Cara was seated quietly on her couch, legs folded under her and a glass of wine in her hand. The room was well-lighted and she was occupied with staring at the bottle of wine on the table as if she could read her future in the dark-colored liquid encased by the transparent glass of the bottle. Lisa had gone to bed - she had seen to that only minutes ago - so she had no company other than her thoughts. And they were mostly centered on the events of the last 40 hours or so.

The morning of the previous day, she had woken up as usual with a broken...