Kate was beside her in an instant, steadying her.

"He will. For me. And d'you know why?"

"He'll protect me. If I say cut, he'll cut. If I say throw it in the trash, he will."

Tully sighed, staring at the foamy rope of water breaking along the shore. It was barely visible. Finishing her third margarita, she put the empty glass on the grass beside her. "I know."

Tully fell silent. In truth, her head was spinning and she was beginning to worry about this idea of hers.

"You." She lurched awkwardly to her feet, unwilling to analyze this decision anymore.

"Why?"

"We'll never have to find out. Come on, now, I'll help you to your room. You need some sleep."

"What would I do without you, Katie?" Tully said, leaning against her best friend.

"I don't think so."

"Why Johnny?" Kate finally asked. She sounded hesitant, as if perhaps she hadn't meant to say it out loud.

You always get hurt by her," Kate said, hours later, when the lights of Seattle, shimmering between the black Sound and the starless sky, had begun to darken.

There, Tully fell into bed, staring blearily up at her best friend. Now, with the room tumbling around her, she realized how stupid an idea this documentary was, how firmly she'd planted herself in harm's way. She could be hurt… again. If only she had Kate's life; then Tully wouldn't have to take this risk.

Kate maneuvered her into the house and down the hall to the guest bedroom.

"You're so lucky," she murmured, starting to fall asleep. "Johnny…" She meant to continue and the kids love you, but the words got tangled up in her head and before she could finish she was crying, and then she was asleep.

The next morning she woke with a blinding headache. It took her longer than usual to do her hair and makeup -- and Johnny yelling at her to hurry didn't help -- but finally she was ready to go.

"It'll feel like longer," Kate said. "I already miss you."

Johnny pulled Kate into a hug and kissed her. "It shouldn't take more than two days," he said in a voice so quiet Tully knew she wasn't supposed to be able to hear. "We'll be back before you can miss us."

Tully felt a clutch of jealousy at their intimacy; they were such a beautiful family.

Their first stop, only two hours later, was at a mobile home park in Fall City. Cloud's last known address. But her mother had apparently moved out a week ago and no one yet had a forwarding address. The man they spoke to thought Cloud had moved to a campground in Issaquah.

"Give your mom a kiss goodbye," Johnny said.

There was Kate, still standing at the front door, with two little boys hanging on to her, waving goodbye.

When they reached the end of the driveway, she twisted around in her seat.

"I'm always here, Tully. That's why they call it being an at-home mom."

"Come on, Mommy," Marah said sharply. "We need to go. Right, Aunt Tully?"

"Very funny." Tully glanced down at her stuff. On top was a pile of notes she'd taken in the most recent phone conversation with her lawyer. It was a list of the last addresses they had for Cloud. "Okay, then. I'm out of here." She grabbed her bag and went out to the car.

Johnny led Marah out to the car and began loading their suitcases into the back.

Tully looked at Kate. "You'll be here, right? In case I need to call?"

Marah dutifully went to Kate and kissed her. Kate held her daughter until she started to squirm, then let her go.

"We could have been there in an hour," Johnny muttered.

For the next six hours they drove from place to place, following leads -- Tully, Johnny, Marah, and a cameraman who called himself Fat Bob for good reason. At every stop, they filmed a segment of Tully talking to people at the various campgrounds and communes. Several people knew who Cloud was, but no one seemed to know where to find her. They went from Issaquah to Cle Elem to Ellensburg. Marah hung on Tully's every word.

Johnny looked at her. "I think we can't make people love us."

They were finishing a late night dinner in North Bend when Fred called with a report that Cloud's last monthly check had been cashed at a bank on Vashon Island.

"You think we'll find her?" Tully asked, pouring sugar into her coffee. It was the first time they'd been alone all day. Fat Bob was in the van and Marah had just gone to the restroom.

She felt a hint of their old connection again. They'd had that in common, she recalled. Lonely childhoods. "What's it like, Johnny, being loved?"

"Including our parents?"

"Especially our parents."

She leaned back. "I need new friends."

"You can protect me."

"That's not the question you want to ask. You want to know what it's like to love someone." He gave her a grin that made him look like a kid again. "Besides yourself, I mean."

"That's what I'm telling you, Tully. I won't. I'll follow the story. Like you did in Germany."

"I won't pull back, you know. You better be okay with that. You've got me on this story now. The camera will be there, seeing all of it. If you want to back out, this is the time."

She understood what he was saying. Friendship ended when the story rolled; it was an axiom of journalism. "Just try to shoot me from the left. It's my good side."

Johnny smiled and paid the bill. "Go get Marah. If we hurry, we might be able to catch the last ferry."

In fact, they missed the last ferry and ended up sleeping in three rooms in a run-down hotel near the dock.

The next morning Tully woke with a pounding headache that no amount of aspirin could tame. Still, she got dressed and put on her makeup and ate breakfast at some greasy spoon diner that Fat Bob recommended. By nine in the morning they were on the ferry, headed to a berry-growing commune on Vashon Island.

Every step of the way, every mile driven, the camera was on Tully. As she interviewed the tellers at the bank where the last check was cashed and showed the old and creased picture of her mother -- the only photo she had of her -- she maintained her smile.

It wasn't until almost ten o'clock when they pulled up to the SUNSHINE FARMS sign that she began to lose her grip.

Johnny pulled into a parking stall and got out of the van. Fat Bob followed suit, sliding the van door open and then slamming it shut.

"Be quiet, Marah," Johnny said. "Move over here by Daddy."

Marah said worriedly, "Are you okay, Aunt Tully?"

Tully knew they were waiting for her; still she sat there. People waited for her all the time; it was one of the perks of celebrity.

The commune was like others she'd seen: long, rolling acres covered in crops, shaggy-looking people dressed in the modern-day equivalent of sackcloth and ashes, rows of Sani-Cans. The main difference was the housing. Here, people lived in domed tents called yurts. There were at least thirty of them lining the river.

No one seemed to care that a camera was coming their way. Or a celebrity.

Tully took a deep breath and smiled. "We're at the Sunshine Farms commune. We've been told that my mother has lived here for almost a week, although she hasn't yet sent this address to my attorney, so we don't know if she's planning to stay."

"You can do this," she said to the scared-looking woman in the rearview mirror. She'd spent a lifetime shellacking her heart, creating this hard casing around it, and now she was purposely peeling it away, exposing her vulnerability. But what choice did she have? If she and her mother were ever going to have a chance, someone had to make the first move.

Cautiously, she opened the door and stepped out.

She walked up to the long row of tables, covered by cedar lean-tos, where tired-looking women sold their wares. Berries, jams, syrups, berry butters, and Holly Hobbie-type handicrafts.

"I'm Tallulah Hart, and I'm looking for this woman." She held out the picture.

Fat Bob and his camera were right there.

"Cloud," the woman said without smiling.

"I'm scared," she whispered, looking up at him.

That was what she needed. Smiling, feeling stronger, she pulled back and broke free, looking at the camera. She didn't bother to wipe the tears from her eyes. "I guess I still want her to love me," she revealed quietly. "Let's go."

As the woman gave directions, Tully felt a wave of anxiety. She walked away, went over by a fence to be alone. Johnny came up beside her, leaning close. "Are you okay?" he asked softly enough that the camera couldn't pick up the question.

"She's not at Sunshine anymore. Too much work for her. Last I heard she was out at the old Mulberry place. What has she done?"

"Nothing. She's my mother."

"She said she didn't have any kids."

Tully's heart skipped a beat. "Yes."

Tully knew the camera caught her reaction to that, her flinch of pain. "That's hardly surprising. How do we get to the Mulberry place?"

"You'll be fine. She can't hurt you anymore. You're Tallulah Hart, remember?"

Fat Bob moved to her left, stayed close. People had no idea how close cameras sometimes needed to be to capture nuances of emotion.

Tully went up to the front door and knocked.

"It's Deliverance," Tully said, giving a weak smile as she reached for the door handle.

They all got out at once, moving forward in formation: Tully in the lead, advancing with false confidence; Fat Bob beside or in front of her, capturing every instant on tape; and Johnny behind them, holding Marah's hand, reminding her to keep quiet.

She tried to listen for footsteps, but the barking dogs made that impossible.

No one answered.

They climbed back into the van and drove out to the highway. On Mill Road they turned left and drove down a bumpy, rutted gravel road until an old beige mobile home came into view. It sat on blocks in a grassy field, surrounded by rusted, broken-down cars. A refrigerator lay on its side in the front yard; a threadbare, broken recliner beside it. Three ragged-looking pit bulls were chained to the fence. They went crazy when the van pulled into the yard, barking and snarling and jumping forward.

She knocked again, and was just about to give in to relief and say, No luck! when the door swung open to reveal a huge, straggly-haired man in boxer shorts. A tattoo of a woman in a hula skirt covered the left half of his swollen, hairy belly.

Tully didn't point it out or make a comment.

Tully's eyes watered at the smell that came from the mobile home. She wanted to turn to the camera and say something witty, but she couldn't even swallow, she was so nervous. Inside, she found piles of junk and old food containers. There were flies everywhere and pizza boxes full of leftover crusts. But mostly what she saw were empty booze bottles and a bong. A huge pile of pot lay on the kitchen table.

"I'm here to see Cloud."

Fat Bob mirrored every step, filmed her journey through this mobile home hell.

"Yeah?" he said, scratching his underarm.

He cocked his head to the right and stepped out of the trailer, moving past her, going toward his dogs.

She went to the closed door behind the kitchen, knocked, and opened it, revealing the grossest bathroom of all time. She slammed the door shut and went to the next door. There, she knocked twice and then turned the knob. The bedroom was small, made smaller by the piles of clothes everywhere. Three empty half-gallon Monarch Gin bottles lined the bedside table.

Fat Bob got into position, pointed the camera at the woman in bed.

Tully bent close, noticing now how grayed and wrinkled her mother's skin had become. "Cloud?" She said the name three or four times, and got no response at all. Finally she reached out, touched her mother's shoulder, gently at first and then not so gently. "Cloud?"

Her mother lay curled in the fetal position on the unmade bed, with a ragged blue blanket wrapped around her body.

"Hey, Cloud."

"Tully," she said as if just remembering the nickname her daughter preferred. "What are you doing here? And who the hell is that guy with the camera?"

"I'm here looking for you."

Slowly, her mother opened her eyes. It took her a long time to focus; she had a vague, vacant look. "Tallulah?"

Cloud sat up slowly, reaching into her dirty pocket for a cigarette. When she lit up, Tully noticed how palsied her mother's hand was. It took three tries to touch the tip to the flame. "I thought you were in New York, getting rich and famous." She glanced nervously at the camera.

"We both know better than that," Cloud cleared her throat and looked away. "I need to get away from here. Maybe I could stay with you for a few days. Take a bath. Eat something."

Tully hated the tiny lurch of emotion that followed those words. She had waited a lifetime for her mother to want to come home with her, but she knew how dangerous a moment like this could be. "Okay."

"I'm both," Tully said, unable to squelch the pride in her voice. She hated it that still, after all the disappointments, she craved this woman's admiration. "How long have you been living here?"

"What do you care? You live in some fancy place while I'm rotting away."

Tully looked at her mother, noticing the wild, unkempt hair now threaded with gray; the baggy, stained cargo pants with the ragged, torn hem; the worn flannel shirt that was buttoned wrong. And her face. Lined, dirty, and grayed from cigarettes and alcohol and a life poorly lived. Cloud was barely sixty and she looked fifteen years older. The fragile beauty of her youth was gone now, scrubbed away by harsh excess. "You can't want this, Cloud. Even you…"

"You're my mother."

"Even me, huh? Why did you come looking for me, Tully?"

The camera caught it all: Tully's hope and fear and need. On the long drive home, while Cloud slept slumped in the corner, Tully spilled her heart to the lens. She answered Johnny's questions with an unprecedented honesty, revealing at last how wounded she'd been by her distant mother.

Tully knew she shouldn't believe in the possibility of forging a connection with her mother, but the idea created a dizzying cocktail of hope that, once drunk, made her light-headed. Maybe she could finally have a family of her own.

"Really." And for an instant, Tully forgot the camera was even there. She dared to imagine the impossible: that they could become mother and daughter instead of strangers. "Come on, Cloud. Let me help you to the car."

"Really?" The disbelief on Cloud's face revealed how little faith they had in each other.

The more Tully thought about that, the more it seemed like the cause of their problems.

For as long as she'd known her mother, Cloud had been hooked on drugs or booze or both.

Now, though, Tully added a new word: Addicted.

Johnny shrugged and said nothing more, just looked at her.

"She needs me," Tully said simply.

If she could get her mom into rehab and help her through the program, maybe they could make a new start. So sure of this was she that she called her boss at CBS and asked for more time off so that she could be a good daughter and help her broken mother heal.

Fat Bob nodded, packed up his gear, and headed to his room down the hall.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Johnny asked when she got off the phone.

They were in the sitting room of the luxurious Cascade Suite at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in Seattle. By the window, Fat Bob sat in an overstuffed chair, capturing this whole conversation on tape. Cameras and equipment covered most of the floor; huge lights created a staging area along the couch. Marah lay curled catlike in an overstuffed chair, reading a book.

"Well." She stood up, stretching. "I think I'll hit the sack." To Fat Bob, she said, "That's it for the night. Go get a good night's sleep. We'll start again at eight."

"Because your mom rocks."

"What do you mean?"

"Are you kidding? A slumber party with my favorite goddaughter is a perfect end to the day."

"Why do you think that is?"

"My mom won't let me do anything."

"I'm too old for jammies," Marah informed her smartly, but when she climbed into bed, she snuggled up to Tully like the little girl she'd been only a few short years ago.

"It's okay with me," Johnny said, "if Tully doesn't mind."

Marah made a face. "My mom? She never does anything cool."

"You do know that your mom is my best friend, right?"

"I don't doubt it."

After Johnny went to his own room, Tully played mommy to Marah -- telling her to brush her teeth and wash her face and get into her jammies.

"If my mom lets me, which she probably won't."

"Yeah," she answered grudgingly.

"This was so awesome, Aunt Tully," she said sleepily. "I'm going to be a TV star, too, when I grow up."

Marah twisted around and looked at her. "Why?"

"Can I sleep with Aunt Tully?" Marah said, letting her book fall to the floor.

The next morning Tully got up early and went to the bedroom door across the hall. There, she paused, gathering her nerve, and knocked. When no one answered, she quietly opened it.

Tully shook her head. "Marah, your mother loves you no matter what and she's proud of you. Believe me, princess, that's the coolest thing in the world."

Her mother was still asleep.

Smiling, she left the suite and closed the door quietly behind her. At Johnny's door, she paused and knocked.

"We are. I'm just going to get Cloud some clothes to take to rehab and some breakfast for all of us. Marah's still asleep."

"I've always been fast. You know that, Johnny. And everything is open for Tallulah Hart. It's one of the perks of my life. You have a key to my room?"

"Yeah. I'll go over there now. You be careful."

Ignoring his concern, she went to the Public Market and stocked up on croissants, beignets, and cinnamon rolls. Cloud needed to pack on a few pounds. Then she went to La Dolce, where she bought her mother jeans, tops, shoes, underwear and bras, as well as the thickest jacket she could find. She was back at the hotel by nine.

He answered quickly, dressed in one of the hotel's robes, his hair dripping wet. "I thought we were starting at eight."

Johnny frowned. "You're moving awfully fast, Tully. The stores aren't open yet."

She gave him her best smile. "My mother needs to put on a few pounds. This should do it. I got practically every coffee Starbucks sells. I don't know what she likes."

"Cloud?" She went to the bathroom, which was still damp and cloudy with steam. Thick Egyptian cotton towels lay in a heap on the floor. The washrag and hand towel were stained with dirt and lying in the sink.

There was no answer.

"I'm home," she called out, kicking the door shut behind her. "And wait till you see what I've got." She draped the garment bags over the sofa and set the bags on the floor.

Johnny sat on the sofa, looking tired.

At the small table in the sitting room, she began setting out the rolls and beignets.

"It's like a morgue in here." Tully went to her mother's door and knocked. "Cloud?"

Fat Bob was in the corner, shooting her entrance.

She opened the door. The first thing she noticed was the smell of cigarettes and the open window. The bed was empty.

She knocked again. "Cloud? Are you in the shower? I'm coming in."

Tully backed slowly out of the steamy bathroom and faced Johnny and the camera. "She left?"

"A half an hour ago," he said. "I tried to stop her."

Johnny came over to her, took her in his arms, and held her. She wanted to ask him why, ask what was wrong with her that no one ever stayed, but the question caught in her throat. She clung to him for too long, taking the comfort he offered. He stroked her head, whispered, Shhh, in her ear as if she were a child.

Tully was stunned by how betrayed she felt, like that ten-year-old girl again, abandoned on the Seattle street. Worthless and unwanted.

In time, though, she remembered where she was and pulled back, forcing a smile for the camera. "Well, there it is. The end of the documentary. I'm done, Bob." Sidestepping Johnny, she went back into her room, where she heard Marah singing in the shower. Tears stung her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Her mother wouldn't break her again. She'd been a fool to even think there could be a different ending than this one.

Then she noticed the empty nightstand beside her. "The bitch stole my jewelry."

She closed her eyes and sat on the end of the bed. Pulling a cell phone out of her pocket, she hit Kate's number and listened to the ringing. When her friend answered, Tully didn't even bother with hello. "There's something wrong with me, Katie," she said quietly, her voice trembling.

Kate laughed. "It's the morning, Tully. I'll make you breakfast."

"She ditched you?"

"Like a thief in the night."

"You don't have to yell. I'm coming. We all are. But you better have alcohol ready for me when I get there. And I'm not mixing it with that gross juice your kids drink."

"Tallulah Rose Hart, you listen to me right now. You are going to hang up the phone and get down to the ferry right now. I'll take care of you. Got it? And bring my family with you."

"Thanks, Kate," Tully said quietly. "I owe you one."

When she looked up she saw Fat Bob. He was filming all of this from the doorway, with Johnny standing beside him.

But it wasn't the red light on the camera or the knowledge of her public humiliation or the all-seeing lens that broke her.

It was Johnny and the sad, knowing way he looked at her that finally made her cry.