Trina would help out during Jude’s daughter’s recovery from surgery and give moral support, since Opal’s recovery was expected to be temporary, really part of an overall decline. On the ride from Oakland to Panther Point, Opal slept in her infant car seat between Jude and Trina. The car seat still fit, sort of, even though Opal was nearly ten; it cradled her small body while she slept. Opal was still not entirely here, Jude reminded herself when Trina passed a doobie across Opal’s body. The tissue around her brain still ebbed and swelled, the hospital’s plastic diaper crackled under her nightgown, and a bandage bound her head. Yet—how Opaline—she wore pink lipstick and a dangling bead earring. A felt bag Jude had run up on her sewing machine hung from Opal’s round wrist, filled with jelly beans Opal had tried (and failed) to count in the hospital. Jude looked away from Opal while she blew smoke out the window. When they got to the Goldsteins’, Jude lifted her limp daughter from the car seat.
