Page 19

Carolina's door is already open. She gets out slowly, one hand on the roof of the car, in last night's sweater with her hair still loose and tangled from this morning. She looks at my daughter the way I imagine she looks at a new patient, directly and with no hurry.

Faith stops two feet from her with both hands behind her back.

"I'm Faith Harris. I'm seven and a quarter."

"Carolina Whitaker. I'm twenty-seven and a half."

"That's a lot of months."

"I'm told it adds up."

"Are you my dad's girlfriend?"

"Faith," I say.

"I'm collecting information."

Carolina doesn't look at me. She keeps her eyes on Faith, perfectly pleasant. "No. Somebody broke my porch lights early this morning, and I can't stay at my grandmother's house until the locks get fixed. Your dad's helping me out."

"That's what a friend does."

"That's exactly what a friend does."

I take it in the sternum. I have no right to, since I'm the one who said it first, but it lands there anyway.

Faith nods slowly, satisfied, then her attention snags on something through the open car door. She leans in and her whole body goes still.

"Why is there a frying pan buckled into your seat?"

"Protection."

"From what?"

"Anyone who'd paint a barn."

Faith turns to me with an expression of such pure, unguarded delight that I have to look at the sky. "Daddy. She has a weapon."

"I see that."

"Can I hold it?"

"It's very heavy," Carolina says.

"I'm very strong."

Carolina's mouth twitches. It's the same line she used on me this morning on her porch. I watch her recognize it. She decides not to look in my direction. "I'll bet you are. Later. Once it's out of the car."

Across the street, a car door shuts. My mother crosses the road with her quilted vest buttoned wrong, her silver hair cut short, and her reading glasses swinging on their chain. She doesn't hurry. She's carrying a covered dish in both hands. She arrives at the curb, kisses me on the cheek, and then looks at Carolina. I watch her take in everything in the time it takes to blink: the sweater, the hair, the car, my face.

"Ruth Harris. You must be Nell's girl."

"Carolina."

"I sat on the church bake committee with your grandmother for thirty-one years, and she cheated at it every single one." My mother's voice is warm and dry. "I'm sorry about her. She was the best of a mean bunch."

Carolina laughs, a short, startled one that she seems not to have planned. "That sounds like her."

"And I'm sorry about your barn. Dolores called at a quarter past eight."