came in and shut the door behind him. In the small bathroom there was really only space for one person, unless it was my mother and me, who got ready side by side in our synchronized routine. The bathroom never felt small with us in it, but with Lyle here it was crowded and my knees nearly pressed against his stomach. I curled them up to my chest. This close, he seemed taller. Thin, but arms long with rivets of muscle, his shoulders stooped a little, the last evidence of his boyness. His sandy hair swooped over his forehead. He brushed it out of his face and then I saw myself. Yes, there were my same eyes. My high freckled cheeks and pointed canine teeth.
I turned the sink faucet on and let brown-tinged water cover my dirty toes.
“Takes a gallon of water to grow one almond,” Lyle said, turning off the tap.
“Pearl says you’re gonna teach me the Bible. You don’t think I know the Bible by now? Been at church long as you.”
“We’re concerned over the quality of your belief,” Lyle said. “GOTS ain’t just any church, you know. You can find a church anywhere. Vern’s church is different.”
I wondered if Vern had put him up to this, if he still cared for me and hadn’t forgotten my use.
Lyle turned the tap back on and looked at me. It seemed like a permission to waste water, to be bad. His hand grazed my leg. Drips of sweat clung to his earlobes. He cupped my shoulder and I could feel a low tremor run through him to me. “Lacey,” he said. “This is what family’s for.”
WHEN ALL WAS loaded into Perd’s truck we drove together to the Peach Pit Mini Storage and Cherry went in to do the paperwork. She charged back to the car after a few minutes.
“I’m not shelling out forty-five a month to store a bunch of crap,” Cherry said. “She’s your sister, Pearl. Maybe you could contribute something here.”
“Mama, this isn’t my fault,” Pearl said in a high baby whine.
Cherry turned to Perd and said, “To Tent City, then.”
TENT CITY WASN’T really a dump, but a name for the town homeless encampment, though it was well known that you could take your garbage there, your broken dishwasher, your kicked-in armoire, and someone would find use for it. The homeless of Tent City were in Peaches proper, but they were not of Peaches. They were a Fresno problem that had leaked over. Everyone called it Tent City on account of the makeshift tents everywhere, and the town knew to wear thick-soled shoes because of the needles. I asked my mother what the needles were doing there, why there were so many, and she said the needles were to inject the devil right into you, and that was just what some folks wanted. We were always trying to convert the people out here because they were desperate for any kind of saving, but now it was deserted aside from a few sleeping lumps, shaded by cardboard boxes. It seemed most had left for greener pastures.
It was a familiar place to me, but somehow I had never noticed that from Tent City you could see the red Diviner house in the far-off distance where Peaches ended and turned into Fresno County.
Cherry watched me and lit another Sweet Dream. Clucked her tongue. “Don’t even think about it.”
THE DRIVE HOME in Perd’s truck was quiet. I was happy for it. I felt if I spoke I would cry and I didn’t want to offer that up to any of them. Before I got out of the truck Lyle leaned over and handed me a plastic bag with something light in it. “Thought you might want it.” He smiled gently, like he understood that my mother and I were not monsters.
I waited until I was safe in Cherry’s bathroom with the door locked before I opened it. My mother’s yellow bikini. Lyle had saved it for me. I smelled it. Chlorine, something salty, a little mold. The elastic had lost its strength, but she still loved it. The high waist of the bottom covered her belly button, the one part of her that wasn’t perfect. My fault. I had pushed it out when I was in her stomach, she said. Made it ugly. The top had wires that crammed her boobs together, made two half moons of flesh rise up toward her collarbones.
Before Vern she had always talked about taking me to