Tribute

who’d grown up on that show and who had to feel as if she’d been ripped away from her family. Orphaned. Who might feel it was her fault.”
    “I did. I really did. I know better, but—”
    “Anybody who offers much less pushes tranquilizers on a fourteen-year-old girl to get her to perform ought to be shot. There’s no gray area there, not to me. You’re not going to be able to claim those events as your failure. Sorry, they’re off the list. Actually, it’s a clean sweep,” he continued as she stared at him. “College didn’t work, writing, photography, whatever. It’s not failing, Cilla, it’s trying. It’s exploring. You had a marriage that didn’t work, and you’ve managed to remain friends—real friends—with the ex? That’s a failure? See, that comes up strong in the plus column for me. And how about the houses back in California that you fixed up and sold? If you’ve hit a snag across the road, you’ll just have to unsnag it.”
    “I haven’t.” She pushed at her hair, managed to take a clear, easy breath. “Things are actually going really well. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I can’t believe I dumped all this on you. I had a meltdown earlier, and I thought I’d finished it off. For some reason the sketches opened the floodgates again.”
    She bent down, stroked Spock as he continued to look at her with great concern. She picked up the tattered little bear. “This is disgusting.”
    “Yeah. He’s had it awhile. He only gives it to people he loves.”
    “Well.” She leaned forward, kissed Spock on the nose. “Thanks, baby. Here, you better have it back.”
    His tail wagged as if to say, Crisis over, and he took the bear back to his bed.
    “What brought on the meltdown in the first place?”
    “Oh boy.”
    She walked away from Ford, from the sketches, to the window. The sun had dipped down behind the mountains so its light haloed their dignified peaks. The sight of them—distant, a bit aloof—was comforting.
    “My half sister stopped by today. Angie, who I often think of internally as my father’s daughter. I don’t often think of myself that way, or didn’t. It was easier not to. She’s so there . Happy, smart, pretty. A nice girl, but not so nice you can’t stand being around her. I haven’t made any particular effort there, or with my stepmother. Cards and an appropriate gift at Christmas and on birthdays. I didn’t recognize her for a minute, she’s cut her hair, but that wasn’t why. Not really. I just blanked at first. I felt stiff and awkward, and she didn’t. So I have to feel guilty about that, which makes me feel more stiff, more awkward, and she’s just bubbling over, happy to see me. No pretense, no agenda.”
    She sighed now, irritated with herself. Big whiny baby, she thought. Just can’t stand that everything’s going well. “I’d been congratulating myself on having the gates taken down—the symbol of it—and planting trees. Opening things up, putting in roots, looking to the future, and she made me realize I keep skimming over people and relationships, like a stone skipped over a river. Don’t want to sink in.”
    “Maybe you’re more treading water awhile now.”
    She glanced back. He looked so damn good, she thought, in the ancient sweatshirt, torn jeans, ragged hair. “Maybe I am. Anyway, while we’re standing there talking, and I’m trying to figure it out, Mr. Hennessy pulls up across the road. I’ve seen his van out there before, just sitting there. Angie recognized it.”
    She turned around. “Did you know he’s slapped out at my father and his family?”
    “No. Maybe. He’s a hard man, Cilla.”
    “So I found out when I went over to talk to him. He pretty much blames me and all my kin, as he put it, for what happened to his son. The house is cursed, I’m a whore like my grandmother, and so on. He actually spat at me.”
    "Bastard.”
    “I’ll say. Then he pulls out so fast, I lost my balance, and Angie’s all mother hen.”
    “You should call the cops. They’ll talk to him.”
    “And tell him not to spit on my shoes? Better if I just make sure he doesn’t have the chance to do it again. I’m done feeling sorry for what happened to him before I was born. I thought I was just pissed off, went back to work and sweated it out. But later, I guess it just all hit, resulting in the massive pity event I’ve just shared with you.”
    “I’d call it a more medium-sized event, and that it illustrates you’re way too hard