Summary

Elster’s twenty-something daughter, Jessie, arrives from New York, where she lives with her mother and does volunteer work for the elderly. She is quiet and thoughtful, rarely sharing information, so Jim tells her about his life in New York, starting projects, rarely finishing them, moving on to others. He wonders what to think of his new project about Elster, whether it will pan out. Jessie says her father enjoys company, despite moving to the desert to avoid it. They discuss various topics, never quite finding common ground.

Elster joins them on the deck and begins soliloquizing about time, aging, and the nature of identity: “it’s not time passing, mortal time. There’s none of the usual terror. It’s different here, time is enormous” (44). Time in the desert, for him, has slowed to a transcendent crawl, free from the distractions of city...