the tinyblog

Eastern Washington is nothing like the Puget Sound area. Seattle is protected from extremes by water and mountains, but in Wenatchee it was 95 Fahrenheit or so. After a sweaty drive (my poor cast!) across Stevens Pass and all the way to Chelan county, I pulled up outside of her apartment, upstairs from the office of the Thrifty Nickel, a classified-only newspaper published locally everywhere in America, I think.

She was looking much better than the last time I saw her. She was pretty emaciated last time I had seen her in a courtroom, and now she had put on a bit of weight, and had some color in her cheeks.

She was a little loopy, and this time, when she told me about what her doctor had given her, she said it was Valium. Her manner was a bit confused, and I looked sadly at her�such a broken woman. She wanted to know what was going on with every person she had known in my life. I got comfortable in her coziest chair when the phone rang. I knew immediately who it was.

I heard snippets of the conversation, "�no, Daniel is here�not like that�"

"That was him," she said, when she walked back in the living room, "he just got out of jail."

"So he�s coming over?"

"Yes. He said he�d be on his best behavior."

to be continued�