Home Before Dark by Susan Wiggs

his decision and his responsibility.”
    Lila yawned and sighed. Her lack of reaction to the situation was only a facade; Luz spotted the single tear that slid down her daughter’s cheek and bled into the padded cuff of the cervical collar. She wore her attitude like body armor.
    They drove away from the hospital in a terrible silence. Their daughter had just been involved in a trauma. She had not yet disclosed all that she had seen, heard, felt in those terrible moments. Her statement to the highway patrol consisted largely of I don’t remember and whether or not that was the truth, Luz didn’t know. What she did know was that she mothered by instinct and instinct told her that now, with the sunrise racing over the hills surrounding Edenville, was not the time for hard questions.
    Ian lacked that maternal sensibility. He was a man, a lawyer and someone who was unflinchingly honest. “Things are going to change in a big way from now on,” he said, his shadowed jaw ticking.
    â€œWe’ll talk about it when we get home, okay?” Luz’s hand shook as she pushed her hair back. Then she turned toward the back seat to find Lila with her eyes closed and mouth slack, fast asleep.
    Reaching out, she rested her hand on her daughter’s. The landscape sped by in a smear of asphalt roads and heaved-up sandstone hills, tortilla-yellow grass and blue morning sky. Roadrunners darted in and out of the hawthorn bushes and livestock gathered around salt licks put out by the ranchers. Trucks and bumblebee-colored school buses rumbled past. Cars turned into strip centers with video stores and Laundromats. For folks who hadn’t spent the past night having their lives rearranged, it was just another day in the hill country.
    â€œWhere were you last night?” she asked Ian.
    â€œWe had a late meeting with the appeals team and the unit warden working graveyard shift. We’d ordered pizza and lost track of time. Then I got your message, and had to wake Matlock up to fly me back. The tower was unmanned that time of night so he had to get some sort of clearance. I came as fast as humanly possible, Luz. You know that. But I’ve never been quick enough for you, have I?”
    â€œWhat?” She looked at him with a frown. Where had that come from?
    â€œNever mind. We’re both exhausted. Who’s staying with the boys?” Ian asked, switching gears.
    â€œWell, who do you think?” Luz figured it should be obvious. “Jessie, of course.”
    â€œI thought you might have called someone more—someone who knows the boys better.”
    â€œJessie’s right there. And she’s their aunt.”
    â€œI guess.”
    â€œBut you’re not comfortable with her being in charge.”
    He glanced in the rearview mirror. “She’s a flake. She’s always been a flake. I’m not saying she’d harm the boys, but she might get…careless.”
    â€œGive her a break, Ian. She’s not the same person she was sixteen years ago. None of us are. And in a pinch, Jessie comes through. She always has.”
    â€œName one single time she came through for you.”
    â€œShe saved my life. I never told you that, did I?”
    â€œJessie?” He lifted one eyebrow. “How much coffee have you had?”
    â€œIt’s true. It was during a winter freeze when we were kids. The stock ponds had frozen over. Folks said it was the firsttime in fifty years the ice was thick enough to skate on. So of course we had to go check it out. It took a good hour to hike through the woods to Cutter’s pond. We didn’t have proper ice skates, but we managed to slide all day in our Keds. Jessie and I were the last to leave. All the other kids had to be home before dark but…well, you know my mother. She was more likely to tell us to be home by spring.”
    Luz hitched up one leg to sit sideways, so she could watch Lila sleep. Her goal had always been