I'm getting divorced. I'm facing financial ruin. I've spent money like the rich but I'm not smart like them and I can hardly sleep. Don't cry for me, Argentina -- I'm in Key West!

In the boogie hours around 4am I worry most -- pulled from some dream where I've been repeating an idiot's task -- startled awake, now, by a heart-throb of adrenaline. My body is slippery with sweat. Outside in the dark I can hear and feel soft damp breezes in the passion vines. In two hours the planes will begin to arrive bringing fresh snow-stunned Northerners who, grinning with disbelief, will look skyward and hold out their hands to better feel the heat here in Key West.

I pray for rain and remember my father's steps, leading him to stress overload and a sickroom-soaked cancer death he cheated at the last minute by taking his life. On the courtyard stucco wall, his ashes watch me from a jar shaded by the trumpet vine. He always dreamed of living in Key West.