s cows was the best they could do.
    Less than a mile later, they returned home with Mama hot and exhausted. The spring sun and the low eighties temperature were too much. In another month, the temperature would be in the nineties and Mama’s walking days would be over until winter came again.
    Marisa poured her mother a glass of tea over ice, helped her to the chair in front of TV, then went to the bedroom to change clothes again. The jeans and cowboy boots she had been wearing earlier held no appeal. Role-playing called for an enthusiasm she couldn’t muster. She put on loose cotton slacks and a gray T-shirt with bold white script saying, I’LL TRY TO BE NICER IF YOU TRY TO BE SMARTER. The cranky statement matched her mood.
    She stamped to Pecos Belle’s, pissed off again, at life, at men. She couldn’t deny she had felt that way about men for years. Most of the time she fought it off, but since returning to Agua Dulce and being reminded of her mother’s lonely past, the anger hovered just under her skin like a mad dog waiting to lunge and she couldn’t shake it. A good part of the time she didn’t try. The emotion was a dichotomy she didn’t understand because, in truth, she preferred the company of men to that of women.
    Back in the Pecos Belle’s kitchen, as her focus zeroed in on   Woody’s mug sitting in the sink and the bread pudding she had let burn, the truth hit. In all likelihood, unless she got arrested, she would never see Keith Wood again. Tears welled up as she flushed the bread pudding down the disposal, but she was forced to suppress them because three people showed up to eat.
    She kept her composure and ended up feeding sandwiches and hamburgers to a dozen customers. They complimented her on the food and after eating, they lingered, buying souvenirs and some small antique pieces, ogling the dinosaur footprints and the gorilla statue, petting the stuffed rattlesnake and fondling every artifact and piece of junk in the flea market.