“I can’t do this,” Ellis said. “You have to go live with your father.”

“I told you. I can’t live there.”

“Then go back to Washington.”

“Can you make them let me?”

“No. I have no say in that.”

Raven looked down at their entwined hands. Raven’s skin was a little lighter tan than hers. “Can I please live here for a while? Maybe you could just call me R instead of Raven.”

“It’s about so much more than your name. It’s just . . . you need more than I can give you.”

“I don’t need anything. Please let me stay here if I can’t go home.”

Tears dripped out of Ellis’s eyes. “I mean it. I can’t be here for you.”

“That’s okay,” Raven said. “I’m used to that.”

4

ELLIS

Over ninety degrees as the sun was setting. On June first. She would have to water the pots that didn’t get irrigation again. When she walked over to the nursery, she saw Max. She’d just finished watering.

Max made two familiar gestures, a flying motion and a signal that indicated a question. The flying sign was her way of saying Raven. She wanted to know where Raven was. Usually she helped water with a second hose.

Ellis gestured that she didn’t know. Max nodded as she coiled the hose. Ellis knew her well enough to see she was disappointed. Max and Raven had been drawn to each other almost from the moment they met. Max didn’t usually go for buddy stuff, but she was more aware of Raven when she was in her presence than she was of anyone, even Ellis.

Ellis continued the conversation with signs she and Max had perfected over the years. She told her she’d finished the bookkeeping and everything looked good. She said Tom would be coming for another load of plants in three days and asked how the remodeling of her house was going.

Max said the work was going well and told Ellis to say hello to Raven.

When Ellis returned to the house, Raven wasn’t there. She was as independent as Ellis had been when she wandered the Wild Wood behind the trailer park. But Ellis was a little worried; she hadn’t seen Raven since breakfast.

She called Quercus. He leaped up, tail wagging, immediately sensing they were going for a walk. They went east. The land gently sloped from the house on the wooded hill, through old pastures, a wet meadow and bottomland forest, and finally to a marsh at the far end of the property. The marsh had increased in size and depth from heavy rains. When they arrived at the water’s edge, Quercus trotted to something white and sniffed it.

Raven’s T-shirt, and underneath it her hiking pants and shoes.

Ellis stared out at the silent marsh water. Had she drowned herself? The abyss, the moment she had discovered her baby was taken, was swallowing her whole again. Why had they trusted her with the girl? Had Ellis not proven she couldn’t be a mother?

A splash.

“Raven?” Ellis called out.

Insects thrummed. Distant cranes cried.

“Raven! Are you there?” she shouted.

Raven rose out of the deeper water and looked at Ellis.

“I’ve told you not to go in this water!” Ellis said.

“No you didn’t. You said Quercus isn’t allowed.”

“I told you I train all my dogs not to go in there because of alligators. Come out of there now!”

“You said alligators like to eat dogs.”

“They eat people sometimes, too.”

Raven treaded water and kept staring.

“Please come out. Dusk is when alligators become active.”

Raven breaststroked toward her and stood where the water became shallow. She was wearing only a bra and panties. Ellis was startled by how bony she was. She’d already been slim when she arrived, and she’d lost more weight than Ellis had realized.

Raven’s feet stuck in the deep mud. She sank to her calves. Another step and she sank almost to her knee.

“That’s another danger of these wetlands. You can get stuck in the mud, even sink too deep to get out.”

Ellis waded in, sinking to her calves. She grasped her daughter’s hand and tried to pull. But she lost her grip on Raven’s slippery hand, and the momentum made her fall backward into the rank marsh water.

Raven laughed.

“Very funny,” Ellis said.

Raven laughed harder as Ellis struggled to rise out of the muck.

“I should have left you in there for the alligators.”

Raven dragged her feet out of the mire and pulled Ellis’s hand. When she heaved, her feet were too stuck to provide any leverage. She fell into the marsh next to Ellis, and they slumped into the putrid muck, laughing.

“How the hell did you get in here in the first place?” Ellis asked.

“When I felt myself sinking in the mud, I stretched out my body and swam to the deep water.”

Ellis gave up trying to stand and crawled in a very undignified way out of the marsh. Raven did the same. They laughed at how ridiculous they were.

The mosquitoes were having a merry time, too. And the sun was setting. Ellis hadn’t brought a flashlight.

“We’d better get back,” she said.

Raven put on the T-shirt but didn’t try to pull the pants up her wet legs. She slipped on her socks, seeming unperturbed by the mosquitoes hovering around her bare legs.