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she nurturing the seeds of paranoia planted by my talk of murder? Should I tell the police?

I refused to allow my concern for Gabby’s safety to overpower me. When I got home, I resorted to a childhood ritual that works when I’m tense or overwrought: I ran a hot bath and filled it with herbal salts. I put a Chris Rea CD on full volume, and, as I soaked, he sang to me of the road to hell. The neighbors would have to survive. After my bath, I tried Katy’s number, but, once again, got her machine. Then I shared milk and cookies with Birdie, who preferred the milk, left the dishes on the counter, and crawled into bed.

My anxiety was not completely dissipated. Sleep didn’t come easily, and I lay in bed for some time, watching the shadows on the ceiling, and fighting the impulse to call Pete. I hated myself for needing him at such times, for craving his strength whenever I felt upset. It was one ritual I’d vowed to break.

Eventually sleep took me down like a whirlpool, swirling all thoughts of Pete, and Katy, and Gabby, and the murders from my consciousness. It was a good thing. It’s what got me through the following day.

8

ISLEPT SOUNDLY UNTIL NINE-FIFTEEN THE NEXT MORNING. I’M NOT usually a napper, but it was Friday, June 24, St. Jean Baptiste Day, La Fête Nationale du Québec, and I was encouraging the holiday languor allowed on such days. Since the feast of St. John the Baptist is the principal holiday for the province, almost everything is closed. There would be no Gazette at my door that morning, so I made coffee, then walked to the corner in search of an alternative paper.

The day was bright and vivid, the world displayed on active matrix. Objects and their shadows stood out in sharp detail, the colors of brick and wood, metal and paint, grass and flowers screaming out their separate places on the spectrum. The sky was dazzling and absolutely intolerant of clouds, reminding me of the robin’s egg blue on the holy cards of my childhood, the same outrageous blue. I was certain St. Jean would have approved.

The morning air felt warm and soft, perfect with the smell of window box petunias. The temperature had climbed gradually but persistently over the past week, with each day’s high surpassing its predecessor. Today’s forecast: thirty-two degrees Celsius. I did a quick conversion: about eighty-nine degrees Fahrenheit. Since Montreal is built on an island, the surrounding moat of the St. Lawrence ensures constant humidity. Yahoo! It would be a Carolina day: hot and humid. Bred in the South, I love it.

I purchased Le Journal de Montréal. The “number one daily French paper in America” was not as fastidious about taking the day off as the English language Gazette. As I walked the half block back to my condo, I glanced at the front page. The headline was written in three-inch letters the color of the sky: BONNE FÊTE QUÉBEC!

I thought about the parade and the concerts to follow at Parc Maisonneuve, about the sweat and the beer that would flow, and about the political rift that divided the people of Quebec. With a fall election due, passions were high, and those pushing for separation were hoping fervently that this would be the year. T-shirts and placards already clamored: L’an prochain mon pays! Next year my own country! I hoped the day would not be marred by violence.

Arriving home, I poured myself a coffee, mixed a bowl of Müeslix, and spread the paper on the dining room table. I am a news junkie. While I can go several days without a newspaper, contenting myself with a regular series of eleven o’clock TV fixes, before long I have to have the written word. When traveling, I locate CNN first, then unpack. I make it through the hectic days of the work week, distracted by the demands of teaching or casework, soothed by the familiar voices of “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” knowing that on the weekend I will catch up.

I cannot drink, loathe cigarette smoke, and was logging a lean year for sex, so Saturday mornings I reveled in journalistic orgies, allowing myself hours to devour the tiniest minutiae. It isn’t that there’s anything new in the news. There isn’t. I know that. It’s like balls in a Bingo hopper. The same events keep coming up over and over. Earthquake. Coup d’état. Trade war. Hostage taking. My