The late afternoon sun was too blinding, Monta Clare woodland unforgiving in its beauty. Saint aimed her camera at a distant whitetail, its foot in the air, head tilted as she fired off a shot. It waited a beat then moved on, like it knew. Above, a summer tanager watched her. Her grandmother had once told her the bird was a symbol of patience, of the universe letting you know you were being guided, your path laid long before.
And as she wound the film and strolled back through the trodden walkways, she breathed summer and felt as close to calm as she had in a long time. The bad dreams, which she told no one about, the haunt of Eli Aaron’s face, had slowly begun to fade.
She took the small roll of film from her camera.
And as she stood in line at the drugstore to deposit her film, she noticed a couple of boys standing nervously in the opposite aisle.
“Condoms.”
She turned and saw Ivy Macauley behind her. Her face gaunt, eyes red.
“Senior prom,” Ivy said, rolling her eyes at the boys, who scanned the shelves with fear in their eyes.
“It’s nice to see you,” Saint said.
Ivy reached out and gently touched her cheek. “You look the same as…I call it before. You look like the child I remember.”
Saint smiled.
“You’re going tonight?” Ivy asked.
“Yes.” Saint thought of Jimmy Walters, how he had asked another half dozen times before she finally crossed the church the Sunday before and told him yes. His mother had smiled as wide as her son.
“Joseph is going. The school said he could.”
Saint thought of Patch wearing a powder-blue dress shirt and almost smiled. Then thought of Misty on his arm. They fit. Somehow, against the longest odds, Saint would look at them and think how beautifully they fit. She told herself she could do that now.
“I can’t remember if I thanked you,” Ivy said.
“You did.”
Ivy looked into her eyes, seemed to read her but smiled it off because whatever she had said or not said had been so totally buried. “You have children, and you don’t realize that your whole becomes too big.”
“Have you seen his paintings?” Saint asked.
“I wonder where he gets it. No one in the family. I like the idea of God given.”
“I do, too.”
“Being a mother, there’s no practice for it. Just because you can do it, because you’re able, doesn’t mean you’re good at it. And if you’re not, it’s not just your life…”
They watched the boys make their selection, then the taller looked over, saw Ivy staring at him, and dropped the pack. The two hightailed it back into the street.
“Looks like someone’s getting pregnant tonight,” Saint said.
Ivy laughed and dragged a hand through her hair, bleached blonde now, the roots dark and greasy.
“They wanted to have a funeral or something. Back then. I can’t shake the memories now. Father Adams wanted to bury my boy without a body. Put an empty box in the ground so I could move on. Or maybe so he could. So he didn’t have to mention us each week, you know. Sometimes I think that’s real, and this, right now, this is the dream. Like maybe I’m dead and this is some kind of purgatory.”
They drew a couple of glances now.
“But you’re real, Saint. You brought my boy home.”
“Yeah, Ivy. He came home,” Saint said softly.
“The wait in this place,” Ivy said, her hand shaking a little. “Still can’t sleep without the pills. Goddamn nightmares come for me.”
Saint stepped aside, let Ivy go in front.
Ivy moved to the counter, and Saint tried not to listen as the girl told Ivy she could not give her any more pills. That there were no refills left on her prescription.
“Call Dr. Tooms and check,” Ivy said.
The girl told her sorry.
“I don’t need apologies, I need to fucking sleep.” Ivy grabbed the girl’s hand. “Please.”
The girl snatched her hand back as Ivy righted herself, cursed again as she walked back out into the street.
Saint gathered the papers the girl had dropped. She glanced down at the name printed across the top.
Martin Tooms. His personal prescription.
She wasn’t sure if it was curiosity, or that gut feeling never leaving her. Saint stood and scanned the pages as the girl and the pharmacist followed Ivy out to check on her. Broad spectrum antibiotics. Painkillers. Sleeping pills.
She glanced around, and then she slipped the papers into her pocket and left.
Saint waited until she was home, and she had climbed the stairs and seen the doll blue pleated hem dress hanging in her room.
And then she took the scripts from her pocket, sat on the bed, and held her breath as she checked when the refills began.
Saint checked twice.
Her blood rushed.
September ninth.
The day after Patch was taken.