Slow at first, then stronger. When Rhett climbed out, covered head to toe in mud, Ayah was smiling. Actually smiling. "See?" she said.
"Not dead yet." Rhett looked at the water already starting to pool in the bucket. Then at Ayah. Then back at the water.
"No," he said. "Not yet." That night, she cooked some kind of stew made from dried meat, wild onions she'd found growing near the creek, and something green he didn't recognize. It tasted better than anything he'd made in two years.
"Where'd you learn to cook like this?" he asked. "My mother." She didn't look up from her bowl. "She said food is prayer. You put care in. You get strength out."
Rhett chewed slowly, turning that over. "Your mother still alive?" "No." The word sat between them like a stone.
"I'm sorry," Rhett said. Ayah shrugged. "Everyone's sorry. Doesn't bring anyone back."
"No, it doesn't." She looked up then, studying him. "You lost someone?" It wasn't a question.
Rhett set down his bowl. "Yeah. Recently. Four years ago."
"Feels like yesterday. Feels like forever." Ayah nodded slowly. "That's how it works. Grief doesn't follow time the way living does."
"You sound like you know." "I lost everyone," she said simply. "Not all at once. That might have been easier. One by one, until I was the only one left."
Rhett didn't know what to say to that. Didn't think there was anything to say. "The man I lost," he finally said, "his name was Caleb. My brother."
"Younger by two years. Followed me into every stupid thing I ever did. And I did a lot of stupid things." "What happened?" Rhett's voice came out flat, factual.
He'd told the story so many times in his head it had lost its shape. "I led him somewhere I shouldn't have. Got greedy. Got stupid. Got him killed."
"Been running ever since." "Running doesn't work," Ayah said. "I noticed." She stood, gathering the bowls.
"You can't outrun what's inside you. I tried. Spent a year trying. Still ended up on that auction block." "How'd you..."
Rhett stopped himself. "How did I end up there?" She walked to the basin and rinsed the bowls. "I was caught trying to cross into Mexico alone."