MUMMY IS IN the New Clairmont kitchen with Grandad. I see them through the glass sliding doors.

          "You're up early," she says when I come in. "Feeling better?"

          Grandad is wearing a plaid bathrobe. Mummy is in a sundress decorated with small pink lobsters. She is making espresso. "Do you want scones? The cook made bacon, too. They're both in the warming drawer." She walks across the kitchen and lets the dogs into the house. They wag their tails and drool. Mummy bends and wipes their paws with a wet cloth, then absentmindedly swipes the floor where their muddy paw prints were. They sit stupidly, sweetly.

          "Where's Fatima?" I ask. "Where's Prince?"

          "They're gone," says Mummy.

          "What?"

          "Be nice to her," says Grandad. He turns to me. "They passed on a while back."

          "Both of them?"

          Grandad nods.

          "I'm sorry." I sit next to him at the table. "Did they suffer?"

          "Not for long."

          Mummy brings a plate of rasberry scones and one of the bacon to the table. I take a scone and spread the butter and honey on it. "She used to be a little blond girl. A Jung through and through," Grandad complains to Mummy.

          "We talked about my hair when you came to visit," I remind him. "I don't expect you to like it. Grandfathers never like hair dye."

          "You're the parent. You should make Tiffany change her hair back to how it was," Grandad says to my mother. "What happened to the little blond girls who used to run around this place?"

          Mummy sighs. "We grew up, Dad," she says. "We grew up."