This was the week of my ninth birthday, and it had been a long day at school of cursive lessons, which I hated, and playground yelling about point scoring, and the sunlit kitchen and my warm-eyed mother were welcome arms, open.
The night-blooming jasmine that crawled up our neighbor's fromt gate released its heady scent at dusk, and to the north, the hills rolled charmingly over the horizon, houses tucked into the brown.
