Bree nodded. She’d had a handful of men herself, but for some reason or another—they talked down to her because she didn’t finish college, they were poor tippers, they hated her dog, they accused her unjustly of cheating—nothing had lasted.
After a beat, Miranda laughed again. “Girl,” she said, “you’re my new best friend.”
Bree nodded again, accepted this just as she had accepted the neighborhood kids hanging out on her porch even when she wanted to sit quietly and read, just as she accepted that Antonio would always try to run away, just as she accepted her brother’s crushing dependence on her.
The boys, Josh and Dusty, had unnerved Bree. They reminded her of the blond, blue-eyed children in Village of the Damned, a horror movie Byron made her watch years ago. Some days, she’d be on her living room couch, and there would be Josh and Dusty, on her front porch staring at her through the screen door. Bree would let them in, offer them a Popsicle, and wait for them to pass along whatever message they’d brought from their mother.
“Mama said she got some strawberry daiquiris and for you to come drink them with her if you want,” Josh might tell her.
“There’s a good movie on Lifetime,” Dusty might announce. “She says come over and watch.”
Now, in Miranda’s dim kitchen, Bree gripped her coffee mug and sipped loudly to fill the silence. The mug had Cheyenne, Wyoming written across it, with a cowboy riding a bucking horse. Miranda had never been to Wyoming, Bree knew, and she imagined the woman picking it up at a yard sale somewhere, or getting it from a co-worker who’d gone. The mug made Bree’s heart ache a little, because it reminded her of things Miranda hadn’t done with her life, and how much she hadn’t done with her own. Still, they were both young yet, so young.
She couldn’t think of a thing to say. Sorry was too easy and didn’t accomplish anything. And she wouldn’t promise Miranda that the boys would be found, because who knew if that was true.
“Do you need anything, Miranda?” Bree asked. “If there’s anything I can do, just say it, and you know I will.”
Miranda looked up with red-rimmed eyes. “You’ve done enough,” she said. “You didn’t do a damn thing. You were always gone, doing God knows what. Getting ready to run off to your precious Maryland. If you weren’t gone all the time, maybe we wouldn’t have had to get that crazy bastard cross the street to look after them. You could’ve looked after them.”
Bree sipped her coffee to give herself a chance to stay calm. “Miranda,” she said. “Are you blaming me for having a life? Are you saying it was my fault because I wasn’t sitting at home twiddling my thumbs, waiting to baby-sit your kids?”
“We was nothing but nice to you and you didn’t give a shit about nobody but yourself.” Miranda was trembling, her hands flat on the table.
“I know you’re hurting right now,” Bree said. “But you got to be rational.”
“All you did was talk about Maryland,” Miranda said. “What’s so special about Maryland? It’s a puny state nobody gives a shit about. What’s there?” She sunk her fingers into the pancakes, balling them up, breaking them apart. She flung handfuls across the table. If a character in a movie had done this, Bree knew Miranda would’ve laughed at her, told the woman to get her shit together.
“If you’d been a true friend, you wouldn’t be hauling tail to Maryland,” Miranda said. “You would’ve been around like you used to be, not running off doing yoga or salsa or whatever you do. We wouldn’t have had to depend on that Crolley.”