But Marguerite’s video panel proved as useless as Ray’s had presumably been, and they had to make do with whatever was in the house’s resident memory. They settled on a hundred-year-old Bob Hope comedy, My Favorite Brunette. Tess, who would ordinarily have been full of questions about the twentieth century and why everything looked like that, simply picked at her food and gazed at the screen.

Marguerite put a hand on her daughter’s forehead. “How do you feel, kiddo?”

“I’m not sick.”

“Just not hungry?”

“I guess.” Tess scooted closer, and Marguerite put an arm around her.

After dinner Marguerite cleaned up, put fresh linen on the beds, helped Tess sort out her schoolbooks. Tess flicked through the blue-screen entertainment bands in a moment of misplaced optimism, then watched the Bob Hope movie a second time, finally announced she was ready for bed. Marguerite supervised her toothbrushing and tucked her in. Marguerite liked her daughter’s room, with its small west-facing window, the bed dressed in a pink fringed comforter, the watchful ranks of stuffed animals on the dresser. It reminded her of her own room back in Ohio many years ago, minus the well-meaning volumes of Bible Stories for Children her father had installed in the vain hope that they might provoke in her a piety she had conspicuously lacked. Tessa’s books were self-selected and tended toward popular fantasy and easy science. “You want to read a while?”

“Guess not,” Tess said.

“I hope you feel better in the morning.”

“I’m okay. Really.”

Marguerite looked back as she switched the light off. Tessa’s eyes were already closed. Tess was eleven but looked younger. She still had that baby-fat cushion under her chin, the full cheeks. Her hair was darkening but still a dirty blond. Marguerite supposed a young woman was emerging from this childhood cocoon, but her features were still indistinct, difficult to predict.