“I feel like such an idiot for bringing you here,” Glen said. “Both of you.”

“You know what would have happened if you hadn’t.”

“I just feel so stupid that I didn’t see this coming. I thought a group of people who wanted to be here would figure out how to be here together.”

“Should we break off from the rest of the Community?”

“I think it’s safer to be a part of it than to be a potential enemy.”

Her mother nodded.

“Besides, it’s against the Manual to splinter.”

“And we wouldn’t want to make the Manual angry.”

“Bea.”

“Sorry.”

Agnes felt them melt closer to each other. And then felt Glen soften as he drifted to sleep. But she knew her mother was awake. She knew they were both monitoring Glen’s breathing.

Birds somberly called to their friends in the sagebrush somewhere near her feet. A dark cloud lay across the sky like a dirt path.

“Why are you back?” Agnes whispered, not sure if it was more of a complaint or a question.

Her mother’s muffled reply floated down over the skin, over Glen’s small body. “Because you and Glen needed me.”

Agnes bristled. For a moment she felt like the time away had rendered her mother readable. Agnes no longer felt so mystified by her. “Wrong,” Agnes snapped.

Her mother’s sigh floated down to her ear. “Then why am I back, Agnes?”

“Because you needed us,” Agnes said, mustering as much confidence as she would need to sound convincing.

“That is true too,” her mother said. Her voice was as flat as the shadows that crept away from them now that the sun had reached its zenith and had begun to fall. She did not say more.

Agnes was surprised into silence. Even if she was right about her mother, it hadn’t offered any relief. Knowing her mother’s reasoning didn’t mean she understood it. If her mother did indeed need her, Agnes still didn’t know what that need felt like. She tucked her hands between her knees and curled into herself to make her own warmth.

*

Agnes found her mother shadowing the morning chores, as though attempting to relearn them. The morning crew that day were mostly Newcomers who somehow still weren’t very good at their jobs. They seemed not to know what to do with her mother, so she simply stood to the side observing as they chaotically dished out porridge, or later haphazardly did the camp kitchen clean, her arms crossed and her brow frowning. Agnes imagined her mother was not so much relearning as critiquing.

When the food was put away, bowls cleaned, wood added and the fire stoked, Frank stood up, wiped his hands on his jeans, because he still had jeans, though they had been thoroughly patched with elk hide scraps by now, and walked over to her mother.

“Hi,” he said, extending his hand.

“Hi,” her mother said.

“I’m Frank,” he said.

“Hi, Frank,” she said, not offering her name in return.

He smiled at her expectantly. When he got no response, he nodded his head at Agnes. She reluctantly returned the gesture and sidestepped slowly up to them.

Frank smiled. “Hi, Agnes.”

“Hi.”

To Bea he said, “So you must be Agnes’s mom?”

“I am,” her mother said.

“And so you’re back from the Private Lands?”

“Excuse me?”

“You decided to come back?”

“Yes. From the City.”

“Oh.” Frank frowned. “I thought you were in the Private Lands.”

“I don’t know why you thought that, but I was in the City.”

“That’s what someone said. You ran off with a Ranger to the Private Lands and you were raising a family out there.”

“That’s absurd. My family is right here.” She pinched Agnes’s shoulder and drew her to her side.

Frank pointed at Agnes. “I thought you told me that.”

“Did you now?” her mother said.

“No,” said Agnes. “I said you were dead.”

Her mother flinched. She saw it.

Frank eyed them nervously. “Well, I don’t remember who said what. It doesn’t really matter, does it?” He laughed. “But,” he continued, “I imagine you’re proud of this girl here. I would have thought she was the leader of this Community when we first met.”

“How interesting. Just how proud do you imagine I am?”

“Well,” Frank said, eyes darting between the two, “pretty darn proud, I’d say.”

They all nodded and fell into silence, as though waiting for her mother to say she was proud. But Agnes knew she wouldn’t say that. Not when some stranger told her to. Her mother did not like being told how to feel. And Agnes could tell her mother did not like the Newcomers. Her mother then, without a word, left the camp. Headed back in the direction of Glen. Agnes stood there limp-armed, injured at not having been invited. And hesitant to visit Glen herself, something she’d never been hesitant to do before.

When her mother returned, she spent the rest of the day greeting and meeting everyone. Agnes had never seen her so social. She approached the old Originalists with hugs and whispers. First Juan. They laughed and spoke conspiratorially. “Tell me everything,” she heard him hiss. Then Debra, who embraced her mother and wouldn’t let her mother pull away until she was done. She even hugged Dr. Harold. No one seemed to have anything against her for leaving. Except Val, Agnes noted. But that’s because Val wants to protect me, she thought. Her mother didn’t approach Val, and Val pretended not to notice her mother making the rounds. Her mother approached Carl several times during the day, as though she kept remembering things to tell him. She would put her hand on his shoulder, speak, and then they would laugh, or they would turn serious. It felt like they had very important business, though they’d never had important business before. Agnes watched Val watch this. Val frowned all day.

When her mother went up to a Newcomer, she flashed smiles galore. She was ingratiating and humble. She leaned in and touched the Newcomer’s arm. She approached Frank again and had him laughing within seconds.

Once everyone was met, re-met, cajoled, placated, charmed, her mother retreated to the sidelines and observed. When she helped with chores, she did not lead, did not offer opinions, did not say much. Just watched. She was studying how the Community had come to work in her absence.

Agnes watched her mother watch everyone else. She wanted to know what her mother was seeing so she could know what her mother was thinking. She watched for what her mother would notice about everyone after time away, or on first observing them.

Agnes saw that Frank was broad and tall, but weak. His stomach skin hung wrinkled and sagging as though he’d just given birth. A formerly well-fed man. A beer-bellied man. Agnes saw his fingertips were stained and shredded and scabbed over like all of their fingertips had been when they first arrived. Unused to the coarseness of bark and stones, of the tannins of skins and nut husks, wild foods. But whereas the Newcomers’ hands were all now properly calloused, his were still scabbed over. He was not working as hard as everyone else, though he always seemed to be in the middle of some chore. He had Carl’s ear, though, and that meant something.

She noticed that Patty’s mom was unhappy with how much time Patty spent with Celeste. Agnes noticed that she was also unhappy with how much time Frank spent with Carl. Patty’s mom busied herself with chores around camp. She acted busy to hide that she was lonely, bored, and possibly feeling scorned. Agnes saw that Joven and Dolores were spending more time with Jake than with their mother, Linda, who was spending most of her time with Carl, when Carl wasn’t spending his time with Val or Frank. Or Helen, Agnes noticed. Her mother spent a lot of time watching Carl. Carl and his grayed temples, something Agnes had not noticed before. She saw that Debra was hiding a subtle limp. Agnes felt foolish for missing some of these things.

She saw that Val wore Carl’s oversized buckskin jacket as though she were hiding—or protecting—her belly. She did this whenever she hoped she was pregnant, which was often. She wanted a child so badly. But she had just had her period. It was one of those things that could not remain private in a Community like this. Agnes felt bad for Val, who she feared would scowl till her dying breath if she could not have this one thing.