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“Positive.”
They start out the airport drive, heading due west—Lenna can tell because the sun is behind them. Her phone buzzes in her pocket.Daniel,reads the text ID. He has texted an image of the hastily scrawled note Lenna left for him this morning. And a question mark.
The time on the vehicle’s dashboard clock is 8:30a.m.Daniel is nothing if not predictable: Upon waking, he goes immediately to their home gym, which is next to the bedroom. He finishes, showers, gets dressed for work, and makes his way into the kitchen at 8:30, often on the dot. Her note, on the kitchen counter, was likely the first thing he saw when he came out to make coffee. She banked on this, being a whole state away before he even opened his eyes. Less chance that he’d convince her to change her mind.
She waits for another text. A reaction beyond just a question mark.Bon voyage,she expects he might say. Or an indifferentSee you later.MaybeThank fucking God.But nothing comes.
The A/C smells musty, so she breathes through her mouth. She looks at her baby, worried about the chemicals he might be inhaling. Five more fist clenches. And there: yellow words on a billboard for an injury lawyer.It will be all right,she tells herself. It has to be. Otherwise, what is she doing? Why is she subjecting her child to this upheaval if not for all the things Rhiannon promised? Serenity. Community. Help.Answers.
Well. That last one is a goal, not a promise. She just hopes that Rhiannon will comply.
The first part of the drive, there are cars whizzing east, turnoffs for housing developments with names like Sonoran Sun and Grande Iguana Casitas, and a casino on Tohono O’odham tribal land, jam-packed with cars. There are stoplights, then blinking stoplights, then stopsigns,and then nothing, nothing, nothing but human-shaped cacti and dirt. They drive on a road called Valencia, then Ajo, small mountains rising before them.
With the hand that’s not feeding the baby, Lenna opens the text chain from Rhiannon.Let me know if you find a flight, her old friend texted very late last night, when Lenna had bolted up in bed gripped with the notion that maybe sheshouldcome. (Friend?Can she call Rhiannon that again?) Now, Lenna replies.Landed, coming your way. Hope that’s still okay!
“There’s an observatory out there,” the cabbie says, and Lenna jumps. He juts a thumb out the windshield at a purplish mountain rising in the distance. “Kitt’s Peak. They use it to watch for UFOs.”
“Pardon?”
“Kidding. But sky’s real clear out here. On a good night, you can even see the International Space Station every ninety minutes.” He chuckles. “You shoulda seen your face! UFOs!”
Lenna closes her eyes. She’s too keyed up for jokes.
Rhiannon hasn’t texted back. Neither has Daniel. To calm her nerves, Lenna focuses on her baby’s relaxed features—miraculously, he has fallen asleep. His eyelashes look like little stars against his cheeks. His plump, pink lips are parted just so, blowing out soft breaths. When she eases her pinkie into his fat, open palm, his fingers gently close around it.
Her heart melts, twists, explodes. And with it comes that fierce, stomach-clenching love—a love that almost hurts.
Twenty minutes later, the driver’s GPS announces that they are arriving at their destination. He pulls into a vacant lot. “Thisis where you want me to drop you?”
The lot might have been a gas station—in another decade. There is a bleached-white empty building that might have been a garage, and disruptions in the concrete from long-ago gas pumps. An empty plastic water bottle rolls across the lot, but it certainly didn’t come from a mini-mart anywhere close. Not a single car passes going either direction. If a bug were to crawl past, Lenna might hear its scuttling legs.
She looks at her phone for what seems like the millionth time this hour. She’s lost service.
“Um.” Her voice cracks. She thinks of what Rhiannon said in the café last week:The land where the community is? Marjorie always says it’s special. It has a way of revealing the truth.She thinks, too, of Rhiannon’s kind eyes, the way she said,I think you should come. You’ll find what you’re looking for. And I’d love to have you.She even sang Lenna and Jacob a lullaby of sorts.
Hush, little baby,
No sound will you make
Mama, come to Tucson
’Cause you need a break.
But Lenna also thinks of how they left things off—before. The fight. The absence. The silence. And then what Lenna did.
A dusty cloud suddenly appears from inside the desert like a twister. Tires scrabble on the dirt. The cloud gives way to the shape of a dusty Chevy Suburban. A relieved laugh escapes from Lenna’s lips.
“There she is,” she tells the driver.
The cabbie shifts. “An off-the-gridder, huh? Watch out.”
“Why?”
“They don’t rely on the system. Most of them are criminals—or they have something to hide. My uncle was like that, slippery as hell. Excuse my language.” He eyes her in the mirror. “You trust this person?”
Something to hide.Lenna shivers. Little does he know, the cabbie is describingher.
The Suburban comes to a stop, and Rhiannon Cook looks out. The light through the window hits Lenna’s old friend in all the right ways. She looks the same as when she and Lenna were close, her auburn hair wild around her face, her chin sharp, her green eyes bright. But now, her frame carries a few extra healthy pounds. It suits her. And her skin, which used to be prone to breakouts, is clear and shining. When they’d reunited in LA a week ago, Lenna had prepared herself for Rhiannon to look either really wrecked or so transformed she was unrecognizable. But this version—it’s inspiring.
