Chapter 9: The Apology

Bianca hugged me before I could step back.

She smelled of the same jasmine perfume she had worn for four years, and her arms were warm and tight and did not let go.

"I have been sick about it," she said into my shoulder. "Sick. I've barely slept."

"You looked well rested in your sunrise photo."

She pulled back, and her eyes were wet.

"That's what I wanted to tell you. Rocco made me post it. He said if people thought we were fine, no one would ask where you went."

"That's a strange thing to want."

"He's not a strange man, Orla. He's a scared one." She wiped one eye carefully with her knuckle. "Can we talk? Not here. Somewhere with a table."

I should have said no.

I said it to myself, plainly, standing there in my apron with the morning's coffee drying on it.

Then I thought about the gas station, and how badly I wanted to hear her say it to my face.

"Winnie's kitchen," I said.

Winnie put a pot of tea between us and went out to the garden, and I noticed she left the door open.

Bianca sat with her hands around the cup and talked for a long time.

She said the canyon had been her idea, and that it had been a terrible one.

She said Rocco had been unraveling for weeks and she had thought a big wild sunset would calm him down.

She said she had only meant to be gone for an hour.

"Then the Jeep wouldn't start after we left the rim," she said. "And by the time it did, you were gone, and he was out of his mind."

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