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with her dead eyes, then let me lead her into the diner, where the thick scent of greasy bacon slammed into us like a heart attack. Speakers from the far end of theroom blared country music. A song I couldn’t name morphed into one I did: “Jesus, Take the Wheel,” by Carrie Underwood.
    No offense, Jesus, but I think I’d like to keep the wheel, thank you very much .
    I left my sister in a booth, then stepped back outside to find the stairs newly blocked by a sixtysomething with a full head of white fuzzy hair and a doughy face. Beside him sat a leashless dog.
    “Got the time?” he asked, as if telling him that would be the secret password to unlock his butt from the stair and let me by. His camouflage pants were cut at his calves, and his rust-colored T-shirt was ripped at the neck. He wore big boots that lacked laces, held together instead with wound pieces of rope. There was a discomfiting intensity to his expression.
    “It’s ten after twelve,” I told him, taking a second look at the dog—a mutt that might’ve had sheepdog somewhere in its lineage but whose appearance was made ridiculous by a large dose of mini-mutt genes. It barked at me, and a goop of drool landed near my sneaker.
    “Thanks,” he said, and moved just enough so that I could brush by him.
    Maybe it was because I never credited those sorts of feelings, thought them too much in the realm of superstition that was my grandmother’s, that I ignored a hint of unease as I walked away from him and his dog, and the diner that held my sister.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Hope and Mirrors
       OLIVIA   
    I was twelve when Mama and I had the only significant conversation we ever had about Jazz. We were together in the kitchen with the door closed and the oven on, because it was a frigid January day. Later we’d make pizza, so I was busy on the sauce, swirling a wooden spoon through a pot of crushed tomatoes laced with garlic and oregano. Making sauce was one of my favorite chores, even back then, because I loved both the smell and the look of it. Shimmering, iridescent circles formed in time with burbling stovetop noises, each new circle appearing outside the older ones, which grew smaller and smaller. They were ten times more transfixing than what I might see in a regular pot of boiling water, which is why I never volunteered to make pasta. Jazz was in charge of that and other cooking chores.
    I hate winter , Mama said, gazing out the kitchen’s single squat window. Sometimes it feels like we’ll never see the sun again .
    When I told her that her voice sounded like a tunnel that went on for years, Mama let go of the curtain clutched in her hand and let it fall free. We’d made that curtain ourselves, out of an old sheet, and dyed it using a package of coloring called Sunbright, which we hoped would inspire her writing.
    I’m sorry, Olivia , she said. I’m just worried about your sister .
    A glance at the clock told me that Jazz was an hour late, and for the third time that week. I knew Mama thought that something was going on with her, especially since Jazz wouldn’t tell anyone where she’d been or what she’d been doing. It wasn’t like my sister to be secretive. Usually she was honest, and sometimes too honest. Just that morning, she’d said I was more annoying than slush in a boot.
    She told me she doesn’t want to go to college , Mama said, lifting a blanket from the chair where she worked. She wrapped it around her shoulders before stepping beside me and easing the oven door open a hair more. Careful you don’t get burned, sweetie .
    I abandoned the spoon in the pot and turned toward my mother as heat rose around us in waves, asked her why Jazz didn’t want to go to college.
    She said, Probably because she knows I want her to go .
    I didn’t know what to say to that. Even at that age, I knew college didn’t sound like a good choice for me. Besides, Mama needed me at home for dreaming. She’d always tell me how much it meant to her that