Aurora(48)

Aubrey didn’t even raise an eyebrow at that, just shifted gears like a Formula One driver. “No problem. Why don’t you go inside and put your things down? I just need to ask Scott something real quick.”

Celeste turned and looked up at Scott. He smiled and gave her an ostentatious kiss on the mouth. She went inside.

Scott spoke before Aubrey could, his tone aggressive. “She’s staying in my room with me.”

“You don’t have to get tough with me, Scott. I don’t care.”

“I went to her house to check on her. It’s shitty there. It’s always shitty there, but now it’s worse.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. How did you guys meet anyway?”

“Rusty works with her dad. Doing what, I don’t know, but her dad is an asshole. Rusty’s always over there. She can’t stay at that house. I’m not kidding.”

“I said it’s fine. She can totally stay.”

“I wasn’t asking permission.”

“For Christ’s sake, would you please stop trying to make a fight where there isn’t one? Everything’s hard enough right now.”

“What did you have to ask me?”

“Why did you tell me she’s Black?”

Scott turned and gazed into the distance thoughtfully for a long moment. Finally, he turned back. “I was trying to stimulate a productive conversation about race.”

And he went inside. He was, perhaps, the most full-of-shit person Aubrey had ever met.

She remained on the front step, watching as Scott went to Celeste, who was standing awkwardly in the living room. He put his hands on her arms and spoke softly. It was a tender gesture, reassuring without attempting to dominate, and Aubrey teared up, surprising herself. The young man, skinny as a rail and with a gangly body he hadn’t fully learned how to control, somehow had picked up the silent language of calm reassurance and was displaying a concern and tenderness she’d never seen in him before. Her eyes shifted to Celeste, who was about Scott’s age; she was a girl, not a woman, and she needed all the help she could get. Not a man to tell her what to do, none of that bullshit, but maybe, once in a while, somebody to tell her it wasn’t all on her. Someone to look after her, just a little bit.

Aubrey turned and sat down heavily on the front steps. She’d picked up the compact satellite phone from the kitchen, intending to call Thom at some point today. She pulled it out now, turned it on, and waited to see if it had a signal. It did. She picked the most recent of his fourteen unanswered calls and tapped the number.

The phone went through a funny series of clicks, rang once, and her brother’s voice answered.

“Please don’t ever do that to me again.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, and she was. “It’s been weird.”

“I worry about you. It’s debilitating.”

“I’m fine.”

“What’s it been like there?”

“Quiet today. There were a lot of sirens the first couple days, and flames in the sky almost every night.”

“Those are aurorae.”

“No, they were flames. I know what the aurorae look like. Everyone on the planet knows what they look like now. This is different. Power stations keep exploding, a guy down the street said. I don’t know, I haven’t gone out much.”

“Good. You shouldn’t. How’s Todd?”

She thought. “Scott?”

“Yeah. Rusty’s kid.”

“He’s fine. He brought a girlfriend to stay here.”

“There’s a lot of that going around,” Thom said. “Listen, there’s a guy on his way to you from me. His name is Brady. He should be there in”—she could hear the rustling of a sleeve as he made a show of checking his wristwatch—“seventeen hours.”

“Wait, who’s coming here?”

“He works for me. Former cop. I trust him implicitly.”

“Why is he coming here?”

“You have no money, Aubrey.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, I’m fine. I have money.”

“I’ve sent enough to handle whatever might come up. I want you to do what I said when I sent money before, but this time really do it. Separate it into four separate stashes and secure them around your house. OK?”

“I don’t want a pile of cash in my house.” She glanced around involuntarily, to see if anyone had overheard. There were only a couple people out, and they were too far away to notice. She lowered her voice anyway. “I mean, I appreciate it, but we just differ philosophically on this. I think twenty thousand in cash could make more problems than it solves.”

“It’s more than twenty thousand. Just take it.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I’m trying to help you, for Christ’s sake.” That came out louder than he intended, and the signal cracked in the middle of his sentence. He spoke again, softer. “But you will never fucking let me off the hook, will you?”

“Come on. Don’t go down that road.” But she could hear in his voice that he already had. She could picture him, slumped in a chair, his hand over his eyes, trying to shove the tears back inside where they came from.

“Tell me what’s going on with you,” she tried.