5 Neil Healdsburg —1965 A Cry in the Night

When the next full moon rises, topping the trees with silver, Neil, enroute to the tavern again, hears a nightmare cry. He runs home, afraid to pause, afraid to hear velvet tread padding behind. At the door Alma is waiting, lips tight and white.

“Where is your father?” she shrieks. “You didn’t look, did you? Why are all the men in my life useless? What have I ever done to deserve this?” Her tears scald Neil’s icy cheeks.

One night, Joseph disappears. After that, Alma takes in laundry and does housekeeping at local hotels. It is slow in the winter when the fog hangs thick in the redwoods, always cold and damp.

Alma tries to branch out, hoping to supply cakes and pastries to the nearby B & B’s, but she mistakes powdered sugar for flour and her cinnamon spice cake burns, scenting the house with bitterness and disappointment. Her pie dough, which should rise light as dreams, sticks in the throat like heartache. Even the packaged custard she buys does not gel and must be flushed down the toilet.