I pressed my hand to the frosted pane, let the heat from my body melt the ice, leaving a perfect outline against the darkness. But I was thinking about light coming in through white curtains, the smell of ocean and sage and fresh laundry. Voices and music, a scratchy recording of Dietrich singing “Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuss,” rose into the sound well of the courtyard, but inside my head, I could hear the repetitive cries of a red-shouldered hawk, the faint rustle of lizards in a dry wash, a click of palms and the almost imperceptible sigh of rose petals falling. In the dark palmprint, I could see my blurred image, but also my mother’s face shimmering on a rooftop over an unknowable city, talking to the three-quarter moon. I wanted to hear what she was saying. I wanted to smell that burnt midnight again, I wanted to feel that wind. It was a secret wanting, like a song I couldn’t stop humming, or loving someone I could never have. No matter where I went, my compass pointed west. I would always know what time it was in California.