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My mother said, "He always liked it there" Her voice was flat, ehts, only a buzz of confusion

"Of course I’m not sure yet that the name I tracked down is him" I took the plate she handedanother plate "Why don’t you call him?" she said

I explained my unsuccessful hunt to find any telephone number for Mr Pym

"Pym," she said She removed the sink stopper, and atched the water spiral down the drain "So what do you propose to do now, Ariella?"

I’d hoped that she’d tell o to Sarasota," I said I hung up the linen dish towel "I think I need to know if he’s still alive, Mãe"

"In that case," she said, "I think I’d better go with you"

Sarasota is a strange mix of rich and poor, natural beauty and ostentation -- a hard place to know, because every es your impressions of it On its outskirts we drove past the saated communities that characterize nearly every Florida town But the inner city cos that seemed to come froht don, I saohtly patterned sun-dresses and dark glasses, reading anothingto decide than where to have lunch and where to go shopping

Mãe said, "We could use some new clothes"

She swerved the truck out of traffic and angled it into a parking space "Co crunchy"

I said, "Then you do think he’s here"

"Who knows?" she said "Anyway, it’s good to be in Sarasota again"

My mother proved to be a power shopper -- in seconds she surveyed as available and s on I was slow Except for thrifting with Jane, I hadn’t done any shopping since roas mall with Kathleen

The shops here were smaller, ain

I modeled dresses, and my mother nodded or shook her head I liked a shirt patterned with hibiscus flowers, but she said, "Come on You kno he is about patterns That would freak hirew hungry

We decided to wear two of our purchases -- a square-necked blue silk sheath for her, a smoke-colored halter dress formeter, and headed for a café that advertised seafood

My mother ordered Picardo on the rocks, and she tipped half of it into lass of cola

(Anyone concerned about vah rates of alcohol consuraph "Metabolic Aspects of Alcohol in Clinical Nutrition Trials" Apparently, we have extraordinary livers)

We ordered fish -- blackened grouper for her and mahi-mahi for me When the food ca and shook it liberally over our food It looked like red pepper flakes, but it tasted like Sangfroid

"Freeze-dried," she said "I carry condiht Pass, my mother pointed out landmarks familiar to her "Over to the west are the Selby Botanical Gardens That’s where ere ot the pictures"

Mãe said, "I haven’t seen those pictures in years"

I wondered what it would feel like to lose all one’s possessions, even one’s wedding albuive her the album? Or would it make her sad?

We drove over a causeway Sailboats dotted the bay, and I tried to picture an to fade as we drove down Midnight Pass Road, past row after row of high-rise buildings

"This doesn’t look like his scene," I said

"His scene?" She was grinning "What exactly would your father’s scene look like?"

"More like the house in Saratoga Springs," I said "Old and gray and glooloom here" My mother turned the car into a driveway "And not ht?"

The building loomed before us, thirteen stories raved in a stone slab set into a circular patch of fountain grass, was Xanadu

Mãe and I looked at each other We both knew the Coleridge poem, and we mentally traded verses: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-doh caverns measureless to man / Down to a sunless sea"

I didn’t feel optimistic The last place in the world I would have expected to find my father was in a Florida condominium nae was in the throes of an opium-induced dream, weren’t to"Re for her deine how embarrassed he must feel"

After we parked the truck, Mãe and I realized we had no idea where ht be All we had was the street number We stared up at the anonymous doors and balconies above us I hadn’t anticipated this proble in a house