Skylar looked up at her. "Are we going to stay here?" he asked. "Are we going to live here for good?"
Jolene had not made a decision about that, although she realized almost instantly that the decision should not be hers alone. These were important years for Skylar, and after all that he'd endured, he deserved to know what they were going to do, where they were going to live. He needed some stability in his life. "Do you ... ?" she began, but in his eyes she already saw the answer to the question she was about to ask. She thought about her mother and Leslie and her job and Skylar's school, where he'd already made a little friend. "Yes," she told him, meeting his gaze. "We are."
He hugged her tight, and she could tell from the way he hung on, pressing his face into her side, that he was crying. "Good," he said, and beneath the tears she heard gratitude. "Good."
Flagstaff, Arizona
What surprised Angela most was that she didn't go back home.
Despite everything that had happened, despite all that she'd gone through, all the horror she'd seen, she didn't go running back to Mommy and Daddy, didn't retreat into the safety of the familiar and the bosom of her family. She stayed and toughed it out.
Like an adult.
Although she'd decided to remain and finish out the semester, after that, anything was possible. She could stay; she could return home; she could transfer somewhere else. For now, though, the discipline and stability were necessary for her to work through all that she'd experienced.
Angela sat in the quad, watching students pass by. She and Derek both had a free period right now, but neither of them had made an effort to meet up with each other. It was an anniversary of sorts, two months since the night at Promontory Point, but it was not something that either of them felt like celebrating or even talking about.
She was surprised that the two of them hadn't become an item. In movies and books, males and females thrown together under traumatic circumstances invariably became lovers, although it was impossible to say how long those liaisons lasted after the credits rolled or the book covers closed. In the back of her mind, she'd half expected that to happen to them. Conditioning, she supposed. But instead the opposite seemed to have occurred. After it was all over and done, the intimacy they'd shared seemed to pull them apart rather than draw them together. They were awkward with each other now, both seemingly embarrassed by the sides of themselves they'd exposed, and while neither of them had dropped Dr. Welkes' class, they made no effort to sit together.
Derek definitely bore the brunt of the fallout. Dealing with what had happened was tough on her, but he'd lost his mother and his brother. She'd endured nothing compared with that. He was relying more on his old friends than her for support, Angela knew, and as guilty as it made her feel, she was grateful for that. She wasn't ready to be sucked into that emotional hurricane right now, and she didn't think she was strong enough herself to be someone else's rock.
Who knew, though? In time ...
For now she was content to attend classes, study and continue on with the responsibilities of being a full-time student.
Not that there weren't scars.
Occasionally, she found herself glancing around at the other young men and women in her classes, in the library, in the student union, at the pub, wondering if they had been in the crowd cheering the lynching of Edna Wong. She tried to tell herself that even if they had, it was the mold that had made them do that, that had affected their behavior. But the ethos of personal responsibility was too strong within her, and it was impossible for her to completely absolve those who had murdered Edna.
Which was one reason why she thought she might transfer to another college next semester.
Maybe somewhere in New Mexico.
She liked the Southwest.
Her cell phone rang, and Angela answered it. "Hello?"
It was her mother. She was grateful to hear her mom's voice, and it felt relaxing and comforting to speak Spanish, despite the looks of disapproval it engendered on the faces of some of the passersby. They talked for a while, about nothing really; then her mom said she had to make lunch, and hung up.
Angela put the phone back in her purse and looked up. The campus seemed to be getting foggy. Buildings on the opposite end of the quad were light and getting lighter, bulky outlines behind a sheer wall of white.
It wasn't fog. It was snow.
She still was not used to seeing snow fall-in Southern California, snow was something that happened up in the mountains, not on the ground-and as the flakes became larger and more obvious, as the under-dressed students around her began hurrying toward their indoor destinations, she stood there smiling up at the sky, the snow hitting her face and melting against the warmth of her skin.
She opened her mouth, ate a few snowflakes, then walked slowly toward her next class, looking around her at the pale silhouettes of the hulking NAU buildings, marveling at their beauty.
Maybe she wouldn't transfer to another school.
Maybe, she thought, she would stay.
THE END