These Dreams of You

~ ~ ~

Viv says something and he leans over to her, his ear in her turquoise hair. “Everyone told me to leave it alone,” he hears her mutter, “everyone told me and I wouldn’t.

Zan is furious at the email and all its vague implications. “You don’t know what’s happened,” he argues. “We don’t know that this mystery person, whoever she is, is Sheba’s mother. I mean, we can’t tell that there even is such a person.”

Viv doesn’t answer.

“All we know,” says Zan, “is that some woman he thought he was looking for and that he never found might have. . left the country, or. . ”

“. . or been thrown in jail, or worse,” she finally turns to him. Her face is red.

“The odds are she isn’t even Sheba’s mother,” but as soon as he’s said it, he knows what she’ll say.

“So? I still got an innocent woman thrown in jail. Or worse.” Every time she says “or worse,” it becomes worse.

“You don’t know that. We don’t know anything.”

She searches his eyes and whispers, “Zan, they think we bought Sheba.”