Mia Saul was late -- again. She raced down the stairs of the subway station, an overstuffed canvas bag of produce hauled from the greenmarket thumping uncomfortably against her hip. Just as she reached the platform, which, despite the pleasant coolness of the September day, still held the wretched August heat, not one but two trains -- the N express and the R local -- pulled out simultaneously. Mia watched the retreating red lights and wanted to cry. This was the third time in a week she would be late picking up her daughter, Eden, from afterschool, the third time she would have to contend with the teacher, who would no doubt charge her the fee no matter how profuse her apology, the third time she would have to face her sullen child, standing outside the double doors of the gym and dragging the toe of her new forty-dollar Converse high-tops across the pavement in furious, stabbing lines.

However, instead of crying, Mia pulled an apple from the bag and, after giving it a surreptitious wipe on the front of her shirt, took a big, noisy bite. A woman standing nearby turned to look, and Mia, embarrassed, stepped away, making sure that her next bite was not so loud. She hadn't eaten lunch, and she was ravenous. She consumed the apple in tiny, fastidious mouthfuls, not only because she wanted to be quiet, but also to make the fruit last. The organic Macouns, the pear cider, the goat cheese, and the tangy cheddar in her bag were really too expensive for her budget these days, but were purchased in the hopes of getting Eden to eat. Eden's eating was just one more thing Mia had to worry about. As of June, Eden had stopped eating meat or poultry of any kind, and just last week she announced that fish was off her list, too. Rather than engage in yet one more battle, Mia had chosen to pursue a tack of enticement and temptation. She figured she had to try -- for all she knew, next month Eden would eschew dairy products, too.

Finally, an R train rumbled in and Mia worked her way through the throng so that she was right in front of the double doors when they slid open. Good thing, too -- some of the people waiting behind her didn't get to board before the doors closed and the train began its journey to Brooklyn. Twenty-five minutes later, Mia was bounding up the staircase at the Union Street station.

It was ten past six when Mia turned the corner onto First Street. As she anticipated, Eden was waiting outside with a lone teacher who was checking her watch, probably not for the first time, either. But the thing Mia did not, could not, anticipate was the fact that Eden's hair, or rather half of it, had been hacked off, as if by an inept scalper who had suddenly lost his nerve. On the left was the braid that Mia remembered her daughter plaiting this morning; on the right, an angry bristle, scarcely more than an inch long.

"Who did that to you?" Mia burst out. "I'll have them expelled." She put the bag down, panting with an ugly combination of exertion, stress, and shock.

"Eden's teacher tried calling -- " began the woman whose name Mia could not recall.

"So why didn't you reach me?" But even as she spat the words, Mia remembered that she had turned off her cell phone during an editorial meeting and neglected to turn it back on later.

"I know they left messages," the woman continued. "At least two." She glanced over to Eden, who had so far not said anything. "Why don't I let Eden tell you what happened." She turned to Eden and waited. Still nothing. "Eden," she began again, in a cloyingly sweet voice. "Eden, we're waiting."

"No one did it to me," said Eden, sounding too jaded for someone who had only recently entered the double digits. "I did it myself."

"You cut half your hair off? Why?" All of Mia's righteous, maternal indignation evaporated in an instant, leaving her drained and reeling.

"It was in art class. We were doing self-portraits, and they were all so boring. I wanted mine to be different. Interesting."

"So you had to cut your hair?"

"Well, you wouldn't let me get a nose ring." She waited a beat and then asked, "Would you?"

The teacher, whose name simply would not coalesce in Mia's mind, cleared her throat discreetly before speaking.

"We thought that it might be a good idea for the two of you to see Ms. Jaglow. You can call tomorrow to make an appointment..."

Ms. Jaglow was the school psychologist. Although it was only the end of September, Mia had already met with Eden's teacher, the principal, and the learning specialist whose job it was to diagnose kids who had what were euphemistically called "special needs." Special, my ass, thought Mia, the first time she had heard the term applied to funny, brilliant, and, she had to admit, increasingly weird Eden. They don't mean special. They mean nuts.

"Yes, of course, I'll call her first thing in the morning," Mia said now, deciding that what she needed to do was get Eden home, away from this woman, to have whatever conversation they were going to have in private.

"Good; I'll tell her she can expect to hear from you," said the teacher, who glanced at her watch a final time. Mia knew that this meant she would be charged the late fee for the day, but she was too upset and too exhausted to plead. She touched Eden on the shoulder; Eden readjusted her backpack slightly and they began the short walk home.

Mia sent several covert, searching looks Eden's way, but Eden steadfastly ignored her and kept her eyes straight ahead. Mia felt tears begin a nasty, hot trail down her cheeks, and she turned her face away. She wished she could talk to Lloyd about all this. Lloyd was her best friend/lover/soul mate/husband. And now ex. He was big -- six feet four, size fourteen shoes. Big hands, big jaw, big nose arching proudly over a big, handsome face. Oh, and big dick, too, though it mattered way more to him than to her. They had been together since college; Mia thought that they would be together forever. Wrong. The signs had been there for a while; she had just been idiotically slow about reading them.

Lloyd made documentaries about premodern workers in a postmodern world. He followed postmen, hospital orderlies, and grave diggers throughout their days, finding the hidden poetry in the mundane. He made a film about a man who owned a shoe-repair place tucked in an arcade at the Thirty-fourth Street subway station, another about the woman who sold empanadas on a street corner in Spanish Harlem.

His last project had been about the Asian women who worked in the nail salons all over the city. Bits and pieces of their stories came glinting into his conversation: one had come from Vietnam at the age of twelve; another had perfected the painting of minuscule lilies on individual nails. Mia had not been paying attention, or she would have noticed that one name, Suim, kept cropping up. Suim this. Suim that.

Lloyd left her for Suim -- blubbering noisily as he said good-bye -- maintaining he couldn't help himself, he loved Suim beyond words, beyond measure, and that if he stayed with Mia, he'd be living a lie. Instead, he had chosen to live in Queens with Suim, and he actually thought Mia should be happy for him because he had found this unexpected gift, this enduring, monumental, deathless love, when he was still young enough to appreciate it. That was Lloyd all right, so thoroughly enamored of the worthiness of his own desires. So authentic, so passionate in his own adoring eyes. So goddamn big.

Once a week he came to pick up Eden, and though he could be generous, even lavish with her during these visits, he was spotty about child support, claiming that he didn't have the money, he'd get the money, please, please, please, could she not make everything about the money? Eden returned from these weekends with tales of the fancy restaurant in Manhattan where they had eaten crepes oozing with chocolate and apricot jam, or clasping a bag from Barneys -- Barneys! A place Mia wouldn't even walk past, much less actually shop in -- filled with fanciful, impractical clothes. Mia felt sick when she thought about the black hand-knit sweater with the marabou collar that Eden adored -- and lost the very first time she wore it. Or the long, pleated silk skirt, winking with tiny mirrors, that was useless at school, on the playground, or just about anywhere else that Eden actually went.

"Take her to Target and give me the rest for groceries!" she begged Lloyd when he dropped Eden off, this time with a stuffed toy giraffe that was taller than she was.

"There's no magic at Target, Mia," Lloyd said; his condescension dripped like honey.

"She needs new underwear, not magic," Mia said.

"Were you always so humdrum?" asked Lloyd.

Humdrum pays the bills, she wanted to say. But when they quarreled, Eden would get very quiet and start twisting a piece of her own skin -- elbow, cheek, thigh -- until it turned pink and eventually blue, so with great effort, Mia controlled herself.

Then quite abruptly, Lloyd decided to pick up and travel with Suim to Asia; he would not say how long he planned to be gone. At first, he was good about staying in touch, showering Eden with postcards, with gifts: a red lacquer box, an expensive-looking doll with a parasol, an enormous fan. But after a couple of months, nothing -- not a word, not a forwarding address. Eden was alternately furious and weepy; Mia was sure part of her daughter's behavior was linked to Lloyd's disappearance, and she planned to mention this to the psychologist tomorrow.

Mia rummaged in her bag for her key. Their building was right on Fourth Avenue, a cheerless corridor filled with auto-body shops, car washes, and discount beverage warehouses. Traffic whizzed by all day and night; the multilane thoroughfare was bisected by narrow, weedinfested islands littered with broken glass, flattened beer cans, and used condoms. But Fourth Avenue was changing and the rising hulks of big new buildings -- co-ops, condos -- were crowding the sidewalks, grabbing at the sky. These behemoths boasted pools and gyms, parking garages and doormen. None of this would help Mia and Eden; in fact,...