The Burning

time nil,' she said.

'That's not the way Frank put it.'

'Mom, can we talk about this later?'

Her mother threw the dish towel over her shoulder, turned, headed back into the kitchen. 'Whatever.'

This was starting off badly, and for a brief moment, Jolene thought about walking straight out to the car and driving as fast as she could as far away from here as possible. But the truth was that she had nowhere else to go. She couldn't afford to stay in hotels for more than a week or two, didn't have enough for the rent and security deposit that an apartment would require, and didn't have any friends or relatives in far-fllung locales who would put her up indefinitely. It was either Yuma or her mom.

'I don't think Grandma likes me anymore,' Skylar whispered, looking at the empty kitchen doorway. His hand was hot and sweaty in hers.

Damn her, Jolene thought, but she smiled for her son's sake. 'Of course she does. She's just busy, is all. Come on, let's go help her out.'

Jolene strode confidently forward into the kitchen, where her mother was washing dishes in the sink. 'Anything Skylar can help you with?' she asked.

Thankfully, her mother turned around, smiling, and motioned the boy over. 'I'll wash. You dry. How does that sound?'

Skylar gave his grandmother a brief, hesitant smile, then accepted the dish towel from her hands.

Maybe it will be all right after all, Jolene thought. Maybe this will work out.

'It was hell,' Jolene whispered fiercely. 'It wasn't good for me and it wasn't good for Skylar.' She glanced instinctively toward the closed door of the guest bedroom-her old room-hoping that the boy really was asleep and not just pretending so he could listen in on the conversation.

'Frank said-'

'Frank lied, Mom! How many times do I have to tell you? Jesus!'

'He just seems like a good man to me.'

'He is. In a way. But we're like oil and water-we don't mix. And it was only a matter of time before someone ended up in the hospital.' She glanced again toward the door, lowered her voice even more. 'And I had to make sure it wasn't Skylar!'

Her mother sighed. 'I just hope you know what you're doing.'

'Trust me, Mom.' / can't fuck things up any more than you did, she wanted to add, but she kept that thought to herself.

'So what are your plans? Are you going to look for a job around here?'

'I don't know. I just got here. Give me a day at least to settle in and figure things out.'

'You were on the road for a day and a half. That didn't give you time to think? You didn't-'

'Jesus, Mom. Can't you just try to be supportive for once in your life?'

They were silent after that, the two of them seated on opposite sides of the living room, glaring at each other, and Jolene felt like a kid again, as though she were back in high school and her mom was clamping down on her for one of those unfathomable and unexplained reasons.

Finally she stood, pretending to yawn and stretch. 'I guess I'll go to bed. It's been a long day.'

'Okay.'

'See you in the morning, Mom.'

'Good night.' 'Good night.'

'I'm glad you're back,' her mother said without feeling.

'Yeah,' Jolene lied. 'Me, too.'

Four

Upper Darby, Pennsylvania

Dennis Chen finished loading the car and looked up at the roof rack. For the umpteenth time, he checked the ropes, pulling on them to make sure he'd tied everything down tight enough. From the porch, his mother watched silently, and he sensed her disapproval even though he couldn't see her from this angle. Inside the front seat of the Tempo, his sister, Cathy, was rearranging his glove compartment in order to fit in the traveler's first aid kit she'd given him.

Dennis was twenty-three years old, and he'd never been out of the greater Philadelphia area. He knew a lot of people like that, knew men and women even older than himself who'd never ventured more than fifty miles from their birthplace, who lived their entire lives within a proscribed radius, and he could think of nothing more depressing. That was not going to happen to him, and it was why he had decided to make this break and to do it while he was still relatively young and unencumbered.

He wanted to travel. Even as a boy, he'd felt the pull of the open road, and though his career aspirations had varied over the years, from train engineer in grammar school to truck driver in junior high to UN ambassador in high school, they all had one element in common: travel.

This was merely the realization of a long-delayed dream.

His mom had cried when he'd told her of his plans, and even though he'd pointed out that she and his dad had traveled halfway around the world to get here, uprooting themselves from their families, their friends, their culture and even their language, she did not seem to understand the parallels. In her mind, what he was planning was a lot more foolish and dangerous.

She'd been working on him for the past month, trying to get him to cancel his trip. 'Your job!' she kept telling him in Cantonese. 'You can't quit your job!'

But the truth was that people quit jobs all the time, especially in his business. He'd been working for a rental-car agency for the past three years, ever since dropping out of college to his mother's great shame and embarrassment, and he'd worked his way up to manager, not through any great skill or aptitude or commitment or desire, but because he was still there. Amid a turnover rate that averaged about one employee every four months, his staying power had marked him as stable and reliable, and the owner of the franchise had promoted him up the short ladder to manager.

Managing a rental-car office had never been his career goal, however. It had been only a way to earn money while he figured out what he wanted to do with his life. And since he lived at home and had minimal expenses, he'd been able to save quite a lot over the past few years-enough to get him across country at least. If things didn't work out, he could always come back, but for now he was free, and the feeling was liberating.

He just wished his dad could be here to see this.

And to help him with the packing.

He checked the ropes again.

'Don't forget to keep your cell phone charged,' Cathy said from inside the car. 'And keep it on You always forget to turn it on.'

'I will,' he promised.

She emerged from the door on the passenger side, having found room for the first aid kit. 'Who knows what kind of wackos are out there? We need to be able to get in touch with you, and you need to be able to call the police.'

'Don't go!' their mother cried in Cantonese. 'Stay here!'

'Mom'll be okay,' Cathy promised.

'Thank you,' Dennis said sincerely. He and his sister never really spoke seriously, never had the sort of heart- to-hearts that siblings were probably supposed to have, but he thought now that maybe they didn't need to. They understood these things automatically, without saying what the other was thinking, instinctively grasped the real intent behind superficial discussions.

He was going to miss Cathy more than he'd thought.

'If you strike it rich at the Gold Mountain, we're coming to live with you,' she said.

Chinese humor.

He pulled on the roof-rack ropes, just for something to do. He was finished packing, there was no real reason for him to remain, and it was already after two. It was time for him to go, but there seemed something