Pastor Nate is still waiting when Aura curbs the car next to Opal’s mailbox, crouched into a hunter’s squat in his orange-knit beanie and dark woolen overcoat and smoking, if you can believe it, on her grandmother’s front porch. It’s early enough that even the roosters haven’t started crowing, an icy drizzle spittling her windshield, so Aura blazes the high beams but leaves the engine running. Nate assumes his full height, makes a show of trampling the cigarette, and walks stiffly over to let himself into Aura’s passenger-side door.
“I’m sorry it took so long to get here,” Aura says. “I just got your message.”
“She finally went down.” Nate extends both palms to rub his fingers before the dashboard vent. “You ought to be there when she wakes up.”
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
“I think you did that the other night.”
Aura kills the headlights and cranks the heater, ignoring this, not ready to go there. “What set her off?”
Nate takes a business card from his pocket and slides it across the seat. It reads:
Ethan Podesta
Investigator
Oklahoma County Public Defender’s Office
Aura gasps. Nate is bleeding from four parallel gashes cat-scratched into his cheek. She reaches out to touch the wound but he shies away.
“Grams did that?”
“She thought I was your brother. You two should talk about that, by the way. About him.”
“I know.”
“What if I’m not around next time, Aura? Someone could get hurt. Opal could.”
“I know.”
“Decisions like this don’t come easy. But like it or not, it’s time this one was made. Opal needs a full-time caregiver. And soon.”
“Let me give you a ride home at least.”
“It’s only a few blocks. The walk will get the blood flowing.” He slaps his cheeks, goes startle-eyed, shakes himself awake. “It’s almost time for my first pot of coffee, anyhow.”
“Thank you. Again. Thank you.”
Nate smiles. “Eventually we’re going to talk about the other night.”
“I know.”
“It was beautiful, Aura. A pure and uncorrupted thing.”
“I know.”
Inside, Opal is snugged under a homemade quilt on the couch, her breath heavy with sleep. A broom and dustpan in the kitchen, several broken dishes in the wastebasket; looks like Nate tried to clean up after the confusion. Aura sighs into the armchair and waits for her grandmother to stir. The television is on, of course, its vivid test pattern throbbing like the proud flag of some unmapped, colorblind country. A country of the future. The screen tricks Opal’s furniture out in gossamer blues and sad, saccharine pinks. She should probably turn it off, but Aura can’t summon the requisite activation energy.
“Devil take that boy,” Opal whispers. “Where’d that Carl run off to?”
“Who, Grams?”
“Carl! Your brother! He’s just here, Aura! They’s looking for him! Those policemen from the city, trying to know where he’s hiding. They want me to . . .”
“No, Grams,” Aura takes Opal’s hand. “Carl’s dead.”
“Why your hands so warm?” Opal tries to sit but Aura gentles her back to horizontal. “I won’t have that talk in my house, child. Hear me? A mistake’s been made. Case of false identification!” Grams is getting worked up again, her eyes hungering about the living room. “You’ve got to help me find Carl, Aura! You’ve got to help me protect him.”
Aura could use a little make-believe, right now, in her life. She kneels beside the couch and tucks Opal back under the quilt.
“I will Grams, just shut your eyes. We’ll find Carl in the morning. Wait till the sun comes up. Right now we need rest.”
“Promise me Aura, you’ll help me find your brother. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
Opal turns against the couch cushions, comforted, and it’s not long before her grandmother is spooned into a fetal curl and snoring lightly. Aura closes her own eyes. Time to regroup, to sleep if she can. But her worries are already working overtime from the tube-lit shadows.
Opal is losing her mind. Carl has lost his life. Aura’s lost her trust in Cecil. And she just about lost her head over Nate.
She has never been one of these moon-eyed stargazers who believed that the world should, or even could, be fair or balanced. But Aura’s been working hard and playing by the rules, as Clinton is so fond of saying, for such a very, very long time now. So why can’t fate cut her a little slack?
She swats this thought away the moment it registers. Anyway it’s the wrong question. You’re doing better than some, she thinks, worse than others. Just like everyone else you know. No wallowing.
Another day will be starting soon, sooner than she’d like it to, and the best she’s going to get before sunup is a shallow imitation of sleep.
Whatever. She’ll take it.