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you’re telling me not to worry.”
    “No, no, no. Be very worried. Just don’t think you’re alone.”
    “But what if she’s having sex?” I ask plaintively.
    That gets a laugh out of Fern. Laughter so hearty it seems
    to warm the receiver on my phone. “If, Jane? Did you say if?
    Of course she’s having sex! Why else would she stay out all
    night with Smike?”
    “Seth. His name is Seth.”
    “He told Kelly his name is Seth and she told you. He
    could be Smike for all you know. Or Squeers. Or Snagsby.
    Probably something with an S. Like Sex.”
    Fern is riffing now, trying to make me laugh. I know what
    she’s doing, but I can’t help responding, and my heart un-
    clenches. A big, tension-relieving sigh and anxiety begins to
    recede like the tide.
    It’s so much easier on the phone. If Fern was here I’d be
    worried she’d see the tears in my eyes and go all soft, and
    then we’d both be blubbering.
    “I hate it that they grow up,” I tell her, taking a deep breath.
    “No you don’t,” she responds. “Not so many years ago you
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    Chris Jordan
    were praying she’d get the chance to grow up. Your prayers
    were answered.”
    “True.”
    “The miracle kid. She’s a character. They broke the mold.
    What a personality she has! If the average person has a hun-
    dred watts, Kelly has five hundred, all of it beaming. One day
    she’ll make you proud, but right now all she wants to do is
    blow your mind. And maybe Smike’s little thingy.”
    “Fern! Please!”
    “His little mind, too.”
    Nobody enjoys her jokes better than Fern herself and that
    gets her laughing until she can barely breathe. After a while,
    after we’ve both enjoyed a few moments of silent commu-
    nion, she goes, “So, you got a battle plan?”
    “Grounding doesn’t seem to mean much.”
    “Means nothing. Not unless you can lock ’em up and
    throw away the key. What you gotta do, you gotta scare
    some sense into her.”
    “And how do I do that?”
    “With Jess I used to grab my chest, make my face go all
    white. Make her think my heart was about to stop.”
    “You can do that, make your face go white?”
    “Years of practice scaring my own mother.”
    “I can’t fake a heart attack, Fern.”
    “A seizure then. That’s easier. All you gotta do is drool.”
    I’m crying now, but tears of laughter.
    “It’ll be okay,” Fern says, shifting to serious. “You’ll see.
    Kelly’s a good soul. She’ll know what to do, even if you don’t.”
    “You really think so?”
    “I really do. But just in case, can you fake a nosebleed?”
    I’m still smiling ten minutes later when I enter Kelly’s
    room. My intention is to rummage around, see if she left a
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    contact number for Seth. No doubt it’s right there on her com-
    puter somewhere, but her computer is forbidden to me. The
    personal computer, Kelly has explained, is like a diary. There-
    fore no peeking, on pain of death. To which I agreed. Not the
    death part, of course, but the general idea. So in my mind her
    computer is off-limits until one second past noon. Until then
    I’ll stick to her address book, the handy little purse-size one
    I gave, assuming she hasn’t taken it with her.
    Can’t find the address book. What I do find, nestled way
    back in the drawer, very nearly gives me that seizure Fern was
    suggesting. A photo album I’ve never seen before. Quite
    new, very slick.
    Pictures of my daughter doing something really awful.
    Something worse than sex. Far, far worse.
    7. When Sleepy Voices Make It Snow
    Once when Roy Whittle was a boy—just the one time—
    Pap took the whole family to a carnival in Belle Glade. Some
    kind of harvest jubilee thing, where they blessed the dirt and
    prayed for the sugarcane, or anyhow that’s how Pappy ex-
    plained it, in the brief interval when he was sober and smiling.
    The thing about it was, the memory Roy savors, he and
    Dug got to pretty much run wild because Pappy was off
    doing whatever he did, and