Chapter 10 - The Geography of Nowhere
She looked at the dry rocks.
She felt the sharp, bony knees of her little sister pressing against the back of her legs.
She felt the heat of the sun cooking the grease into the yellow cotton of her dress.
Where do you sleep?
The logic of a child is a terrible, beautiful weapon.
If a bed is a place with blankets, we don't have a bed.
If a home is a place with a door, we don't have a home.
But we close our eyes.
And when we close our eyes, the dust stops blowing.
She slowly raised her head.
Her hazel eyes found Silas’s rusted iron gaze once more.
The fierce, protective tension in her small face dissolved, leaving only the hollow, devastating exhaustion of a six-year-old holding up the sky.
"Somewhere."
The word fell from her cracked lips.
It was a whisper.
It carried no hope, no direction, and no geography.
It was the definitive address of the forgotten.
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Silas did not stand up.
He stayed crouched in the red dirt, the heavy black wool of his coat gathering the dust, sharing the exact same piece of nowhere with the girl in the yellow dress.
