Chapter 2
Whenever I awake in the darkness, in those first moments of consciousness when I open my eyes, I think I am home, in our house, in our bed, your strawberries and cream scent everywhere, Grace’s cinnamon a warm undertone. Every night is a harsh reminder, static on my skin, when I’m fully awake and I realize I’m not home at all but in this hastily built windowless bungalow in the middle of the Sierra Nowhere desert. Every night I look at the thin, bare walls that shake and rattle with the coiling winds, the haphazard wooden desk, the army cot with the feather-thin mattress that sags under my weight, the army surplus pillow and blankets. The only light inside is from a single fluorescent bulb hanging from the ceiling. During the war the families were given black potbellied stoves f
