The Nowhere Girls(103)

But that doesn’t matter right now. Cheyenne is looking at the girls from inside her mother’s arms. She mouths, “Thank you.” And for a brief moment Rosina has an unfamiliar sense, not quite a thought but not quite a feeling, a sudden burst of clarity, of certainty—it’s going to be okay. Is this what Grace’s faith feels like? Does she feel it all the time? Is this how she knows God exists?

Cheyenne’s mother lets go. She follows the sheriff into his office without ever acknowledging the three girls sitting in the waiting area.

Cheyenne stays back a moment before going with them. “You can go home now,” she says. “I think we’ve got it from here.”

The girls don’t move.

“Really, you guys,” she says. “I’m going to be okay.”

“You have our numbers,” Grace says. “You’ll call us?”

“Of course,” she says. “And you’ll call me.”

“I won’t call you,” Erin says. “I don’t like talking on the phone. But I will text you.”

“Okay.” Cheyenne smiles.

“Cheyenne,” her mom calls from inside the office. “Honey, are you ready?”

Cheyenne waves at the girls, turns around, and closes the door behind her.

Rosina can hear Grace taking deep breaths next to her.

“Grace,” Rosina snaps. “Stop breathing so loud.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m hungry,” Erin says.

“I guess it’s time to go home,” Grace says. She and Erin start heading out the door, but Rosina can’t move her feet. She can’t stop staring at the office door. The feeling she had a moment ago disappeared as soon as the door closed behind Cheyenne, as soon as Rosina realized it was time to go back to her own life.

“She’s going to be okay,” Erin says, pulling at the hem of Rosina’s shirt. “Let’s go.”

But it’s not Cheyenne who Rosina is worried about.





US.


In the almost hour it takes to drive back to Prescott, no one speaks. Grace, Erin, and Rosina look out the windows, each of their views slightly different. The setting sun will be dipping into the ocean soon, a hundred miles or so to the west. The light fades from the sky without fanfare, as if it is any other evening.

It is dusk when they pull up in front of Erin’s house. No one is surprised to see the police car parked in front.

“What are you going to tell them?” Rosina says. “We have to make sure our stories match.”

“The truth,” Erin says. “What else is there?”

Spot greets Erin as soon as she enters the house, circling her ankles, sniffing her, licking her fingertips, all of his usual magic tools of assessment. Mom is sitting on the couch, stunned and red eyed, across from a nervous cop who looks barely older than Erin. Mom jumps up and lunges forward, then stops herself just short of tackling her daughter in a full embrace. She knows she cannot hold her, cannot be held, so instead she breaks into tears. She stands there, an arm’s reach away from Erin, sobbing so hard her shoulders shake.

“What happened?” Mom cries. “I don’t understand how this could happen. I thought things were getting better. I thought you were better.” Spot leaves Erin’s ankles and rubs up against her mother’s. “I tried so hard to take care of you. I try so hard. But I failed you. I let this happen. If I had just—”

Erin reaches out and touches Mom’s shoulder. “Don’t be scared, Mom,” she says. “I’m not.”

As soon as Erin pulls her hand back, Mom reaches up to her own shoulder, touching the vacant space. She sniffles a few times, as if surprised by her sudden absence of tears.

“They want you to go to the station now,” Mom says, wiping her eyes.

“Then let’s go,” Erin says.

“Shouldn’t we wait for your dad to get home?”

“No,” Erin says calmly. “We’re fine without him. We’ve been fine without him.”

“But—”

“Mom, we don’t need him.”

Erin does not meet her mother’s eyes, but she doesn’t have to. Mom studies the surprising stillness of her daughter’s face, her own face a mix of alarm and confusion and fierce, unnamable love, as if she doesn’t recognize the young woman standing in front of her, like she is seeing her, hearing her, for the first time.

“We don’t need him,” Erin says again.

Erin looks up and studies the tense shock on her mother’s face, then the gradual softening as Mom seems to realize what Erin’s saying, as maybe she lets a little of it in, as she tastes the tiniest hint of something that could turn into freedom.

Meanwhile, in front of Rosina’s house, the lights of the police car are spinning, painting the block in colors that almost seem festive. A handful of people from the neighborhood mill around, waiting for something to happen.

“Jesus,” Rosina says. “I should charge admission.”

“Are you going to be okay?” Grace asks.

“I don’t know.” All Rosina knows is, she can’t spend the rest of her life avoiding her mother’s phone calls. She can’t keep running away from the inevitable. She can’t stop time. Whatever ends up happening may not be fair. It may not be right, or just, or the way things should be, but it is reality. It is Rosina’s reality. It will be her reality until she figures out how to change it. But one thing Rosina knows for sure is that running away is not change. She steps out of the car and braces for whatever is about to come.