Prologue Singer 20 days before Miles In the middle of yet another incredibly loud debate, Singer Thurman’s doorbell rang. The familiar voices continued in predictable movements of attack and retreat as he rose from his chair and answered the door. For a second–half a second–he didn’t recognize the woman on the front porch. Until he did. “Lisa?” It was as if she were somehow insubstantial, as if this image of his sister, with the forbidding dark nimbus around each eye and shoulders rounded defensively, wavered over his mental picture of Lisa as he’d last seen her: self-assured and defiant, clothes