Beachglass Excerpt:
Going Home (page 321)

I made sure the lights were off and the doors were locked. I left the key under the cactus pot for the realtor to pick up later that day. I stood in the driveway for at least ten minutes, just standing, looking at the building, as it all played behind my eyes like an old movie, a movie I had seen a million times but couldn’t get enough of. I had memorized its dialogue and knew every detail of its set, every word to the soundtrack; I knew the actors and their motivations; I had favorite scenes and scenes for which I covered my face.

I saw the Unit’s bedrooms, the elevator, the nurses with their flashlights, and the terrifying helicopters just on the other side of the shatterproof windows; I saw Timothy and me late at night, Matt and his playing cards; I saw Joan’s ruby smile and her hair as white and exact as a sheet of paper, her green eyes, her Birkenstocks. Hap was grinning and James was looking at me over his shoulder as he walked away. Rafael stood at an altar, then there was an earthquake and he was gone. There were birthday parties, drives over hills and through canyons and into the mountains far away; there were strippers and a hundred million AA meetings. The backdrop was this building and Jan’s, and that little log cabin a few blocks away, it was the duplex and a tiny Venice bungalow, it was the Bodhi Tree and a man opening his door naked and smiling a crooked smile and a drag queen so big and so beautiful that when she walked across the screen, everything but the music stopped, in fact it grew louder, and of course it was Gloria Gaynor, and of course she was singing that she would survive. That was what I had to remember, as I put my hand on the old chrome handle and opened the driver’s side door. I would survive.

I let the music fade and the screen go black, and I slid into the seat. The whole car smelled like Timothy, and I closed the door quickly behind me and made sure to keep the windows up, so I could hang on to that smell as long as I could.