Hand in hand, Erin led Mia to a long green van that waited at the curb. A burly young man leaned against the passenger door. From his stout face, wide nose, and scattered brown freckles, Mia figured he was more than Erin’s associate. They were siblings, possibly twins.
The Salgado brother gawked at Mia’s wretched state. “Jesus. Where are these people coming from?”
Erin narrowed her eyes at him. “Start the engine. And get me the soapsheets.”
She opened the rear doors and helped Mia inside. A pair of long cushioned rows lined each side of the van. In the center of the left seat, a tall and skinny young woman hunched forward, either unaware or unconcerned about her new company. Erin studied her cautiously.
“You doing all right there?”
The woman offered a meager shrug without budging her gaze from the floor.
“Well, let me know if you change your mind about that epallay,” said Erin.
“Who is that?” Mia asked.
“Someone like you. She also had a bad morning. But she’ll be all right. You both will.”
Mia took a seat on the right side, near the back doors. Eric Salgado opened the gate from the driver’s seat and rolled a fat plastic cylinder down the length of the van. Erin popped it open, producing a small wet cloth that smelled like bubble bath. She dabbed it at Mia’s face.
“We have to get moving, so I’ll let you do the rest. No need to be thorough. There’s a hot shower waiting for you in Terra Vista.”
“Okay . . .”
“If you need anything else—a blanket, some juice, a baby spot—just yell, all right?”
“Thank you.” Baby spot?
Erin closed the back doors and rejoined her brother. As the van pulled away, Mia meekly dabbed her skin with the soapsheet and took a moment to examine the stranger in the other seat. She was an enviably lithe woman in a scuffed white blouse and jeans. Her left wrist was wrapped in a makeshift splint and splayed out on a folded pink jacket on her lap.
Mia’s large eyes popped at the sight of her other wrist.
“Uh, excuse me . . .”
The stranger looked up. Mia could see that the woman was at least twice her age. She’d certainly be pretty under normal circumstances, but now her face was marred with grief and trauma. Her stare was dull. Lifeless.
“I’m sorry,” Mia said. “I just noticed that you have a silver bracelet like mine. I don’t . . . I don’t know how I got this thing. Do you know how you got yours?”
The woman studied Mia through hanging wisps of red hair. She took a good long time before answering.
“No.”
She gazed down at her feet again and was quiet for the rest of the ride. But Amanda felt hot stabs of guilt all throughout her psyche. In the span of an hour, she’d lost her mind and broken her wrist. And now she’d just lied to an orphan.
FIVE
She’d stepped outside the office for a much-needed cigarette. There in the alley, among the puddles and flies, Amanda blew tense puffs of smoke at her sneakers while the near and distant sirens of emergency vehicles shrieked from every corner of the neighborhood. She didn’t care about the world’s problems at the moment. She had a sister who didn’t want her there, a job that didn’t fulfill her, and a festering sickness in her marriage that had become all but terminal.
She fumbled with her necklace, pressing the golden crucifix to her collarbone like an intercom button. Her Lord wasted no time responding, though He only confirmed what Amanda already knew. She couldn’t run from her issues, no matter how much she wanted to. Dramatic exits were for actresses. Nurses worked to mend what was broken.
By the end of her cigarette, Amanda formulated a shaky plan to heal her life, a lofty to-do list that included everything from counseling to Zoloft to a second stab at medical school. The new resolve did little to soothe her anxiety. Her left hand itched like she had spiders on her skin and she felt an odd sense of spatial unease, as if something huge and heavy dangled high above her.
The echoey clops of wooden heels filled her senses, growing louder with each merry step. Amanda looked up and down the alley but couldn’t see anyone. She peeked behind the dumpsters on the slim chance they obscured the approach of a very short woman. Nothing.
The footsteps came to a stop. Amanda turned around and gasped at the pale and smiling creature who leaned against the wall, a mere ten feet away. She wasn’t short at all.
“Hello, child.”
She had a young girl’s voice to go with her young girl’s figure, and her curly brown locks were tied in a young girl’s ponytail. But the faint lines around her eyes betrayed her as a woman of middle age. Her patterned beige sundress flaunted every contour of her slender frame.
The moment Amanda looked into her coal-black irises, an emergency barrier sprang up in her mind. She refused to find the woman familiar.
The stranger launched from the wall and walked a casual circle around Amanda. “Look at you, my pretty rose. How tall you’ve grown. How red. Did I foresee this? I believe I did, though now I spy you black in many futures. The color doesn’t suit you.”