“Hello?” she called. “Is anyone home?”
Nami squeaked from the back bedroom, her bare feet slapping on the brick as she barreled toward the door. Her little girl wasn’t so little anymore. She came up to Nono’s armpit now. Or Anna’s shoulder. The gentle pudge of childhood was gone, and the awkward coltish beauty of adolescence was clearing its throat. Her skin was barely lighter than Nono’s and her hair was as rich and kinky, but the girl had a Russian smile.
“You’re back!”
“Of course I am,” Nono said.
“What did we get?”
Namono took the white relief package and pressed it into her daughter’s hands. With a smile that was like complicity, she leaned close. “Why don’t you go find out, and then come tell me?”
Nami grinned back and loped off to the kitchen as if the water recyclers and fast-grown oats were a brilliant present. The girl’s enthusiasm was vast and partly sincere. The other part was to show her mothers that she was all right, that they didn’t need to worry for her. So much of their strength—all their strengths—grew from trying to protect each other. She didn’t know if that made it better or worse.
In the bedroom, Anna lay on her cushions. A thick volume of Tolstoy rested beside her, its spine bent by being reread. War and Peace. Her complexion was grayish and drawn. Nono sat beside her carefully, putting her hand on the exposed skin of her wife’s right thigh just above where her knee had been crushed. The skin didn’t feel hot anymore, and it wasn’t stretched drum-tight. Those had to be good signs.
“The sky was blue today,” Nono said. “There may be stars out tonight.”
Anna smiled her Russian smile, the one her wife’s genes had also given Nami. “That’s good, then. Improvement.”
“God knows there’s room for it,” Namono said, regretting the discouragement in her voice even as she spoke. She tried to soften it by taking Anna’s hand. “You’re looking better too.”
“No fever today,” Anna said.
“None?”
“Well, only a little.”
“Many guests?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light. After Anna’s injury, her parishioners had made such a fuss, bringing by tokens and offers of support until it was impossible for Anna to rest. Namono had put her foot down and sent them away. Anna had allowed it mostly, she thought, because it also kept her flock from giving away the supplies they couldn’t afford to do without.
“Amiri came by,” Anna said.
“Did he? And what did my cousin want?”
“We’re having a prayer circle tomorrow. Only about a dozen people. Nami helped clean the front room for it. I know I should have asked you first, but …”
Anna nodded at her distended, swollen leg as if her inability to stand at the pulpit was the worst thing that had happened to her. And maybe it was.
“If you’re strong enough,” Namono said.
“I’m sorry.”
“I forgive you. Again. Always.”
“You’re good to me, Nono.” Then, softly so that Nami couldn’t hear them, “There was an alert while you were out.”
Namono’s heart went cold. “Where’s it going to hit.”
“It won’t. They got it. But …”
The silence carried it. But there had been another one. Another rock thrown down the gravity well toward the fragile remnants of the Earth.
“I didn’t tell Nami,” Anna said, as if protecting their child from the fear was another sin that required forgiveness.
&nbs
p; “It’s all right,” Namono said. “I will if we need to.”
“How is Gino?”