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with her. It’s no fun being sick.”
    The door clicked shut. He stared for a moment at a dark cloud shaped like a hand floating in the purple sky. Bernice had a friend in Tucson. She and Emily were going to stay with her at first. Landis would ride the bus back to Colorado Springs, take care of details—finish cleaning out her apartment and his trailer—then drive down in the truck in a few days. After that, they would start their new life together.

    He’d met her six months ago at Midnight, the club downtown where he was substitute soundman. Their first date was the movies, followed by cheap Mexican food and not a lot of talking. That was OK with Landis, as talking made him uneasy. It had been his experience that people gave him more credit the less he said. They agreed to see another movie the following night—the latest Bond—and afterward went back to his trailer with a bottle of Hornitos. There she told him her story about how she’d been living in Atlanta and gotten pregnant. She’d answered an ad from a childless couple, come out to the Springs, and stayed with them.
    “They prayed for me and the baby every night—I could hear them up in the living room, just kind of murmuring. After I gave birth, I got out as fast as I could, to Florida, where I beach-bummed, waitressed, took some classes. But I always knew I’d come back. I kept a key.”
    All fall, she explained, she’d been going to the house. She’d park a block away, sneak in, eat leftovers from the fridge, watch a little TV, look at the pictures of Emily. She’d even managed to get hired at the Coffee Connection across the street from where Emily was in day care. She could step outside and watch the children playing in the
yard. “It’s Christian day care, of course,” she told him. “Whatever that means. They both work in town, but Tessa isn’t full-time. She drops her off Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.” Emily liked to sit by herself, Bernice told him. The child was leading the wrong life, and even if she didn’t understand that, exactly, she sensed it, and it was making her unhappy.
    It was nearly 4:00 AM, and they both still had on all their clothes. This was not what Landis had envisioned, but he was coming to the conclusion that Bernice wasn’t much like other girls he’d known.
    “They are brainwashing her. It isn’t right. They bought my daughter from me because they couldn’t have one of their own, and now they are killing her mind, one day at a time. If there is a God, I think it’s pretty clear he did not mean for these people to have children.”
    “What are you going to do about it?” he asked.
    “Take her back.”
    “Excellent idea.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t believe me?” She lifted her hand to her mouth and bit into the fleshy part at the base of her thumb.
    “Hey,” said Landis. “What are you doing?”
    She didn’t answer, just looked out at him over her hand, which she continued to bite. After a few seconds, when blood appeared, she stopped. “Most people couldn’t do that to themselves,” she said.
    “Most people wouldn’t want to.”
    “You’re looking at a woman with a purpose.” She grinned, the traces of red on her mouth like smeared lipstick. Then she took off her T-shirt and wrapped it around her wrist. Landis tried not to appear to be staring at her breasts. “Will you help?” she asked.
    “No way in hell,” he told her.

    Bernice was on the motel bed now, next to Emily, watching Scooby-Doo . “Remember Lucky Charms?” she said. “Those marshmallow pieces made your teeth hurt.”
    Landis saw that she’d wrapped Emily in a blanket. “If she’s cold, we don’t need this.” He went over to the air conditioner and switched it off. It shuddered, did a miniature version of the noise the Hyundai had made, then fell silent.
    “She was shivering, and her fever seems worse. I don’t like this at all.”
    Emily poked at a cigarette hole in the blanket and said, “I can do