The sun might have come up in the morning; it might have set at night, but Maggie didn’t care. She wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. She wanted to shout but the screams died in her throat. She wanted to die, but a punishing God condemned her to life. Most of the time she sat in the white wicker rocker she bought when TJ was a baby and rocked. After a year of rocking, Greg gave up and moved out.One day she went to the playground and sat on a swing. Dusty found her at dusk and brought her home. Another time he found her at the Church pre-school, the one TJ would have gone to, studying the children’s faces so hopefully that Dusty told her later he knew she had no idea where she was in space or time.Afterwards, she didn’t know how they managed. It must have been Dusty who went out for food, threw a load of clothes into the washer, and changed the sheets every now and again. Almost sixteen, with earrings in both ears and tattoos on his arms, he had evolved from a responsible kid to an overburdened teen.
