It's raining. But it doesn't matter, because Gina sees the universe as balanced. Now she doesn't look at people in the street and I allow her to move my purse from the floor to her thigh in case I forget it. Her eyes are a little red around the corners when I tell her I am leaving and we are both sad because neither of us can handle even this sort of strange and needed goodbye. I take all of the world's sadness into my hair and chop it off when I have to. Am I a mother? Did my mother know this also? This losing yourself? And how come in Spanish she seems O.K. with it, saying she's disillusioned, like it's a joke? I hate talking about boys, god! Please! ...my friend the turtle is wondering about the difference between big shapes and probably wants to sleep in the wild again, where night always came before 3am.

Or maybe turtles don't want.