I'd Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them

14. Two Things from a Burning House

SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD MIA IS hung-over from her older sister’s going-away party the night before, so she pops her birth control pill with two aspirins and pours herself Lucky Charms and stares out the square kitchen window at the first swells of the Rocky Mountains. Late July, the time of year when the Torres house needs the air conditioning it lacks, but the high-country mornings are cool enough for her sweatpants and a faded orange Broncos shirt. Her parents sleep in the back bedroom, and Mia figures her sister is screwing her boyfriend, Elliot, one last time before saying goodbye. Unsure of what time the army recruiter is due at their house, Mia figures she has a couple hours before she waves Camila off to basic training.

Mia understands why Camila would enlist. Their father served for a number of years and used the G.I. Bill to obtain a college degree and a job as a motivational speaker. Maybe it’s the perfect time to join — hit the end of the downturn of America’s Middle East adventure and slide into a pocket of peace for twenty years and train your way to medals and rank and a nice rancher outside Castle Rock. Mia’s father smiled when Camila strolled home with the “I enlisted” news, patting her on the back with “It’s your call, honey.”

Mia sits on a worn barstool and spoons her cereal up to her mouth as her mind works, weaving together the previous night’s party. She expects to field questions, and most likely consequences. Her parents hit the tequila hard, and Mia perked up when her mother handed her a Bud Light. It’s not Mia’s favorite, but the cold drink felt good in the party heat of their basement. Five beers later she let a boy with black fingernails fondle her breasts in a downstairs closet next to a broken-down pinball machine. When she opened her eyes at the sound of the closet door, her sweating mother appeared, already in midpunch. Her mother had finished the bottle of Cuervo and missed the ducking boy, hitting a wall stud instead. Within seconds her fist began to swell. In the morning silence Mia considers the irony of her mother swinging at the preservation of a virginity that had been lost two years before on a school trip to Yellowstone.

Camila is halfway down the hall when Mia spots her and shoots a nod, but Camila refuses a return glance and glides past Mia and slips into their mother’s blue Colorado Avalanche jacket.

“Big day,” Mia says. “Could all be downhill from here.”

Camila opens the door and walks out into the clear morning.

Mia rinses her bowl and hears the floor creak. She prays it’s her father. He’ll laugh last night off, but her mother is a different monster, alternately dishing out cruelty to try to save her daughters from themselves and ignoring both of them altogether, as if she’s given up hope. Mia isn’t ready to talk about the boy in the closet — his name is Raul — and if the encounter goes the day without being addressed, it might never be, but when she turns to the sound, her mother approaches with the stern face Mia knows bodes a lecture.

“You don’t know where your sister is,” she says, blowing a toothpaste-Tequila exhalation.

“She went outside.”

“You don’t know where she is.”

“You’re asking me?” Mia says, confused. Her mother leans in.

“I’m not asking. You don’t know where she is. No matter who comes calling. You don’t know.”

“Okay. I don’t know where she is. Fine. She’s lost.”

Mia turns away, but her face tilts back toward her mother.

“Is this about the recruiter?” she asks.

Her mother hasn’t hit her in years, but Mia thinks she might. Her neck veins throb and she grabs Mia’s shoulder, hard at first, but she eases the grip. Her mouth draws tight. She has seized Mia with the injured hand.

“Your sister is an adult,” she says, flexing her fingers in and out. “She makes her own moves.” A breath. “And this is the most important part. She’s not a whore.”

In the future, during rounds of drunken remembrance, Mia will recall this moment and practice strongly worded, clever retorts, but in real time the air leaves her body and she steps back. Her mother stands, morning sober, in front of her. Her eyes lack their usual redness, her body having given up the fight against the hard stuff.

“Is this when we talk about Yellowstone?” Her father’s voice. Camila was the only person Mia told, so her father’s words float in the room a bit before Mia sucks them in. The air thickens around her mouth and nose, and her feet disappear beneath her.

“Yellowstone,” he says, wheeling into the room. “Bears and moose and boys.” He grins. He bleeds through torn touches of Kleenex along his jawline. His hands grip the gray wheelchair wheels.

“I told him the night Camila told me,” her mother says, placing her hand on her husband’s shoulder. “You should know that. It’s what parents do. He didn’t believe it until last night, when I caught you jacking off that freak in the closet.”

The room slants and Mia visualizes the shotgun in her parents’ closet, but she blanks on the case combination. She flashes to the neighborhood park where she told Camila — they were swinging in winter, and Camila playfully placed her ear on Mia’s belly; to her first period, reaching down into her pants in a Safeway bathroom.

“Have you screwed boys in my home?” her mother asks.

Mia has, twice. She stares at the beige tile floor and thinks about Camila and Elliot, the dozens of sexual sessions they’ve had in this very house, on Camila’s pink comforter under the boy-band posters, and then she wonders why she cares if her parents know — she has no moral pretense, no angel reputation, no great grades or letters of recommendation headed her way. Losing her virginity at fourteen doesn’t seem that unusual to her. She knows girls eleven and twelve years old who let the word get out. Mia senses her body folding in on itself, and she angers because she cares what her parents think, and because she still can’t think of the gun-safe combination or anything to say. Again the mental image, the surprise of brownish blood on her fingertips, of the Safeway around the corner, the area next to the checkout where her mother sniffed at a green bottle of Brut aftershave and Mia stepped out of the restroom and ran to her mother to tell her the news, and her mother, near tears, taking Mia in her arms, repeating, “My girl, my big girl,” before they walked together to the maxi pads and Mia pointed to the ones she’d seen commercials for. Was that the last time she was proud of me?

Then, back to the kitchen, to her parents, to the morning hangover. Mia has forgotten the question, but she hears herself say, “My body was ready.”

Her father’s mouth opens, and Mia senses a surge of excitement when nothing comes out. “My body was ready,” she says a little louder. Silence. Neither her mother nor her father appears ready to argue. Her father touches one of the tiny circles of bloodied Kleenex on his chin, then folds his arms.

“Damn,” he says, and turns away; surprisingly, so does her mother. They move down the hallway and her mother stops and looks back, but not at Mia. She scans the living room and then locks her eyes on the oak front door, as if it’s been moved slightly and she wants to remember its location when she comes back.

Mia is unsure how old her mother was when she lost her virginity, and she realizes that they’ve never had the sex talk, or really any talk of substance for some time. Mia thinks, When I have a child, she’ll know everything, and much later Mia will tell her daughter everything, she will talk to her about sex and blood and regret, she will drive her daughter to the clinic for her abortion and stroke her hair while the drugs wear off. But today Mia tugs her sweatpants down below her hip bones and her mother shakes her head, kisses her fingers, and touches Mia’s third-grade photo hanging in the hallway.

Mia moves her hands in a ray of dusty sunlight that beams through the crack in the living room drapes. She visualizes taking her blue baseball bat to Camila’s healthy knees. That traitor bitch. She envisions Camila’s lifelong limp and grins, but the dream evaporates as her parents move down the hallway with luggage.

“We’re going to Estes Park,” her mother says. “Don’t call. You’re a big shot. You and your sister can do what the hell you want.” She disappears into the garage.

Before her father leaves he grabs a bottle of Johnnie Walker and tucks it into his duffel bag. Rashlike bumps of dried blood dot his jaw.

“Yellowstone?” he says. Then, in a drawn-out, mocking falsetto, “My body is ready.” He shakes his head. “Good luck with that,” and out he wheels.

The maroon sedan backs out of the garage, and for a few seconds Mia sees her mother laugh and her father’s mouth move, and she wonders if he retells his parting words to her. After they disappear Mia slides her vision over to their neighbors’ house: the Burtons’ red-brick home, the aspen, hedge, and prairie grass landscaping, a Toyota truck in the driveway with an I’m proud of my Eagle Scout bumper sticker. She guesses this is Camila’s hideout. Not one to question, or even consider, the morality of adult-level commitment, Mia wonders if everyone has gone crazy. How is she able to walk just feet away from her army obligation, and no one blinks an eye? Not our army dad, not our freaking Eagle Scout neighbors? She places Camila in the Burtons’ basement, probably already comfortable and confident, and nosy Mrs. Burton eyeing the roadway, ready to prevent the big bad military from taking their innocent neighbor. Never mind that Camila signed up herself. And then the answer comes to her. Mia brushes away the bat-to-the-knee revenge and frames a new, more enticing proposition. She turns the television on and gets comfortable, with an eye on the driveway. Screw her mother; she knows exactly where Camila is, and when the time is right, so will the recruiter.

Four reruns of The Vampire Diaries and a full fruit juicer infomercial later, the green-and-white army Ford Taurus pulls up to the front of their home. Before the uniformed man can leave the vehicle, Mia stands in her front yard, grinning. The recruiter is younger and shorter than she imagined, with a narrow face and a limp.

“Camila’s next door,” she says when he reaches their driveway.

“Okay.”

“She’s hiding, but she’s over there. It’s the Burtons’ place.”

Mia steps toward their neighbors’, but the man doesn’t follow.

“Your folks here?”

“No.”

The recruiter removes his hat and clicks his tongue. He has picked up all types. He scratches his neck.

“Why don’t you go get Camila so we can talk?” he says, lowering his voice a half octave. “I’ll wait here.”

“She won’t come if it’s me. That’s the point.” Mia overhears her own eagerness and tries to dial it back. Unknowingly, she plays with the drawstrings of her sweats. “Besides, doesn’t she have to go?”

“You want her to go?”

She knows the answer, but she waits for the right words. Before she can comment he asks, “How old are you?”

His eyes dart to her torso.

“I’m in high school. How old are you?”

“Okay.”

He gazes up at the sky and taps his foot. “Listen. I’m happy to talk to your sister, but I’m here for pickup, not deliberation. If you want to get her, great. If not, she can give me a call, but there are consequences.” He hands Mia a card. “I have other stops today.” When Mia stays in place, he nods his head, limps around to the driver’s side, gets in, and drives off.

When Mia wakes, she rubs at her sweaty neck and pulls herself up from the leather couch. As she comes to she recalls her morning anger, and the fury rises in her again — a complicated rush of anxiety and the impulse for revenge.

Raul arrives at her house ten minutes after she calls him. She can hear the old Ford truck from around the corner, and when he pulls into her driveway she notices the purple driver’s-side fender on an otherwise faded red truck. He wears a bright orange hunting vest over a black shirt, and cargo shorts.

“Get me out of here for a while,” she says.

“I know where there’s water.”

She remains quiet until they hit Sedalia and turn west onto Jarre Canyon Road, and when the road turns up into the Rockies her shoulders relax. Their dalliance last night was not their first, but their relationship, if it can be called that, is one of lazy convenience. She imagines that he thinks of her seldom but fondly. That’s how she thinks of him.

Mia leaves out the parent-virginity surprise but rattles on about her sister and the army, how Camila betrayed her — she leaves it unspecified — and wonders out loud what she can do for revenge. Raul speaks with calm, and this fits Mia’s picture of him: soft-spoken, a funky dresser, with a confidence and an intelligence that enable him to stay at the top of their class despite his frequent unexplained absences. As he drives his eyes dart to his rearview mirror, then to the side mirrors and back to the road, a routine he performs every thirty seconds or so.

“She should go into the navy. Boats are cool, and no one ever shoots at them,” he says in a southern drawl that still surprises Mia. For all she knows, he was born and raised in Colorado. He glances at her and notes her disappointment.

“You could lock her out. Your parents are gone.”

“Lock her out? She’d be upset for two seconds, then go back to the Burtons’.”

“It’s something.”

“Yeah.”

“You could run away.”

“Not much of a revenge move. My folks might like it. They’ve said as much.”

“No parents want that.”

“You’re wrong. Parents don’t have to beat the shit out of you to show they don’t love you.”

“True.”

“Sometimes they just do nothing.”

“But yours get pissed at you. That’s supposed to mean something. It might not be as bad—” He stops his sentence and, without transition, says, “House is on fire. You can grab two things. Go.”

“Besides people?”

“So you still love them.”

“Don’t screw with me.”

“Fine. What would you take? Everyone gets out okay.”

The silence lingers so long that Raul asks, “Don’t like fire? Okay. A flood.”

Both quiet, they drive south along Highway 67, and the South Platte River joins them. Fly-fishermen in waders whip their lines out and back. Raul cracks his window and the rushing air smells fresh and warm. They pass through Deckers and keep south toward Pikes Peak, and a few miles farther Raul guides the truck over to a meager turnout and turns off the engine.

“Water,” he says, and points at a humble stream down an embankment. The stream is maybe six feet across and shallow. “Let’s go.”

Raul grabs a backpack and a dusty wool blanket and leads Mia down the gentle slope. They pause on the bank of the stream, and Raul excuses himself and comes back with a boulder that he throws in the middle of the water.

“Step.”

They both cross, and Raul unfurls the blanket on a level patch of ground partially obscured from the road by a stand of flowering reeds. He reaches into the backpack and pulls out a flask and tosses it to her. She unscrews the top and tilts it back and shakes her head.

“Water?” she says, not all that disappointed.

“I have to drive back.”

Raul pats the blanket beside him. A puff of dust rises.

“I don’t feel like sitting,” Mia says, and while she recognizes his intentions, she waits and basks in the high-altitude sun. She stands next to the creek and watches the clear water and smells the pine. She picks up a smooth rock and tosses it into the stream, and the tiny but explosive splash makes her laugh. Raul throws one. He sheds his hunting vest and his black shirt, then puts the vest back on.

“You look ridiculous,” Mia says.

“I do it for attention. It works.”

“Yeah.”

“What do you do for attention?”

“I make out with guys in closets. Then I have my mom come in and beat the shit out of them. It’s a fun routine we’ve perfected.”

They gather large rocks and throw them in, and before long their efforts focus on building a dam across the stream. The lazy project takes fifteen minutes, and near completion, they decide to leave a space where the water runs unimpeded.

“You’ve never asked me about my name,” he says as they sit on the blanket. Mia crosses her legs and touches his arm.

“What about it?”

“It means ‘wolf counsel.’” He growls, claws his left hand, and laughs.

“Who told you that?”

“My parents.”

Mia edges closer and places her hand on his.

“Are you trying to be funny?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“You tell the truth too much.”

Raul reaches for her, and she leans over and kisses him. She feels warm and electric and reaches down to the bottom of her shirt and teasingly lifts it up, then back down. She loves the look in his eyes, mistaking his desire — and her past boyfriends’—for something ineffable and singular in her. Their collective eyes and eager hands convince her that she will never be alone.

While she reaches for the back of Raul’s neck, Mia picks up something in her peripheral vision, a misshapen brown blur through the trees. She stands and brings her index finger to her lips.

“Shhh,” she says, and it comes into focus: a bear, far enough away to excite but close enough to unnerve. “Bear,” and she points.

They gather their things as quietly as possible, tiptoe across their dam, and jump into the Ford. Their anxiety lessens the longer they watch the bear from the cab. They follow the brownish bear as it meanders downstream and disappears.

On the drive back to Castle Rock, dusk settles in and Raul puts on Barbra Streisand. He glances over at Mia, then back to the road. She thinks of saying something but stops herself, because she knows he wants her to comment on the music. Dusk is Mia’s favorite time of day; there is something soothing about the diminishing visuals. She wonders if she will sleep with Raul tonight, if he expects her to.

She watches the darkening road, the double yellow lines curving in parallel, hears the hum of the mud tires, and her mind drifts to her sister walking out of the house that morning, wordless; to her parents — Estes Park, gulping whiskey and wine; to Yellowstone; to the afternoon bear meandering downstream, morphing into two bears. She’s fourteen on a chartered bus in Yellowstone, in a traffic jam in northwestern Wyoming, and her science teacher points at the top of a hill, where two bears feed on a felled bison, and from her bus seat Mia sees the bears, then a flanneled, bearded man with a camera who starts up the hill toward the feeding, and already she senses something is wrong, and her science teacher halts the lecture and yells out the window to the advancing man “Stop!” but the man continues up the hill, so close to the wild that from her vantage point it seems as if he could touch the bears with his hands, and the man stands among the feeding animals and snaps photos, then turns around, walks down the hill, and high-fives his friends before giving the school bus two thumbs up. This, Mia understands — even at fourteen — is exactly the wrong lesson for a bus full of freshmen to learn. Later, on the way back to Colorado, the bus stops unexpectedly in Cheyenne during a manic snowstorm, and after a gripping internal debate she lets Marshall Knicks into her hotel room, and how thrilled and breathless and confused she was when most everything hurt. Then, a week later, swinging back and forth in her snowy neighborhood park, with Camila listening intently to her sex story and nodding along because she understood — how Mia never thought she had to say, “Don’t tell anyone.”

They drive into her dark neighborhood, then down her street. Mia sizes up the Burton home, the house lit perfectly so night passersby can appreciate the trimmed hedges and clean brick. Mia’s home is dark, and as they pull into the driveway she thinks she will invite him in, but she hears herself say, “Thanks, Wolfman. We’ll catch up some other time.”

She smiles.

“’Night,” he says. “Just know you’re breaking my heart.”

“It’s not your heart.”

Alone, Mia turns on the kitchen light and sits on her worn barstool, second from the left. She checks her phone, but there are no messages. She’s tired, and the house is a sauna. When she opens the fridge to cull some leftover mushroom pizza, she spots a sixer of Dogfish, her father’s favorite, but she leaves the beer. She opens the living room windows, plops down, and catches the last half of The Princess Bride.

Surprised that she hasn’t seen Camila, for a moment she doubts her judgment about the Burtons’ being a sanctuary; maybe Camila is wandering the streets right now, lonely and scared, walking in the empty golf course down the road. Mia stares at the Burtons’, at the light reflecting off the silver basement window wells. She’s there. Mia closes her eyes and puts Camila in her parents’ bedroom, betraying her, telling them about Yellowstone, the hotel in Cheyenne, and then she remembers Raul’s suggestion. Not up for a big production, she simply walks to the front door and locks the deadbolt and handle, and does the same to the side and back doors. She closes the windows. A minor deterrence, perhaps, but Camila never has her keys on her.

Mia turns off her phone and turns off the lights. She guesses that Camila will wake her up with some knocking, then pounding, maybe some cursing, and then, sooner or later, she will leave, and they can go at it tomorrow. It may get ugly, and maybe it should.

Years later Mia will regret none of this. Not locking the doors and windows nor the vicious fistfight she’ll win the following morning. She will not regret leaving home halfway through her senior year to live with soft-spoken Aunt Kathy in Aztec, New Mexico, or having a daughter at eighteen — she knew it would be a girl — or raising the child on her own, telling her daughter everything she promised herself she would. In fact, most days she will wish she had burned down the house that night, or at least threatened the fire. Her parents will continue to lose themselves in the bottles they move from the kitchen cabinets and scatter about the house — beneath their bed, in the bathroom vanity, the glove compartment, boxes of Christmas decorations, the outdoor grill. They will not call or write after Mia’s daughter is born. After a year working checkout at the local CVS, Camila will skip the army and join the air force, hoping for desk job but receiving a wrench-turning gig on helicopters, and she will carry the cheek scar Mia gouges into her skin during the morning tussle after the lockout. Six months after the birth of her daughter, Mia will move, because her aunt’s new boyfriend pushes Kathy around the house on paydays. When Mia sends an urgent letter, then dials a desperate midnight call from Shiprock asking for money for herself and her infant child, for rent, for clothes, for anything, Camila will say that she has none to give. Mia will plead, and Camila will ask if Mia is proud of her choices. Camila will ask if Mia has called their parents. Camila will ask if Mia has gone to a homeless shelter, and when Mia says no, Camila will say, “You’re not desperate enough,” and hang up.

Mia settles in Cortez, Colorado, working as a teller at First National Bank. The high-desert town plays host to a variety of tourists, mainly folks in the summer months who need a place to stay while exploring the ruins at Mesa Verde National Park or heading down for photos at Four Corners. In this rural and self-reliant community filled with ranchers and trucks and people planning on never moving again, Mia rents a narrow two-bedroom apartment, and after twelve years of upkeep, of weekly vacuuming and watching her daughter grow, the humble place now feels like her own. Most of her bank customers smile and gossip with her as she takes, and sometimes retrieves, their money. They call her “Me,” and at thirty she still notices and appreciates the local men sizing her up as she counts out their cash one bill at a time on the blue counter. She has tried to date, though prospects are limited, but she has her eye on a stocky policeman named Kevin who skips the outside ATM and nervously lingers when making cash withdrawals from Mia’s station.

Mia’s daughter, Taylor, has the face of a young Camila and already has two inches on Mia. With her long, not-quite-under-control frame, Taylor navigates the seventh-grade hallways uneasily but challenges her teachers daily with a sunny curiosity that amazes Mia, who has not set or demanded superior performance. While Taylor brings home top grades, Mia rarely sees her study, but sometimes Mia returns home and discovers her at the tiny kitchen table, drawing, Journey softly playing from an old stereo. It is one of the few ancient CDs Mia owns, and surprisingly, Taylor has never asked her for music of her own, so Mia listens and notes how her favorites become Taylor’s favorites. They share a favorite book (Jacob Have I Loved), the way they relax on the couch (lean back with one leg over the armrest), nervous tic (right earlobe pinch), how they want to be held (tightly, pinning their ears over the holder’s heart). Theirs is an emotionally stout bond, and while their relationship is about caring and friendship and soccer games and piano lessons Mia barely affords, it’s also about the occasional biting argument: the evening Mia learns that Taylor has cheated on multiple tests, the mustached ninth grader who leaves hickeys on her daughter’s neck, and the incredible fragility of one-deep dependency.

Mia receives rare updates about her parents and sister from Aunt Kathy down in Aztec but makes no effort to contact them. Last she heard, her dad was trying a risky surgery on his back and Camila was stationed on an island off Japan, but that was some time ago, so it’s with genuine astonishment that she returns home on a warm April afternoon and finds Taylor sitting in the apartment with Camila. For a full minute Mia has no words, just images: Camila, alive, present, hair pulled back, odd, puffy cheeks, the scar, a blue T-shirt with Independence in white letters, jeans, on my couch, in my apartment, in Cortez, right now. Mia looks over at Taylor, who touches her own cheek and gives a negative swivel of her head, which Mia doesn’t know how to interpret.

“She looks like I did,” Camila says with confident energy. She smiles, and her scar curls.

Mia debates saying “Get out,” but she hears herself say, “Japan. How is Japan?” She wishes her voice were stronger.

“I don’t live in Japan, Mia. In fact, I’m in the middle of a move.”

“That’s good.”

Camila stands, and her comfort in the space already unnerves Mia.

“Should we hug?” Camila asks, but she keeps her arms at her sides. “Are you glad I’m here?”

“I don’t know why you’re here.”

“Repentance, Mia. There’s a lot to repent for.”

Mia stands by the closed door. She tilts her head and folds her arms.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“How about introducing me to your daughter?”

“How long have you been here? How long have you been in my home?” To Taylor: “How long has she been here?”

“Aunt Camila’s been here about twenty minutes.”

“Aunt Camila?”

“That’s my name, Mia.”

“No. Your name is Camila.”

“I’m here to ask for forgiveness.”

“Give me a minute.”

“Why don’t you sit down?”

“You’re telling me to sit in my own home?”

“I’m not telling, Mia.”

“Stop saying my name.”

Mia tries to compose herself. She sets her purse down on the wooden console and runs her right hand down her left arm. She asks Taylor to give them some time, and Taylor nods and heads for the door, but before she gets to the threshold Camila speaks.

“I want her to hear what I have to say.”

Taylor pauses.

“Give us a minute,” Mia says, and her daughter exits.

To Camila, shaking: “My God. I don’t know why you’re here. What do you need?” Pointing: “You don’t come here and talk to me and my daughter like you control anything.” Stepping forward: “You have something to say? Say it right now. You have ten minutes. I’m here. Go. And sit the hell down. Now. And when your time is up you will leave my home.”

“That’s fair.”

“I make the rules.”

Camila sits, and her confident aura dissolves into the sofa beneath her. She folds her hands in her lap and her chin quivers, and she cries. Mia commands herself to stay put, five feet from the sofa, standing, staring, in charge, but in her sister’s contorted face Mia recognizes profound fear, and it’s too much to take in so she moves to the kitchen for a paper towel. Mia inhales, tears off the towel, walks back, and hands Camila her makeshift Kleenex. While wiping clumsily at her face Camila pours out apologies in choppy fragments, first for telling their mom about Mia’s Yellowstone encounter, then for the fistfight, then for the “You’re not desperate enough” phone call, for not visiting, for not acting like an older sister, like an aunt, and she unloads her wreckage with startling acuity, recalls events years past, minor squabbles, meaningless slights, things Mia has forgotten or misremembered, and Camila sobs and trembles. Then: “I got a guy after me.”

Mia dredges up her dire call to Camila from a dirty pay phone in Shiprock, how later that night she had to beg a female bartender with pink hair tending an empty room to let her and her daughter sleep on the sticky, carpeted stage. It disgusts her that Taylor and Camila were here alone. Mia looks around the room, at her modest, sane life, and finds the resolve to say, “Two minutes left.”

A backfire or a firework or a gunshot sounds in the distance. Camila’s eyes focus and her face changes in a way that alarms Mia. She thinks of the baseball bat she keeps by the refrigerator. A minute has passed, but Mia will not continue the countdown.

“I need help,” Camila says. “Do you think I’d be here if I didn’t need help?”

“I think it’s time for you to go.” Mia strides toward the kitchen. “Now.”

“I need a thousand dollars or I’m dead.”

“Why?” Mia takes another step toward the refrigerator. Her right foot touches linoleum.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“Five hundred will do it. You gonna make me beg?”

A rustle on the porch, and the door opens. Taylor asks, “May I come in?”

“This is your home, honey. Camila was leaving.”

Camila rises, shoulders down, but she lifts her chin.

“You like this, don’t you? You like it that I finally need something. You’re pathetic. And I know in your mind you think we’re even. I didn’t help you, you don’t help me. Genius.”

Mia crosses the room to Camila’s side. She has yet to touch her, but she considers placing her hand on Camila’s back, pushing her just enough so she takes her first step away, and then Mia notices a little stream of blood coming from Camila’s right nostril. She clears it with a sniff. Taylor sneaks past them.

“She looks like I did,” Camila says. “It’s true.”

“I’m going to give you forty dollars. It’s for a bus ticket. Go anywhere. Don’t come back.”

Mia reaches into her purse, removes four crisp ten-dollar bills, hands them to Camila, and opens the door. There is enough light in the day to see the new growth on the ash trees across the street.

“I meant what I said,” Camila says. “I’ve done wrong to you. You think I don’t mean it, but I do. I’m not this person.”

“That’s not true. We’re only what we’ve been. What you want to be means nothing.”

After Mia closes the door Taylor rushes to the window to watch her aunt walk away, and she sees Camila turn right, away from the bus station, and disappear into the dusk.

A week after Camila’s intrusion, Mia drives to the western edge of town, to the community college, and signs up for classes. She hasn’t thought the school thing all the way through, but she remembers her father telling her that one of the best things parents can do for their children is have homework of their own. His theory went that if your kids saw you studying, they would internalize the importance of the act, and Mia did observe her father and mother reading, almost every night, even if it was the comics, and yet it’s only now that she appreciates their attempt to set a positive example. It certainly didn’t stick in high school. Mia also remembers seeing her parents with alcohol every night, but somehow her father left that out of his do-as-I-do mantra.

Kevin the cop stops in the bank and Mia informs him about her college venture, and he grins and offers to take a class with her. Even though they’ve been on two dates that have gone well, she neither declines nor accepts his offer, which he interprets as an invitation. He has a degree in interdisciplinary studies from Adams State over in Alamosa, where he was raised, but Mia won’t know this until later.

Mia starts with an English night class. As she walks into the aged classroom with poorly erased blackboards, she eyes the people scattered throughout the room. The scene isn’t what she pictured when she thought of the word college: a couple of high schoolers in the front row in khakis (trying to get a jump on college credit), a rancher in a brown, wide-brimmed hat (he will not say four words all semester), three Hispanics spouting lightning-quick Spanish and laughing loudly (two will turn out to be brilliant), a few fiftyish women fidgeting with their already bought books, five white college-aged kids, Kevin (seated next to her, wearing too much cologne), and her.

Mrs. Kelley, the instructor, is about Mia’s age, slightly hunched and heavy, with a cheerful face locked in a smile. Her accent is hard to place, but Mia is sure it is east of the Mississippi. Immediately Mia likes her, and that first night when they introduce themselves, Mrs. Kelley asks them to name their favorite book—“Even,” she says, “if you haven’t had time to finish it all the way.” From the high schoolers: Othello, Brave New World. One of them reconsiders: “1984. Well, any dystopia.”

“Thank you, sweetie,” says Mrs. Kelley, with a raise of her eyebrows to acknowledge their zeal. The rest of the room names their favorite books, and besides the Bible — three times — Mia doesn’t recognize the titles. Mrs. Kelley calls everyone “sweetie,” and this will be the one thing that irks Mia. She’s no one’s sweetie, especially not of a woman of like age, regardless of education. When it’s Kevin’s turn he says, “Slaughterhouse-Five,” and glances over at Mia for approval, but Mia is already saying her book title before Mrs. Kelley’s “sweetie.”

“Jacob Have I Loved,” Mia says, and Mrs. Kelley smiles.

“Thank you, sweetie,” Mrs. Kelley says, but before she can move on — before Mia can pinch her right ear to ease the nerves — from the front of the room, barely audible but there, loud enough for most to hear, a teenager’s voice: “A kid’s book? I read that in seventh grade.” Sarcastic laughter arises among the small group of high schoolers. “Sixth grade,” a girl says, looking back at Mia.

A void builds; the laughter grows, then stops abruptly. The teenagers — decent local kids, but immature — feel the initial pings of awkwardness, and everyone glances at Mia for her reaction, but all they see is her open mouth, her pink face, her confidence edging toward defeat. Kevin rises from his seat, but before he steps forward Mrs. Kelley points at the kids.

“Not again. You hear me?” She steps close. “You do anything like that again and you’re gone.”

“Not my worst first class,” Mrs. Kelley says after class has ended and only Mia and Kevin remain. She forces a laugh. “No knives this time.” She smiles. “If we were in Denver, those kids would come after me.” Another smile. To Mia, “Sweetie, I love that book. I miss the open water and fish for breakfast.”

Mia will never forget that night or the night after, when she lets Kevin kiss her in his patrol car outside her apartment. He’s supposed to be making rounds, but it’s a slow Tuesday night, so he escorts Mia to the Dairy Queen for ice cream and drives her back to her apartment, but instead of leaving he tells her about his four years in the Marines, pushing paper at Pendleton, his degree, and his ex-wife in Alamosa, and, surprising to Mia, admits fault with his ex. He describes his pastor father: honest, harsh, and proud. How he himself has never been east of Kansas City, how he has hidden an unpredictable but severe ringing in his right ear — caused by a kick to the head in basic training — from his boss. Mia tells him about her family, her rush to leave Castle Rock, about meeting her daughter’s father while he worked on a paving project outside Aztec, about his disappearing a week after she told him she was pregnant. Kevin leans over and they both go silent, and Mia closes her eyes and plugs into the energy of anxious desire. His police radio interrupts them with numbers and codes that Kevin pauses to hear, then says can wait.

Later that night, still high from Kevin and his gentle hands, she hauls out the trash and dumps the plastic bag into the dumpster under their streetlight. The bag tears open, and while Mia glances at the exposed contents, something catches her eye. She looks closer and spies small clumps of bloodstained toilet paper among the dirty plastic and crushed cereal box. Soon it will all seem too obvious to Mia, but as she walks the forty steps back to her apartment she can’t wrap her mind around the sight. She wonders if Taylor accidentally caught herself on something sharp — Mia imagines a broken glass and a slit index finger. She enters her place and Taylor leaves the bathroom, Band-Aidless, in her bathrobe. The truth rushes to Mia. She’d always imagined a Safeway moment, with her daughter running to her, asking for advice and comfort and celebration. Taylor walks across the brown carpet towel drying her hair and Mia thinks, This might not be her first period. Mia strides to her daughter, intercepting her before she reaches her bedroom, and hugs her tight.

“I like him,” Taylor says. “I’ll say yes if you want to marry him.”

Mia feels absorbed into Taylor’s arms.

“You won’t lose me,” Taylor says. “Mom?”

Mia has her head glued to her taller daughter’s chest. She notices a half-dollar-sized hickey above Taylor’s collarbone.

“Mom? He’s good for us.”

Mia doesn’t say, “Tell me everything”; she doesn’t ask, “Is this your first period?” She will bring the topic up a month later, and they’ll sit on Taylor’s twin bed and Mia will remind her never to be ashamed of her body, to try to be patient with her boyfriend. Mia will learn that Taylor started her period five months earlier, and at that moment she will wonder what she has done wrong, what would cause her daughter not to tell her, but tonight, in her living room, she smells the strawberry-scented body lotion on her twelve-year-old and slides a step back and says, “Thanks, honey,” and watches Taylor nod, then enter her bedroom and close the door.

During the day Mia works her teller slot and turns her head at the sound of “Me,” and she pushes through the rough days and helps tourists with directions to Four Corners, reminding them that it costs ten dollars to spread-eagle into four states and the Navajos prefer cash. Most nights Mia and Taylor study at their kitchen table, Mia pushing through math, history, and science courses, Taylor drawing or daydreaming or waiting for her phone to ring. They put on their Journey and hit Repeat, and although they concentrate on their separate worlds, they always sit next to each other, each offering an occasional leg bump to keep the other awake. Some nights Kevin comes over, even though he’s stopped taking classes, and he helps Mia with her math problems or tries to spark discussion with Taylor, who occasionally engages. While Kevin’s flaws appear — he always answers his ex-wife’s calls, he keeps a messy home and cusses too vehemently at the television when the Broncos or Avalanche lose — he hits the major checklist items: patient, knows how Mia likes to be held and touched, light drinker, good worker, educated, and takes to Taylor like a caring but not over-authoritative father. Still, even with Taylor’s blessing, Mia is conflicted about marriage. She can’t imagine — no matter how close she and Kevin get — a permanent addition to her and Taylor’s life. She’s content with companionship without the ring.

The night of community college graduation, Aunt Kathy drives up from Aztec. She brings Mia a massive white rose corsage and informs her that she’s single now and happy.

When Mia’s name is announced in the cramped auditorium, her legs go numb and she sees Mrs. Kelley tearing up and hears Kevin and Taylor scream out — it’s been so long since someone has clapped for her that the noise overwhelms her — and as she leaves the stage with the paper diploma and hugs Taylor, Mia remembers her as a newborn with a misshapen head and purple eyelids, and herself at eighteen, ignorant and somehow perfectly content to go at motherhood alone, resigning herself to hard work and modest living, and now, she realizes, she’s done something right. And not in a small way: she has raised a healthy, cheering daughter, and she has earned a diploma that says she finished something she never thought she would start.

Before she leaves the auditorium, her aunt hands her a letter.

“From your parents,” she says. “Please don’t be mad, but I’ve been keeping them up to date.”

Later that night she opens the letter. It’s her father’s handwriting.

Mia,

Mom and I are so very proud of you. It’s impossible for me to tell you how much. You are a great example for Taylor. Aunt Kathy tells us of your success, how Taylor is the smartest and most beautiful girl in the county. I should have written this letter years ago. You are always welcome here. You are wanted here. Things are different from what you remember. Better. Much better. There’s not a right or appropriate way to say we’re sorry. We regret a lot. We also remember our greatest joys are when we had you close. What I’m trying to say is that I can understand why you’d be angry. Rightfully so, Mia, but I hope the time will come when you will let us back into your life. You need to know your mother isn’t well. I don’t want to say too much, only that she may not have long to live and I wanted you to know. Her health has me thinking a lot about my life, about our family. Things I’d change and things I wouldn’t. Mia, I know it was tough for you that I was gone when you were young. I’d like to think that my time away was worth it somehow, but I’m not sure I’ll ever get there. I used to think that my choices weren’t about loyalties. That’s what I’d tell myself, but I know that’s not true. There are only choices, and I chose a job that took me away from you, your mother, and your sister, even after the accident. I don’t know what that says about me, or the old me, but I want you to know there was an honest belief in what I was doing. It may not make sense to me now, but it did then. Mia, that may not make it any easier for you, but it is what keeps me from heading back to some dark places. I don’t know if I ever was a soldier or a father. With every day that passes I feel I know myself less.

Mia, your mother and I are back at church and it’s helping in the ways we’ve needed for a long time. I am more like my father than I care to admit, and I hope that in moments of happiness you find some connection to me or your mother.

Mia, this is the most important part — we love you. Please, when the time is right for you and Taylor, please come and visit.

Dad

One summer, a couple months after Mia hears that her mother has died, she decides to drive east across the state with sixteen-year-old Taylor to visit her father during Fourth of July weekend.

When Mia tells Kevin about the trip, he asks to come along — he expects to, as they’ve been together four years — but Mia tells him no, and after a couple days of pouting he comes around to the idea and helps them pack their Honda.

Mia and Taylor leave on a Saturday, and an hour out of Cortez, Mia chooses to take a back way, and when they arrive in Woodland Park, she turns the car north on Highway 67 toward Deckers.

Taylor has been unusually silent, so Mia puts on some country music and daydreams about her father, but all that comes to her is his wheelchair, memories of a green army uniform with shiny pins, and disappointing departures.

Their route soon takes them along a small roadside stream. Mia remembers this place, and she tells Taylor about coming up here, describing the time she saw a bear, then the rock dam, and something moves in her, and she slows down at every turnoff, searching for her pile of rocks, her ninety-percent dam, but after a number of frustrating slowdowns and pull-offs, she keeps the car on the pavement, and she asks her quiet daughter what two things she would grab from a burning house, and Taylor takes a breath, then brings her hands to her face.

Before Taylor can answer, Mia considers her own response, imagines their Cortez apartment on fire, the two-room place alight, and she watches herself rush into the home to save Taylor, but when she enters, the place is empty, only fire and smoke.

Mia hears Taylor’s voice, hears the words I’m pregnant, but nothing happens for a while, just the mountain road in front of them, leading them both to a place and a father Mia used to know.