They stopped and got chocolate milkshakes at a place called Sandcastle Sweets, and when they came back to the Seahorse Court, it was dusk and a purple gloom was settling over everything.

Iola gave Beverly a nightgown to sleep in — one with pink flowers and lace at the collar.

Beverly thought that she would rather die than put it on.

And then she put it on.

She was making all kinds of questionable decisions: working at a fish restaurant, eating tuna melts, wearing flowered nightgowns.

“Do you know how to play gin rummy?” said Iola.

“Sure,” said Beverly.

They went out to the small porch at the back of the trailer. There was a wicker couch out there, and a wicker chair and a little glass table.

Iola put a bowl of peanuts on the table, and then she dealt the cards.

“Don’t hold back just because I’m an old woman and can’t stand the thought of losing,” she said.

“Why would I hold back?” said Beverly.

It was full dark outside.

A streetlight clicked on, and the little porch became a yellow island.

Beverly thought, I have left home to wear a flowered nightgown and sit on a little tiny porch in a trailer park and play cards with an old lady. This is stupid.

But where she had been had never truly felt like home.

Still, it was where Buddy was buried — out underneath the orange trees in the backyard. Beverly had dug the grave herself, crying the whole time and promising herself that once she stopped crying, she would never start again.

Putting dirt on top of his body — covering him up, sending him away without her — was the hardest thing she had ever done.

Raymie had come over to the house and stood with her in the backyard. She put dirt on top of Buddy’s body, too.

“Buddy,” Raymie kept saying. “Buddy, Buddy.” She was crying. “How are we going to survive without him?” she asked. “He was the Dog of Our Hearts. That’s what Louisiana always called him. Remember? How are we going to live without him?”

Beverly didn’t know. She felt mad at Raymie for even asking the question.

“We should say some poetry,” Raymie had said when they were done covering Buddy up.

Poetry seemed beside the point.

But Beverly had said the words she knew, the words she had been made to memorize, the ones about slipping the surly bonds.

And then Raymie had left, still crying, and Beverly had set off to Lake Clara, and, somehow, she had ended up here.

“What are you thinking about?” said Iola.

“Nothing,” said Beverly.

“It’s your turn,” said Iola.

Beverly drew a card.

“Looka here,” said Iola. “Here comes His Majesty, King Nod.”

A fat gray cat stepped out onto the porch. He looked to the left and then to the right, and then he came running and jumped into Beverly’s lap.

“Would you ever look at that?” said Iola. “Nod doesn’t care much for people. He has truly only ever liked other cats. There used to be a Wynken cat and a Blynken cat, but they are both gone. And now Nod is left all alone.”

“I don’t like cats,” said Beverly. She gave Nod a push, but he stayed where he was, purring.

“Listen,” said Iola. “You can hear him. He sounds like a happy motor. Ain’t that something? It’s like he’s been waiting on you to show up.”

“Right,” said Beverly.

The cat stayed in Beverly’s lap until the last card game, and then right before Beverly won, Nod leaped up and left the porch with his tail high in the air.

Iola stood. She said, “Now, this here can be your room. This whole porch can be yours. I’ll get you some linens.”

She left and came back with flowered sheets and a flowered pillowcase, and a yellow towel and washcloth. Iola unfolded the sheets and spread them over the cushions of the couch.

“I can do that,” said Beverly.

Iola tucked the sheets into the cushions. “I’m sure you can, darling. But right now, I’m taking care of you.”

When she was done, Iola left the porch and turned off the light. “Good night,” she said. “Sleep tight; don’t let the bedbugs bite. And remember, tomorrow is bingo at the VFW.”

“Oh, boy,” said Beverly. “I can’t wait.”

She lay down on the couch. She pulled the top sheet up to her chin. It smelled like soap.

Bugs were hitting the louvers of the porch. She could hear the ocean breathing in and out.

Buddy was in the ground.

And Beverly was here. In Tamaray Beach. In a crooked little house by a crooked little sea. Wearing a flowered nightgown.

She would write to Raymie.

That’s what she would do.

Tomorrow, she would ask Iola for a piece of paper and an envelope and a stamp, and she would write to Raymie and tell her about Mr. C’s and about the phone booth words. She would tell her about driving the Pontiac. She would tell her about Iola and Nod.

She would say that she didn’t know how they were going to live without Buddy. She would say that she didn’t understand how they were going to survive, either.

Right before she fell asleep, Beverly saw Buddy’s grave, the black emptiness of it. And then, sometime in the middle of the night, she woke up to Iola standing over her. She didn’t have her glasses on. Or her wig. The top of her head was fuzzy. She looked like a baby chicken. She was standing there in the half-dark, and then she was gone.

Later still, the cat came in and curled up on top of Beverly’s hair and started purring.

“Get off,” said Beverly. She pushed at him, but all he did was purr louder.

Somewhere outside, a cricket was singing.

The cat purred. The cricket sang. The ocean muttered.

“Good grief,” said Beverly.

She stopped pushing at the cat.

She gave in.