Rikesh, Gwen’s fiancé, wanted her to shut up. When you survive a mass shooting, at first, everyone wants to talk to you about it. People love to rub elbows with trauma, to be able to say they had drinks with tragedy. But after three or four days, Gwen found, people had had enough. They only wanted to hear the story once. Twice made them squirm. Three times and they wanted you to shut up.

Gwen’s coworkers also wanted her to shut up, as did her neighbors, and her mother, whenever she called from Florida. A month after, the only people who still wanted to talk about it were other survivors—the shaken ones, like Gwen, not the infuriatingly detached ones, like Rikesh. And no one wanted to talk about it more than Klayr, the little neighbor girl.

The survivors had formed a group on social media, and Gwen went there to lurk. She never posted, but she took comfort in and wept over the testimonials. Tonight, as she waited out in the treehouse for Rikesh to come to bed, she checked for new posts. NoahsMom70: My fifteen-year-old son died on the way to the hospital. Can’t stop wishing it was me. Lucylovessmoothies: My girlfriend was shot twice in the stomach and they had to remove portions of her colon. Now she’s verbally abusive and depressed. Advice for caregivers?

But the trite, inspirational posts Gwen found disconcerting. Fellow survivors, God has a plan for us. We are destined to go forth and do great things. Gwen knew she should be grateful, and she was, but she also felt that maybe she’d been fated to die that night, that her survival was a mistake. She did not feel that she was doing great things; in fact, she feared she might never be capable of doing even average things ever again. And she could not go forth. She had panic attacks whenever she tried to leave the house.

Gwen worked from home now, after the kind woman in HR ordered her to. Normally Gwen commuted from Oakland to a tastefully decorated office in SoMa, where she was an executive assistant—a glorified secretary—at an analytics startup, but she’d found herself distracted and exhausted, suspicious of every customer that walked in, her eyes glued to their hands. Sometimes she’d suddenly be unable to take a deep breath, and would have to sit in a bathroom stall until she stopped shaking.

After Rikesh left for the office each day, instead of working from home, Gwen would wander the still, quiet house; hours like desert horizons; years before the sun dipped and she’d hear his key in the front door. If he was ten minutes late coming home, she was certain he was dead, and she’d dial until he answered in an embarrassed whisper from BART. She knew what she sounded like to him and she hated herself. Nights, her body felt taut and restless, and when sleep finally took her, she’d awaken, startled, her heart in her throat; it felt like those dreams of tripping and falling, except it happened again and again, night after night, and in the dreams, always, she was being shot. 

Rikesh made two appointments for her with two different therapists, and they both made Gwen feel worse, even a little crazy. A red-bearded man suggested that she was too focused on the event. He said that talking about it “compulsively” was making it worse. After that, Gwen refused to go back.

Now, she startled at the slam of the back door. She’d asked Rikesh to close it gently, but he always forgot. Gwen set a flashlight on end, and a soft lamplight spread across the treehouse, illuminating the only decorations she allowed out there: a handful of rocks on the windowsill, and beside them, tacked to the wall, a frenetic black-and-white drawing of a cat grinning from the eye of a tornado. These were artifacts left behind by the landlord’s daughter.

Gwen could no longer fall asleep in their bedroom, surrounded by Rikesh’s rumpled, deodorant-stained shirts; a large painting memorializing the tiny living room from their first apartment together, created by a friend as an engagement present; the piles of concert ticket stubs and books they had amassed over the years. Humans decorated their dwellings in order to feel more like themselves, to define their style and personality, the goal being to surround oneself with oneself. But she wanted to get away from herself. This was why they’d been sleeping in the treehouse for the past two weeks. Here, she could enter a dark realm of cold, windy rest.

Rikesh ducked inside. “Why are you looking at that again?” He closed Gwen’s computer and lifted it from her lap, then crawled over her and into his mummy bag, setting the laptop on the floor beside him. Gwen had suggested they zip their mummy bags together into one large bag, but Rikesh had said they would lose warmth that way, and if she really wanted to sleep together, they had a perfectly fine bed inside. “You’re all just feeding off one another on that site. It’s morbid,” he said.

“Do you have to go?” Gwen said.

“Do you think I want to fly to Texas right now? I almost died, too, I’m not exactly feeling chipper.” He rolled onto his side to face her. For weeks he hadn’t shaved, but now his face was smooth except for his thick eyebrows. “I’ve already missed so much work and I can’t just never travel again.” Rikesh had an MBA in supply chain management, and if Gwen asked him about his day, he’d speak of reverse logistics and lateral integration. It was boring, but she loved that if she told him to back up, explain something, he’d give a brief definition and move on; he had complete confidence in her intelligence.

“What do you want me to do? Do you want me to tell my boss I can’t go?”

Gwen hesitated.

“If you want me to, I will.”

“No,” she said. “No, I know you have to go.”

“Then please stop asking. You’re making me feel guilty.”

“Sorry.” Gwen leaned in and kissed him, but he kept his lips closed, as if he were kissing his mother.

“You’ll only be alone for two days,” he said. “Your mom gets here Wednesday, right?”

“Jesus, I’ll be fine.” After a moment, Gwen said, “Do you remember the guy with the tan carpenter pants? The guy crawling? With blood all over his hands and mouth?”

“Unlike you, I try not to think about it all the time.” Rikesh stared blankly at the ceiling, as if a movie were being projected there.

“I was so scared when I saw him.” Gwen took a modulating breath and waited for Rikesh to touch her, though she knew he wouldn’t. “That was when I knew for sure they were shots.”

Rikesh yawned. “Baby, stop thinking about this before bed. Think about something else.”

Earlier that week, while Gwen was in the sweaty throes of a panic attack in bed, Rikesh had said, “Take off your bra! You can’t breathe because you’re sleeping in a bra.” When she finally ripped it off, he’d seemed genuinely stunned that it hadn’t solved the problem. She’d yelled, “Are you happy now, genius?” Since the concert, the other woman lurking inside her had taken over: the woman who yelled.

“I hate it when you say that,” Gwen said. “Like I enjoy lying awake and thinking about bloody, dying people? You know what? You have zero emotional intelligence.”

Rikesh threw his arm over her shoulder, and in only a few seconds he was breathing rhythmically, struggling to stay awake. Gwen wanted to poke him in his half-open eye.

◆

Three days later, she was awakened mid-morning—Gwen found it easiest now to sleep during the day—by her eight-year-old neighbor, Klayr. The girl’s fascination with shootings seemed borderline phobic, and ever since the concert, she treated Gwen and Rikesh like celebrities. She materialized from bushes and hedgerows, and Rikesh had started referring to her as the paparazzi. The paparazzi was staked out earlier, looking for you. The paparazzi left her sock on our porch.

Klayr’s parents worked long hours and kept to themselves. In their first year as neighbors, they’d turned down Gwen’s invitations to drinks and dinners, but more recently, they’d become shamelessly friendly whenever they asked favors of Gwen and Rikesh, which was often. Gwen babysat at least a few times a month, and welcomed Klayr’s random pop-ins. Her parents never seemed to have time for her, didn’t seem to appreciate her precociousness or shrewd sense of humor. If Gwen was outside when Klayr came home from school, the girl would rush to Gwen and leap into her arms. She and Rikesh often said that if they ever had a child, they hoped she would be like Klayr. 

For the past couple of weeks, Klayr had been coming over while Rikesh was at work, and she and Gwen performed what Klayr called exposure therapy. She’d looked it up on the internet and told Gwen she thought the technique might help her. And though Gwen had abandoned her practice, she shared what she’d learned from a meditation workshop. These sessions with Klayr were inappropriate, Gwen knew, and she dreaded what might happen if Klayr blabbed to anyone, but days when Klayr didn’t come, Gwen felt like an overripe plum about to split. She’d tried the jogging and the therapy and the meditation, but Klayr’s visits were the only thing that reduced the pressure.

Now, the girl cowered in the corner of the treehouse, and Gwen aimed her fingers like a gun. “You have to let go of your clinging,” Gwen said.

Klayr’s arms formed an x over her head. “This is what they told us to do in the drills.” She looked scrawny crouched on the floor, and Gwen fought a maternal urge to pat her dark hair and scoop her up. Beside the girl was a small window, hazy light filtering in. It was July, and a thick blanket of fog hung over the city, feathering out over the bay and into their neighborhood in Oakland, usually burning off around noon.

  “But you’re still scared.” Gwen stepped closer and let her arms fall to her sides. “Think about it, if there’s an active shooter in your classroom, covering your head won’t do shit. Close your eyes.”

Klayr did as she was told. 

“Okay, now focus on your breath.” Gwen inhaled. “Pay attention to the way your legs feel against the floor.” She again arranged her hands into the shape of a gun, and stood over Klayr, aiming at her head.

“I can’t do it,” Klayr said, opening her eyes.

Gwen lowered her arms again. “This was your idea.”

“Sort of,” Klayr said. She had a habit of pinching the bridge of her nose and squinting whenever she was nervous. “What did the bad guy look like again?”

“I told you, we couldn’t see him. He was up in a building.”

A woodpecker rattled the treehouse, and Klayr and Gwen both jumped. “But a person next to you got shot?”

“Two people. A man and a woman,” Gwen said.

“Was there blood everywhere? Like on her face?” Klayr stretched her legs out in front of her. Across the knees of her jeans, purple embroidered stars twinkled. “In the bad man drills at school, they say to pretend you’re dead.”

“That’s probably good advice.”

“How long until this works?” Klayr asked.

      “You tell me,” Gwen said.

     “Well, the idea is, if you’re exposed to something enough times, it will stop being so scary. So, what seems logical?” The girl blinked up at Gwen. “A month?”

      “That sounds reasonable,” Gwen said.

Klayr looked pleased, and she stood, walked outside onto the deck surrounding the treehouse, and stuck her head in the window. “Do you want to do yours now?”

“Sure,” Gwen said, moving into position. She closed her eyes and began visualizing that evening: strobing lights from the stage at dusk; wide lines crowding the bar; Rikesh smiling back at her, his five o’clock shadow in honor of the weekend; neon bands flashing on wrists; airplanes blinking overhead; the faint scent of good weed; a crack of fireworks; screams. “Give me thirty seconds,” she said to Klayr. Rikesh’s blue jacket; the white sheet thrown over the front of the bar like a dust ruffle, that she later, while on the ground, closed her eyes into.

“POPOPOPOPOPOPOP.” Klayr’s sound effects had improved.

      Gwen, eyes closed, glanced at a woman to her right, saw her crumple like something dropped from the sky. Bloodied neck. Stunned eyes. Gwen turned to Rikesh, ahead on her left. He’d just finished paying and held two overflowing cups of amber-colored beer. As he registered the injured woman, his mouth opened in the way it does when he’s about to speak. He dropped the beers and Gwen felt his hands on her shoulders, pushing her forward. Life around them was swimming, the lines for bars and bathrooms like rivers in both directions. Faces and bodies streamed past. A man in tan carpenter pants was on the ground, crawling, blood on his hands and face. Rikesh shoved Gwen over the top of the bar, and she gouged a hip on something metal before she hit grass. She smelled chemical fertilizer. Rikesh was on top of her back now, breathing into her ear. He was telling her they were safe, the police would come. This was true, but first, twenty people would die. Gwen tried to ground herself back in the treehouse, to breathe with intention. Someone was screaming next to the bar. It was unlike any scream Gwen had ever heard. More shots exploded and they felt closer this time. Bodies landed on top of Rikesh, and Gwen was afraid she would suffocate. She tried to breathe into that white sheet. It was all she could see. White linen, puffing away from her, with each exhalation.

“Did it work?” Klayr asked, somewhere above Gwen.

From the blankets on the floor where she’d flung herself facedown, Gwen tried to calm her heart rate. She rolled over. “You gotta go little lady, my mom will be here soon.”

Hurt flickered across Klayr’s face and she gave a wave before turning away.

◆

Inside, Gwen assessed herself in the bathroom. A wrinkled sundress she’d worn the day before skimmed her ankles. Could be worse. At least it wasn’t short and didn’t show cleavage. Her mother would approve. Layla’s brand of feminism wasn’t even second wave, it was more like BC feminism. Gwen smeared on deodorant, brushed her teeth, and splashed her face with water.

Out front, above Craftsman bungalows and tall palms, the sun was emerging from the fog. Across the street, a gardener started a mower, and with the motor’s pops, shock waves of panic shot through Gwen. She sat on the curb and took deep breaths until she saw her mother’s camper van chugging up the road.

As she flagged her mother into a street parking space, Gwen tried to look competent. They hadn’t seen each other in six months.

Her mother rolled down her window. “You look like a bored construction worker.”

Gwen tried to smile. “It’s a tight spot.”

The grind of metal on asphalt came just before the van reared up onto the curb. Layla readjusted, parked, and stepped out, holding a suitcase and a cooler. In the middle of the sunny street, they hugged, and Gwen breathed in her mother’s familiar, floral perfume.

After a few seconds, Layla pulled away. She stepped back, scanning Gwen, then fingered a blond curl near her ear. “That’s quite a statement,” she said. “You look glamorous, like a flapper.”

“I hate it,” Gwen said. “How was the maiden voyage?”

“Fabulous. I stopped in New Orleans on the way out, and I’m thinking of seeing Santa Fe on my way back. You should come.” Layla unleashed her customary smile that always looked more like a grimace.

“Maybe.” As they walked toward the house, Klayr’s father waved from the front porch next door.

“Where’s Vera?” Layla said.

“What do you think?”

“I was sure I’d kick the bucket before Vera,” Layla said.

Gwen struggled with the front door lock. “Jesus, Mom.”

“You millennials have no sense of humor about death.”

“She’s not dead. The landlord raised her rent until she had to move out, then they sold the house. Years ago. She’s living with her son in Redwood City.”

“It hasn’t been that long since I visited,” Layla said.

“Three years ago, for your birthday.”

Inside, the house smelled of mildew. Gwen hadn’t bothered to put away the piles of laundry overtaking the sofa, the stack of Amazon boxes and festering takeout containers near the front door. “Sorry it’s a little messy,” Gwen said.

“It’s not messy,” Layla said.

A sweet relief streamed through Gwen, a hope that this visit might be different.

“Squalid maybe. Unsanitary?” Layla set her suitcase down and removed her loafers. “Will you be able to afford to stay here? Now that you’re apparently working from home?”

“We’re good,” Gwen said, though her mother had a point. They lived in the lower level of a cedar shake bungalow in an increasingly desirable neighborhood. Now, everyone on the block had dual incomes.

“Have you met the new neighbor?”

Gwen grabbed Layla’s suitcase. “I told you, they aren’t new. It’s some Silicon Valley dude. And his wife’s a corporate lawyer, so I guess they’re rich.”

“Well, not everyone can be as morally pure as you, Gwyneth.” 

“Their kid’s alright,” Gwen said, and headed down the hall to the bedroom.

Layla followed, carrying her cooler, and stood in the doorway while Gwen plowed piles of clothing, books, and papers from the bed into trash bags. Gwen could feel her mother watching. After flinging the bags into the closet and slamming the door before they could tumble out, Gwen said, “There.” She heaved Layla’s suitcase onto the bed.

“I’m staying out in the van. It has a bed, everything I need. How have you two been sleeping in here?” 

  “Whatever you want,” Gwen said. She lugged Layla’s cooler into the kitchen and set it next to the refrigerator. The tiny galley was a dark shadow; only one of two overhead bulbs flared to life. Stacks of plates and an odor of decomposition rose from the sink. On the small table, the tops of the salt and pepper shakers, and a pile of mail had collected a thin layer of dust. Layla leafed through bills to see if they’d been opened. They hadn’t. “Working from home is pretty standard nowadays,” Gwen said. “We’re paying our bills. You don’t need to snoop.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Layla said. “I want to, but I won’t.”

“What do you want to say, Mom?” Gwen began handing Layla the contents from the cooler, and Layla placed them in the refrigerator. This had been their grocery routine when Gwen was a child.

“No, I’ve learned my lesson.”

Gwen snorted. “Let me guess. I need to get a grip? Buck up? Well, this is me, trying to do those things. Not everyone is like you and Rikesh.” Gwen could feel herself losing control. She shook water from a celery bunch.

“See? I didn’t even say anything and you’re angry. It’s like I’m walking on glass. Sometimes I wonder.” Layla shoved a jar of olives inside the door. “Do other women also fear their daughters?”

Her mother loved to play the assailant and the victim. Gwen shut the fridge. “I was thinking you could help me with the garden today and I could maybe cook dinner later?”

 “You need to get out of the house. Let’s go to the city for the day and eat before we come back.” Layla gestured to the window. “It’s beautiful out.”

“I’d rather relax here.” On the phone last week, Gwen had already told her mother that she was still having trouble in public spaces. “Did I tell you about the girl I met online who was also at the concert? She was closer to the stage-”  

“You’re dwelling,” Layla interrupted. “And Rikesh says you’re becoming a shut-in.”

“I hate that you guys talk. It’s abnormal.”

“Tomorrow we can stay in. Have a cleaning party, like old times,” Layla said.

“Rikesh just cleaned last week. Plus, cleaning just feels like-” Gwen leaned against the counter and fake yawned. “Like a futile assault against the inevitable decay of things. Like people really into cleaning can’t accept the reality of impermanence or death.”

Layla rolled her eyes. “I was pretty goddamn aware of reality. Your father left, I had an infant, and later a dying mother to care for, and I somehow managed to keep the house clean.”

“You’re a saint.”

“That’s just a lazy person’s excuse.”

“Am I the lazy person?” Gwen said.

Before Layla had retired, she’d been in pharmaceutical research, and had worked long hours at a job she hated. “Can we at least go outside instead of talking in this stuffy kitchen?” Layla waved Gwen down the hall and onto the front porch.

Outside, it was bright now; all the fog had burned off. On the front steps sat Klayr, fondling the leaves on a potted dieffenbachia. She jumped up, revealing muddy shorts.

“I think you have the wrong house,” Layla said. “Are you looking for your friend?”

“No,” Klayr said.

“An enemy then?”

The girl looked at Layla as if she were a silly child. “Gwen,” she said, pointing.

“Oh, do you live next door? I’m Gwen’s mother.”

“Bonjour,” Klayr said to Layla.

Gwen settled onto the porch swing. Her mother was speaking in the high-pitched kid voice she used to try to get them to like her. It always had the opposite effect.

“I told you my mom was coming,” Gwen said, eyeing the girl.

Klayr looked at her feet.

“She’s perfectly fine,” Layla said, in her crazy voice. A large palm cast a wide slash of shade across the center of the porch, and Layla dragged a chair there and sat.

“Do you live in there?” Klayr asked, pointing to the van.

“Of course not,” Layla said. “I live in Florida. Why, would you like a tour?” 

“Not really,” Klayr said.

Gwen laughed. “Mom, this is Klayr.”

“Pleased to meet you. You have great freckles. And I love that name.” Layla shielded her eyes with a hand. “Classic.”

“It’s not classic,” Klayr said.

“Oh, well, I’m sorry.” Layla shot Gwen a look.

“It would be, but my mom is neurotic,” Klayr said.

“Pardon?”

“She decided it would be unique if my name was spelled K-L-A-Y-R.”

“Oh dear,” Layla said. 

“I know,” Klayr said, opening her eyes wide. In a display of solidarity, she sat on the floor next to Layla’s feet and sighed, picking at a scabby knee. “She’s a boring lawyer, so she tries to be cool by giving me a dumb spelling and making art.” She used air quotes when she said the word art. “Well, not really. My friend Jack’s mom is a real artist. Like, she went to school and has her paintings in galleries. My mom just makes these little blobs on the weekends.” Klayr looked at Layla and, with disgust, mimed what looked like packing a snowball. “They’re supposed to be mountains that you open up and can see inside. She calls them vessels.”

“That sounds interesting,” Layla said.

“Except mountains aren’t hollow. Even I know that. It’s embarrassing.”

“Sorry kiddo,” Gwen said. “Can’t choose your parents.”

“That’s nice, Gwyneth,” Layla said. She turned to Klayr. “I’m sure your parents are wonderful people.”

Gwen laughed. “Yeah, they hog all the street parking and destroy the planet with their three luxury, supposedly green cars and they displace elderly residents. Wonderful, indeed.”

“What is wrong with you?” Layla said.

Klayr picked at her scab.

“We’ve already talked about this,” Gwen said, waving her hand at Klayr, knowing she’d gone too far.

“My cousin Max says my dad works for the man,” Klayr said.

“He doesn’t even know what that means,” Layla said, holding her head at an odd angle; the sun had moved and was frying half of her face.

“He’s in high school,” Klayr said, as if that proved Max an expert. “He says my family will probably have our heads cut off soon, like in the French Revolution.” She said it in a monotone, while still working on her knee. She’d succeeded in severing a small chunk of the scab, and near the edge hovered a fine line of blood.

“Your dad’s bosses will probably be first,” Gwen said. “You’ll have time to flee.”

“Will you flee too?” Klayr looked up at Gwen hopefully.

“Nah, I’m a pleb. Viva la revolución!”

“Can I talk to you inside?” Layla said.

“I know she’s joking.” Klayr gave a limp wave to her mother, who was approaching from the sidewalk, wearing loose linen trousers and a black baseball hat. She paused ten feet from the porch. Like Klayr, she had messy dark hair. 

Gwen didn’t feel like chatting, but Layla invited Klayr’s mother onto the porch.

“Thank you, but we actually have to get going. Klayr, what did I tell you about bugging Gwen and Rikesh?”

“She’s fine,” Gwen said. “Rikesh is traveling.”

“I don’t want to go,” Klayr whined.

“Now.” Turning to Gwen and Layla, Klayr’s mother said, “She’s had a low-grade fever and a headache all morning.”

“Any rash?” Layla asked.

“She has a few bumps on the back of her neck, but I think it’s from the tag on her shirt.”

“Let me see,” Layla said, yanking Klayr’s shirt down at the neck.

“She can’t help herself,” Gwen said.

“You should take her to the ER, just to be safe. Meningitis.”

“Don’t listen,” Gwen said. “She’s an alarmist.”

“Thank you so much,” Klayr’s mother said to Layla, ignoring Gwen. She marched onto the porch and grabbed Klayr by the arm. “Say thank you, Klayr.”

“Merci,” Klayr said, and they loaded into a Tesla and drove away.

“I like her,” Layla said. “Parents in California are much too lenient.”

◆

An hour later, Layla and Gwen were in the van, barreling across the Bay Bridge, the bed and bathroom door rattling with every bump. Layla had insisted that it would be good for Gwen to get out into the city, “to be among the living,” but she’d also insisted on driving and had refused to take BART. “I hate this bridge part.” Layla said. “I’m always afraid there’ll be an earthquake.”

“We could have taken BART.”

“And be one-hundred feet under water when it hits?” 

“It’s not going to hit, Mom.” Gwen closed her eyes.

“You’re overdue.”

“What?”

“For an earthquake.”

“I look forward to it. People will stop moving here and rent will be affordable again.”

“You need not be so blithe.”

“You need not talk incessantly.” Gwen opened her eyes and pretended to glance around. “Do you see anyone else talking?”

Layla looked over at her. “Are you this nasty to Rikesh?”

“Yes, Mom. Yes, I am.” Out Gwen’s window, sun sparkled off the bay. Tired-looking cargo ships rose from the water like ugly islands. “You know you’re not going to be able to park this thing,” she said.

“I’m an excellent driver. I parked her in downtown New Orleans,” Layla said. “Let’s eat in Hayes Valley and then see where the afternoon takes us.”

“You’re delusional,” Gwen said.

Despite being on the foggy side of the bay, sun now splashed over the tops of skyscrapers. Gwen gave directions to Layla, who was hunched forward, navigating the narrow streets. As they rolled into Hayes Valley, streams of people crossed intersections and clogged the sidewalks, and groups of friends lolled on blankets in the park.

“Why didn’t you tell me it would be so crowded?” Layla said, attempting to back up on a side street. Someone pulling out of a driveway honked and threw up their hands.

“It’s a sunny afternoon in July,” Gwen said.

“Well you could have told me parking would be impossible.”

“I’m as shocked as you are,” Gwen said.

Layla made a three-point turn and nicked a garbage can. “How do we get to that neighborhood with the pasta and strip joints?” She smiled with her teeth, a rare occurrence, and at her outer eyes there appeared faint fans of wrinkles.

They rattled through the Tenderloin and Chinatown and somehow found a parking spot in front of a focaccia bakery. In the street, Gwen shook off her jacket and watched as her mother closed her eyes into the sun. Though her face was smooth, there was a slack quality to it, and her eyes had begun a downward descent. She looked older than she had six months ago. Her mother’s aging was something Gwen tried not to think about. Three years ago, at the end of Layla’s visit, Gwen had cried when her mother disappeared through the revolving doors at the airport, her little carry-on scurrying behind her.

Now, at a counter in North Beach, they ordered steaming bowls of bucatini, and afterward, they drank wine at a sunny sidewalk café and watched people teeter by in high heels. Gwen explained that if a person was wearing heels, there was a pretty good chance they were a visitor; most locals gave up on anything but flats due to the hills.

Halfway through the bottle, Layla wanted a photo, so they foolishly left their things at the table and ran across Columbus, dodging oncoming traffic, to Layla’s preferred backdrop: a large green awning. On the crowded street corner, Layla took photos with her phone. The sun was still high, and they could see all the way down the street to glowing marquee signs, the great pyramid of the Transamerica building, and the spires of a cathedral lit white. Layla shouted for Gwen to turn around and smile, and while Gwen stood under the green shop awning, a little drunk, and watched her mother, bathed in golden sunlight, slowly back into a young tourist couple, apologize, and throw her head back in laughter, for a moment, perhaps even a few seconds, Gwen smiled at the camera and forgot that she was unhappy.

Later, after they’d finished the bottle, Layla got up to pee, and through the open windows, Gwen could hear her mother in line for the restroom, laughing with the man next to her and speaking Spanish. Gwen thought of asking her mother to stay longer, imagined the two of them organizing Gwen’s closet, staying in their pajamas until noon, the way they had the week she’d moved into her first apartment.

Approaching on the sidewalk was a young couple wearing matching Hawaiian shirts, followed a minute later by a man in tan carpenter pants. As she watched him walk toward her, Gwen saw the man crawling on the ground, the blood at the corner of his mouth, and she felt the percussive rumble of bodies running past, the heat of her own breath while she blinked into white linen. She stood, and her metal chair tipped back and clattered onto the sidewalk, and as the man jogged toward her, she backed up until she hit the restaurant window. Cold needles of sweat at the nape of her neck. The certainty that she was having a heart attack, dying on this sunny street with her mother now squeezing her shoulders.

“Gwyneth, sit down,” Layla said.

The man in the carpenter pants was gripping the back of the chair, which was now upright. He had hairy hands and wore a thick gold wedding band. All around the table, people had stopped to watch. A young tourist carrying a pink shopping bag asked if Gwen wanted her unopened ice tea. Gwen shook her head and sat down and tried to breathe.

“She’s fine,” Layla said to the crowd. She waved the onlookers away and turned to Gwen. “People are staring.”

Gwen looked into her mother’s eyes and couldn’t read them. She knew she must be a disappointment. And then the worst happened: she began to cry.

The tan pants man departed, and Gwen wiped at her face with her sleeves. She tried to focus on her breathing, and she closed her eyes and imagined Rikesh counting to thirty. When she opened her eyes, she saw on her mother’s face the familiar expression she always wore whenever Gwen cried. Some stew of bewilderment and rage. Gwen had never seen Layla cry.

“Why do you always look at me like that?” Gwen said.

“I’m sorry. Next time should I run it by you first? You can let me know if you approve of my facial expressions?”

“Why can’t you be like a normal mom?”

Layla signaled the waiter for the check.

“Why can’t you ever comfort me or tell me it’s going to be okay?”

“Because it’s not.” Layla leaned forward across the table. “It’s not all going to be okay. I’m sorry you and Rikesh had to go through such an awful ordeal. And it was truly awful. But do you want me to lie to you? Do you want me to say life will get easier?”

“Yes! Yes, that’s exactly what I want.”

“Well, it won’t. What you’ve been through was terrible, but guess what? In the coming decades, things will happen that will be much more terrible, and you’ll look back on this terrible year when you were young and you’ll wish you’d enjoyed it. Save your energy, you’ll need it. Because life doesn’t get easier, Gwyneth; it tends, generally, to get harder.” Layla’s expression softened. “You don’t have kids, you can’t understand. You’ve always been like your father: too sensitive. Do you know what happens to sensitive people?” She cleared her throat and managed a bleary smile when the waiter handed her the check. As she spoke, she opened the bill and began calculating a tip in the margins. “When your father left, I was beside myself. I gave birth alone, changed diapers alone, and you just screamed and screamed, day and night. I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t sleeping. My mother came to help. She stayed for two weeks.”

“Grandma Jo?”

“Yes, I said my mother. She cooked and cleaned and cared for you, and when the two weeks were up, she put her suitcase by the door and told me she was leaving. Well, I begged her to stay, I practically kissed her shoes, but she told me, ‘Layla, you need to put one foot in front of the other.’ And I did.” Layla snapped the bill shut and pushed it to the edge of the table.

“How could she just leave you?” Gwen said. “That’s so cruel.”

Layla shrugged and leaned down to readjust her shoe. “Maybe it was. What do I know? None of us knows what we’re doing.” She looked up, her lips tight, her eyes pooling. “What I’m trying to say is that I wish you didn’t have to carry anything, I wish that more than you could ever understand.” She tugged down her pant leg and stood up. “Ready?”

◆

On the way home, as they were sitting in bridge traffic, a notification popped up on Gwen’s phone, and she felt the prickles of panic again, the sour swirl in her gut that arrived every few days with every new headline. A fifteen-year-old boy. A summer camp in Missouri. Three dead. Nine wounded. The youngest: eight. She must have made a sound, because Layla, from the driver’s seat, glanced over and asked what had happened. “Nothing,” Gwen said.

Later, after they’d snacked on cheese and crackers and split another bottle of wine, and after Layla was safely asleep in her van and the dishwasher had begun its mechanical grinding, Gwen, feeling wide awake, adrenaline thrumming as if she were gearing up for a marathon, slipped through the back door, walked barefoot through the backyard—dewy bits of grass adhering to her ankles and toes—and climbed the ladder to the treehouse. In a neighboring yard, two cats screeched and hissed. Gwen checked her mummy bag for bugs, then, from the container she kept behind a stack of books, shook out two sleeping pills. She swallowed them with only a passing thought of the wine, and how she might feel in the morning. The moment she succumbed to the heavy pharmaceutical grip was the moment she looked forward to all day. 

As she waited for sleep to take her and tried to keep warm in her bag, Gwen scrolled through new postings in the survivor’s group. The post with the most comments that day was Our Children Live In Fear! She pulled up the article from earlier and read all about the camp shooting. That’s what they were calling it in the news. Gwen pictured a sign: Welcome to Camp Shooting, where no child is safe. 

◆

A metallic clacking entered Gwen’s dream. She opened her eyes to Klayr standing at the treehouse window, tapping two stones together.

“Bonjour,” Klayr said. The girl had been waiting, creepily, maybe for an hour, for Gwen to wake.

Gwen rubbed her face. Her brain felt swollen and heavy.

“Why did you sleep here?” Klayr set the stones on the windowsill.

“My mom’s staying with me.”

“But she sleeps in her van.”

Gwen sighed. “I forgot,” she said.

Klayr sat at Gwen’s feet and peered at her. “You look different right now.”

“I don’t have any makeup on.”

“Oh,” Klayr said. “It makes your eyes look weirdlike.” She stood and walked over to the drawing of the grinning cat in a tornado. “Did I draw this?”

“No. The girl who lived here before me.”

“Did she get shot and die?”

“What? No.”

Klayr eyed her. “Are you thirty-five?” She picked up a book, and paged through it, pretending to speed read.

“No. I’m twenty-nine, why?” Gwen was offended. 

“The doctor said I’m young and probably don’t need to go to the doctor again until I’m thirty-five.” Klayr continued turning pages at a rapid pace.

“I’m sure he was joking.”

“It was a girl doctor,” Klayr said, and tossed the book to the floor.

“Right.” Gwen felt herself flush. “Was everything okay?”

“We went to the ER because of your mom, but I just have a virus or something.” Klayr slipped on one of Gwen’s flip flops, hiked up her dirty dress over her scabby knee, and stamped her leg around at pointy angles, like a fashion model.

“I’m glad you’re fine,” Gwen said.

A breeze came through the doorway and blew around pages of magazines and newspapers near Gwen’s feet. Klayr picked up a waterlogged magazine with her thumb and forefinger and dangled it out in front of her. “Aren’t you too old to have a messy house?”

Gwen rolled over and pretended to sleep. She could hear Klayr rattling stones at the window and breathing through her mouth. 

“How come your mom’s driving you crazy?”

“Did she say that?” Gwen said, forgetting she was supposed to be asleep.

“Yep. She just made me toast. She said to come wake you up out here.”

“She knows I’m out here? What time is it?”

Klayr pulled out a cell phone. “Eight twenty-six! I told her we had to practice.”

Gwen sat up. “What? What did you tell her, Klayr?”

“Just how we sometimes practice.”

“What did she say?”

“Your mom? She mostly just asked questions.”

“What’s she doing now?”

“Talking on the phone to Rikesh.”

“Jesus, why would you do that?” Gwen’s voice came out louder than she’d intended, and Klayr flinched. 

Her back to Gwen, Klayr rose onto her toes and placed a pebble on the top ledge of the window frame. “Your mom’s going to Santa Fe.”

“I know,” Gwen said, and lay down on her back. In a patch of light above her head, a spider web gleamed. She closed her eyes and thought of how lately, she always shouted when she wanted to cry. This was one thing Rikesh understood about her.

Once, Gwen and Rikesh had passed by Santa Fe, and when they’d pulled off for gas, they ended up on a two-lane road in Navajo Nation behind a slow white pickup truck. Two Navajo men sat in the bed of the truck, and one of the men lifted his middle finger and held it out at her. He kept it raised even when they pulled in for gas.

“Do you believe this?” Gwen had said.

“What do you expect? We’re on his land.” Rikesh unbuckled his seat belt and looked at her. “Are you really mad at him? Maybe you feel complicit? Or sad?”

Gwen pictured Layla driving through the scorching red rocks of Arizona, toward the warm adobe dwellings of Santa Fe. When she and Rikesh had driven through New Mexico, they hadn’t stopped in Santa Fe, but Rikesh had an aunt there and he’d shown Gwen photos of ochre sunsets above green mountains, orange rock pillars that, at their tops, gradated to gold. She’d watched a documentary about a pueblo in New Mexico with cave paintings that were almost a thousand years old. It had been a bustling town. Now it was owned by the park service. The cliffs were abandoned, its caves filled with tourists by day, empty and soundless by night.

Gwen was thinking about red cliffs and clay earth and fingers brushing paint upon rock so many hundreds of years ago, when she heard the crackling of paper underfoot. Klayr snatched a sheet of paper from the floor near the door and came over and handed it to Gwen. The page had been torn from that morning’s newspaper. Summer Camp Shooter, read the headline. Underneath was a photo of the boy who had killed three children. He looked young and frightened, like any other adolescent boy. “I heard,” Gwen said, handing back the article. After a glance, Klayr let go, and the two of them watched the page slice through the air at an angle, then race across the floor.

Klayr sat back down near Gwen’s feet. The girl’s ponytail was too tight, and at her forehead, a fuzz of fine hairs had freed themselves. “School starts in three weeks. Can we practice?” There was a hopeful terror in her eyes.

“Come here,” Gwen said, sitting up and patting the blanket next to her.

Klayr scooched back until they were sitting side by side against the wall.

“Did you read that entire article?”

Klayr nodded.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“The girl, Laetitia, she was eight,” Klayr said. “Like me. And she just liked to draw and have friends and-” She looked down at her hands and sobbed. “And I don’t know why he wanted to kill her.” She looked up at Gwen. “Why would he want to kill her?”

Do you know what happens to sensitive people?

At first, at the girl’s display of emotion, Gwen felt an instinctive, cool repulsion. She thought of Grandma Jo leaving Layla in the doorway, of all the ways we teach each other to be strong. Then, Gwen put her arm around Klayr’s shoulder, and when the girl collapsed, smearing warm tears across Gwen’s lap and forearm, Gwen closed her eyes and patted Klayr’s back, until, after a time, their breath synchronized, the girl’s tremors seemed to enter and crash through Gwen, and she listened to herself chanting, lying, “We won’t let anything bad happen to you. You’re okay. You don’t have to be afraid. You’re safe. Life will get easier. You’ll see.”