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I love to hear Max say hello.

I called him when we were new lovers, adulterers. The phone rang, his secretary answered and I asked for him. Oh, hello, he said. Max? I was faint, dizzy, in the phone booth.

We’ve been divorced for many years. He is an invalid now, on oxygen, in a wheelchair. Wh…

Sally adores Mexico, with the fervor of a convert. Her husband, her children, her house, everything about her is Mexican. Except her. She’s very American, old-fashioned American, wholesome. In a way I am the more Mexican, my nature is dark. I have known death, violence. Most days I don’t even notic…

I love houses, all the things they tell me, so that’s one reason I don’t mind working as a cleaning woman. It’s just like reading a book.

I’ve been working for Arlene, at Central Reality. Cleaning empty houses mostly, but even empty houses have stories, clues. A love letter stuffed way back in a…

Tell me, what do you feel you have accomplished in your life?”

I couldn’t think of a thing.

“I haven’t had a drink in three years,” I said.

“That’s scarcely an accomplishment. That’s like saying, ‘I haven’t murdered my mother.’”

“Well, of course, there is that, too.” I smiled.

Now, me … if they said I had a year to live, I’ll bet I would just swim out to sea, get it over with. But Sally, it is as if the sentence had been a gift. Maybe it’s because she fell in love with Xavier the week before she found out. She has come alive. She savors everything. She says whatever she …