Nowhere Like Home

1

Lenna

October
Present day

The first troubling thing that happens when Lenna Schmidt arrives in Tucson is she nearly falls flat on her face on the Jetway. She catches herself and the baby using one of the ground transport guys' shoulders.

"Whoa," the man says, staggering backward. "You okay there, ma'am?"

"Fine, fine," Lenna mutters, her cheeks blazing. "Sorry."

"Think you frightened your little guy!" He gestures to Jacob, her five-month-old son, who has broken into a fresh round of sobs.

Lenna gives the guy a grimace-slash-smile. If only her baby were merely startled. There have been ten minutes of blissful silence since they began traveling. As Lenna walks down the ramp, her son's screams rise in volume. She can hear passengers deplaning behind her groaning. There goes that baby again.

The Tucson airport is small, with only one terminal and a few shops that are open. Lenna walks hurriedly, bouncing Jacob ineffectively and trying to convince herself that the fall and Jacob's renewed cries aren't some sort of omen that she's made the wrong choice. Just in case, she squeezes her fist five times, counting the squeezes in her head, making sure she's got it right. Then she searches the airport for something yellow. There. A bright yellow soccer jersey on that little kid. Better.

"It's okay, it's okay," she repeats to the baby as he moans. Blearily, she pokes her head into various women's bathrooms until she finds a changing table that seems somewhat sanitized. The diaper change helps his mood a little, and his screams trickle to whimpers. "All dry now," she says cheerfully as they exit the bathroom.

But he starts crying again as they get to baggage claim. She needs to get the baby's car seat, too, waiting next to at least twenty hard-case golf bags. Rhiannon told her to leave most of her possessions behind-That's not what this place is about-but Lenna would feel naked without them. As she hefts a suitcase off the carousel, she hears little jars of Stage 1 baby food clinking. A few travelers give her funny looks. She wonders if they think she stashed a bunch of beer bottles in there.

An airport attendant helps her load her things on a luggage cart and push through the Ground Transport doors-Rhiannon said she can't pick Lenna up personally, and that no buses come out to the community, and Lenna tries not to see this as an omen, either. The desert heat smacks her in the face as soon as she steps outside. It's so stiflingly hot that it's difficult to suck in a breath. Lenna's lungs feel like they're inside a pizza oven. There's a shiny sedan waiting at the cabstand; a man with leathery skin, wearing a barn jacket, leans against a wide-open passenger door. The A/C wafts from within. Lenna gravitates toward it, zombielike.

The man perks up when he sees her. "Need a ride?"

After he's helped her shove all of her things into the trunk and get the baby semisecure in the car seat, Lenna swings into the back seat next to Jacob. "Shh, shh," she says, trying to fit a pacifier into his mouth. He swats it away angrily.

The cabbie catches her eye in the rearview. "Set a' lungs on that one, huh?"

"Sorry." Lenna wants to burst into tears herself. "He isn't usually like this." A lie. Jacob is always like this.

She fishes a prepared bottle from the pocket of her backpack. She doesn't want to get him too attached to bottles or formula, but it's an emergency. Jacob accepts the nipple and falls silent. Lenna shuts her eyes. Peace.

The driver peers at her expectantly in the rearview mirror. "Oh. Sorry. The Texaco station just past Three Points on Ajo Way, please. There's a mile marker, too. . . ." It's the address Rhiannon gave her. She repeated it over and over to herself on the plane ride like a chant.

He looks puzzled. "That's almost an hour's drive. And not much out there. You sure?"

"Positive."

They start out the airport drive, heading due west-Lenna can tell because the sun is behind them. Her phone buzzes in her pocket. Daniel reads the text ID. He has texted an image of the hastily scrawled note Lenna left for him this morning. And a question mark.

The time on the vehicle's dashboard clock is 8:30 a.m. Daniel is nothing if not predictable: Upon waking, he goes immediately to their home gym, which is next to the bedroom. He finishes, showers, gets dressed for work, and makes his way into the kitchen at 8:30, often on the dot. Her note, on the kitchen counter, was likely the first thing he saw when he came out to make coffee. She banked on this, being a whole state away before he even opened his eyes. Less chance that he'd convince her to change her mind.

She waits for another text. A reaction beyond just a question mark. Bon voyage, she expects he might say. Or an indifferent See you later. Maybe Thank fucking God. But nothing comes.

The A/C smells musty, so she breathes through her mouth. She looks at her baby, worried about the chemicals he might be inhaling. Five more fist clenches. And there: yellow words on a billboard for an injury lawyer. It will be all right, she tells herself. It has to be. Otherwise, what is she doing? Why is she subjecting her child to this upheaval if not for all the things Rhiannon promised? Serenity. Community. Help. Answers.

Well. That last one is a goal, not a promise. She just hopes that Rhiannon will comply.

The first part of the drive, there are cars whizzing east, turnoffs for housing developments with names like Sonoran Sun and Grande Iguana Casitas, and a casino on Tohono O'odham tribal land, jam-packed with cars. There are stoplights, then blinking stoplights, then stop signs, and then nothing, nothing, nothing but human-shaped cacti and dirt. They drive on a road called Valencia, then Ajo, small mountains rising before them.

With the hand that's not feeding the baby, Lenna opens the text chain from Rhiannon. Let me know if you find a flight, her old friend texted very late last night, when Lenna had bolted up in bed gripped with the notion that maybe she should come. (Friend? Can she call Rhiannon that again?) Now, Lenna replies. Landed, coming your way. Hope that's still okay!

"There's an observatory out there," the cabbie says, and Lenna jumps. He juts a thumb out the windshield at a purplish mountain rising in the distance. "Kitt's Peak. They use it to watch for UFOs."

"Pardon?"

"Kidding. But sky's real clear out here. On a good night, you can even see the International Space Station every ninety minutes." He chuckles. "You shoulda seen your face! UFOs!"

Lenna closes her eyes. She's too keyed up for jokes.

Rhiannon hasn't texted back. Neither has Daniel. To calm her nerves, Lenna focuses on her baby's relaxed features-miraculously, he has fallen asleep. His eyelashes look like little stars against his cheeks. His plump, pink lips are parted just so, blowing out soft breaths. When she eases her pinkie into his fat, open palm, his fingers gently close around it.

Her heart melts, twists, explodes. And with it comes that fierce, stomach-clenching love-a love that almost hurts.

Twenty minutes later, the driver's GPS announces that they are arriving at their destination. He pulls into a vacant lot. "This is where you want me to drop you?"

The lot might have been a gas station-in another decade. There is a bleached-white empty building that might have been a garage, and disruptions in the concrete from long-ago gas pumps. An empty plastic water bottle rolls across the lot, but it certainly didn't come from a mini mart anywhere close. Not a single car passes going either direction. If a bug were to crawl past, Lenna might hear its scuttling legs.

She looks at her phone for what seems like the millionth time this hour. She's lost service.

"Um." Her voice cracks. She thinks of what Rhiannon said in the café last week: The land where the community is? Marjorie always says it's special. It has a way of revealing the truth. She thinks, too, of Rhiannon's kind eyes, the way she said, I think you should come. You'll find what you're looking for. And I'd love to have you. She even sang Lenna and Jacob a lullaby of sorts.

Hush, little baby,

No sound will you make

Mama, come to Tucson

'Cause you need a break.

But Lenna also thinks of how they left things off-before. The fight. The absence. The silence. And then what Lenna did.

A dusty cloud suddenly appears from inside the desert like a twister. Tires scrabble on the dirt. The cloud gives way to the shape of a dusty Chevy Suburban. A relieved laugh escapes from Lenna's lips.

"There she is," she tells the driver.

The cabbie shifts. "An off-the-gridder, huh? Watch out."

"Why?"

"They don't rely on the system. Most of them are criminals-or they have something to hide. My uncle was like that, slippery as hell. Excuse my language." He eyes her in the mirror. "You trust this person?"

Something to hide. Lenna shivers. Little does he know, the cabbie is describing her.

The Suburban comes to a stop, and Rhiannon Cook looks out. The light through the window hits Lenna's old friend in all the right ways. She looks the same as when she and Lenna were close, her auburn hair wild around her face, her chin sharp, her green eyes bright. But now, her frame carries a few extra healthy pounds. It suits her. And her skin, which used to be prone to breakouts, is clear and shining. When they'd reunited in LA a week ago, Lenna had prepared herself for Rhiannon to look either really wrecked or so transformed she was unrecognizable. But this version-it's inspiring.

"You came!" she bellows.

Lenna glances at the cabbie's ball cap, pulled low, and then back at her friend again. She lets her palms splay free. Please, please, please, she thinks, trying to push down a shudder of dread. Make this worth it. But also this: Please let her have forgiven me if she already knows . . . or have mercy on me once I tell her the truth.

She looks at Rhiannon. "I came."

2

Lenna

May
Two years before

The lights in the dressing room line in an H&M store at the Beverly Center were an eerie shade of orange, even though it was nowhere near Halloween. Lenna stared down at her hands, which held a few questionable items she was pretty sure wouldn't look good on her tall, gangly, straight-up-and-down body-in this strange light, her skin looked positively ghoulish. Every indication was saying she should leave this store; she wasn't even sure she liked the clothes she was trying on. And yet, something was compelling her to stay. Just for a moment.

Lenna was a believer in signs. Her mother had been the same; the two of them even had a game where they opened up the newspaper in the morning, and whatever story they felt pulled to would set the tone for their day. These days, whenever Lenna felt that something might be an omen, good or bad, she saw it as maybe a message from her mother, from the other side. Lenna didn't always give in to the vibes, but today, the anniversary of her mother's death, she felt she should.

In the line in front of her, a mother stood with a little girl who looked to be about four-sporting pigtails, bright pink leggings, and a plastic backpack all her own, emblazoned with a pink girlish cartoon pig. The girl had been placid a moment before, but suddenly she pitched herself onto the floor and started screeching.

"Get up," the mother hissed, yanking the girl's arm.

But the girl made her body go slack. "Mommy just wants to try these on," the mother begged, holding up several dresses. "Can you please just help Mommy out and come into the dressing room with me?" And then, under her breath: "Just this once?"

"I don't want to!" The little girl kicked her legs. "I don't like this store!"

Other people waiting in line shot the mother a dirty look. Lenna's fingers moved inside her pockets. She felt bad for the mother and wanted to help, but she felt uncomfortable initiating conversations. Especially with people she didn't know.

Then someone behind Lenna stepped from the line. "Hey there." She dropped to her knees to where the little girl lay. "Want to see something cool?"

The woman had bountiful auburn curls that spilled down her back and was wearing, Lenna was almost sure, the very skirt-and-blouse combination on a mannequin in the shop's front window. She held her phone out to the girl. "Wanna watch something with me while your mommy tries on clothes?"

The girl looked at her mother-who seemed at first startled, and then suspicious. "No, no," the mother said. "It's fine. She's fine. We're getting up right now, aren't we, Cassidy?"

"We'll sit right here on this rug," the auburn-haired woman cooed. She had the kind of raspy voice Lenna envied. There was a girl from high school who had a voice like that-like she'd been out all night singing at the top of her lungs, or smoking too many cigarettes, something else subversive and brave and way beyond Lenna's comfort level. "Take your time, Mommy. Seriously."

The mother waffled, but then turned back to an open dressing room. Someone had just left; it was her turn. "Mommy is right here," she told her daughter, pulling the curtain closed. "Right behind this curtain, Cass. Yell out if you need me."

"Uh-huh," the little girl said, smiling smugly. She stared at the screen. A mechanical bloop tinkled, and Cassidy gasped. "Ooh, a kitten!"

"Yep. There are kittens in this game," the auburn-haired woman said excitedly.

"Kittens?" the mom called from inside the dressing room. There were clicks as she took clothes from a hanger. "What are you watching, baby?"

Lenna watched the two of them on the ground. All of a sudden, the same sort of universe-force that had pushed her into H&M compelled her to bend down and speak to them.

"Can I see the kitten, too?" she asked shyly.

The auburn-haired woman looked up and smiled. "Sure." She tilted the screen toward Lenna.

Pixelated kittens flew across the screen. "Wow," Lenna said. "That is really cool!"

"I know," the little girl said.

Lenna chuckled. The little girl reminded Lenna of Farrin, a spunky four-year-old she'd nannied for the summer between high school and college. Lenna used to come home with a plethora of Farrin-isms to share with her mom. Silly things the girl said and did, how she seemed old and wise beyond her years.