Like wet cottonwood leaves. I get past the dirt driveway and onto the paved county road and ride and ride and ride. I pedal alongside the moonlit fields of NoWhere, Colorado. A dead skunk in the road, the smell sweeping with me for a good long time. A flattened snake. Cattle that look up to regard me silently in the moonlight. Fields of green winter wheat, just getting tall and growing at this odd time of year. Past dry pastureland, a lone horse standing at the V of a fence. Puddles glisten in the road from time to time, and the bikeâs tires slosh through. But to the side, where there is earth, the skin of the earth, the water has been absorbed, seeping into the rockbones underneath, the rockbone of the moon above.
It is all one blur, one motion, one dance, all singing. Our one big quest is simply this: Who is going to love me?
Maybe I do love the moon, the rockbones, the spine of the earth.
Perhaps I do love Alejandra and Slade and Libby and Amber.
Itâs possible I notice small things, such as the way Ed walks like heâs hearing some kind of cakewalk music.
The way Slade pulls me into his chest, whispers kind things in my ear.
Maybe I love even Tess and will be sorry to see her go.
A sudden rise of choking fear. I canât breathe. I stop the bike and look around. Iâm lost. The landscape is so big. I stand with my legs spread over the bike, steadying myself. Close my eyes. Lean over and throw up the dinner. One spasm, two, three. Gasp for sagesweet, smoky air.
I close my eyes and focus, draw a map of lines in the darkness of my brain. The direction of the mountains, the direction of Lamar, the school, the road to Libbyâs house, the road to the old house we grew upin, the road to the place Baxter lived, which is where Kay will be now. I need a compass. I need my instinct. East-then-south. Heartpounder, gutwrencher. Breathe, Tess, breathe, donât go flying off into the stars.
                IN THE BEGINNING, Tess was oblivious.
                Tess knew that women gringa drivers were less suspicious.
                Tess was in high demand.
                Tess supposed she knew about how humans get packed between hay bales on semi-trucks, frozen in refrigerated trucks, that people die of heat and thirst in the desert.
                But she never saw a woman and a baby and a dream
                cut to the bone like that.
                How many men-in-ties
                suddenly realize their culpability?
                Women in dress suits?
                Bankers? Politicians? People in board meetings and people in elevators and people screaming at kids?
                How many ways are there to be culpable?
                How many people brought that woman to her knees?
                The details are stuck on Tessâs tongue.
                Theyâll never come out.
Chapter Nine
The bike wheels snap gravel as I turn into the driveway to Baxterâs farmhouse. I get off the bike, stagger, catch my balance, look to the stars, stunned by cold, stunned my directions were right, stunned that the house still sits, stunned that it looks like the same old whitebox-farmhouse, stunned by the way it glows in the moonlight, stunned by the light coming from one window, stunned by the familiar
It is all one blur, one motion, one dance, all singing. Our one big quest is simply this: Who is going to love me?
Maybe I do love the moon, the rockbones, the spine of the earth.
Perhaps I do love Alejandra and Slade and Libby and Amber.
Itâs possible I notice small things, such as the way Ed walks like heâs hearing some kind of cakewalk music.
The way Slade pulls me into his chest, whispers kind things in my ear.
Maybe I love even Tess and will be sorry to see her go.
A sudden rise of choking fear. I canât breathe. I stop the bike and look around. Iâm lost. The landscape is so big. I stand with my legs spread over the bike, steadying myself. Close my eyes. Lean over and throw up the dinner. One spasm, two, three. Gasp for sagesweet, smoky air.
I close my eyes and focus, draw a map of lines in the darkness of my brain. The direction of the mountains, the direction of Lamar, the school, the road to Libbyâs house, the road to the old house we grew upin, the road to the place Baxter lived, which is where Kay will be now. I need a compass. I need my instinct. East-then-south. Heartpounder, gutwrencher. Breathe, Tess, breathe, donât go flying off into the stars.
                IN THE BEGINNING, Tess was oblivious.
                Tess knew that women gringa drivers were less suspicious.
                Tess was in high demand.
                Tess supposed she knew about how humans get packed between hay bales on semi-trucks, frozen in refrigerated trucks, that people die of heat and thirst in the desert.
                But she never saw a woman and a baby and a dream
                cut to the bone like that.
                How many men-in-ties
                suddenly realize their culpability?
                Women in dress suits?
                Bankers? Politicians? People in board meetings and people in elevators and people screaming at kids?
                How many ways are there to be culpable?
                How many people brought that woman to her knees?
                The details are stuck on Tessâs tongue.
                Theyâll never come out.
Chapter Nine
The bike wheels snap gravel as I turn into the driveway to Baxterâs farmhouse. I get off the bike, stagger, catch my balance, look to the stars, stunned by cold, stunned my directions were right, stunned that the house still sits, stunned that it looks like the same old whitebox-farmhouse, stunned by the way it glows in the moonlight, stunned by the light coming from one window, stunned by the familiar
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