Willis Daniels' voice was coming from the kitchen window now. He was thanking somebody for coming.
"You asked me to wait," I reminded her.
Miranda nodded, but she didn't say anything.
"If you want to convince me how frightening Allison SaintPierre can be, don't worry about it. I've seen the demo."
I think Miranda blushed. It was hard to tell in the bug zapper light.
"No," she said. "I feel bad now, talkin' about her the way I did. The minute you left the studio I felt bad."
"But you're still uneasy about her."
"I don't know. No. Let's forget it."
The expression on her face told me she couldn't forget it, at least not for more than a few hours. She looked out toward the shed, where moths were starting to gather around the kerosene lamp.
"You don't approve of her seeing your brother," I supplied.
Miranda's expression hardened. "Did you understand about Brent? About what Sheckly said?"
"Only that the words hurt."
She sat up straighter, pushing her back and shoulders and head against the cedar post like she was going to get her height measured. "Maria was Brent's wife. She died two years ago."
The words of the song Miranda had sung the other night came back to me, one of the numbers I couldn't believe Brent could've written. "The Widower's Two Step."
"I'm sorry to hear it."
She accepted the condolence with a shrug. "Maria had diabetes. Juvenile insulindependent diabetes."
The way Miranda threw that phrase out, as casually as a doctor might've, told me the disease's name had long ago become part of her family's vocabulary.
"It wasn't treatable?"
"No. I mean yes, it was treatable. That ain't what killed her, not by itself. She tried having a baby."
Miranda looked at me, hoping I could guess the rest of the story without her having to say it. I guessed.
"That must've devastated Brent."
As soon as I said it I realized what a stupid observation it was. The man was fortytwo and still living in a barn behind his father's house. He didn't comb his hair or shave and he apparently wore his clothes until they rotted off of him.
"For a while there," Miranda said, "Dad had to lock up the guns because Brent was threatening to kill himself. That's what Sheckly was talking about. Even now, I think about Brent with Allison—the way she might let him down—"
Miranda stared at the lantern across the field. "You know that expression—somebody's life is like a country song? That's us. Mother dying, then Brent and Maria—"
"And you?" I asked.
"It's coming." She said it with absolute certainty. "Mine is coming."
A bug zapper is not normally the kind of illumination that helps me decide a woman is beautiful. But when Miranda looked at me I decided exactly that. I'm not talking about cute—the vulnerable little kitten quality I'd imagined in her when she'd been onstage at the Cactus Cafe. There was a kind of quiet stubbornness in her face now that suited her well, a much older, steadier light than I'd seen before.
"Do you—" I stopped. I wanted to ask if Miranda lived here, in the tidy burgundy and blue room I'd seen. I hoped she'd say no, that the room was just a museum to her childhood. I couldn't figure out how to phrase the question and not sound judgmental.
As it turned out I didn't have to. Miranda heard what I was thinking.
"Yes," she said. "I'm afraid I do. Brent—he didn't have much choice about staying here. Me, I guess it's just a matter of laziness."
There were other possibilities, but it would've been meanness to challenge her.
Instead I said, "Why wasn't it a choice for Brent?"
"No medical insurance. Maria's medical bills were skyhigh. If Brent tried to get work, she would've stopped qualifying for government health benefits. They were forced to stay unemployed. That little shack over there is about all they had, and that only because Daddy insisted. Maria accepted for them. Brent would've been on the street first. He's too proud."
I tried to associate the word pride with Brent. It took some effort.
From inside the kitchen Willis Daniels' voice laughed long and hard. He was saying good night to what must've been his last departing guest.
"What did you ask me out here for?" I said again.
Miranda stared at her hands. "Inside—in my room— you didn't understand."
"I guess not. I thought you were asking me to get Allison out of here."
The lights of the last truck headed down Serra Road. As soon as they turned onto RR22, the kitchen erupted with shattering crashing sounds—like somebody sweeping a cane across a counter full of glasses. Willis Daniels yelled four or five obscenities.
Then it got quiet again.
"No," Miranda said, not in response to the noise but like she was merely carrying on our conversation. "I wanted you to take me out of here. I don't give a damn where to."
31
I pushed the VW a little too fast, rounding the ISPV curves on RR22 at fifty miles an hour. The wind blew around the convertible, coming at us from behind. It undid Miranda's hair from the scarf she'd tied over her head and swept strands of black for
ward so it looked like they were in a desperate race to beat the rest of her face out of Bulverde. She made no attempt to push her hair back.
A hundred yards behind us, a car with cockeyed headlights was following leisurely.
"You know how to get to Les' office?" Miranda asked the question so softly that I almost didn't hear her in the wind.