Free Mothers and Other Liars by Amy Bourret Page B

sacred dirt-floored space. Sometimes the town square is packed with tour buses, and a conga line of people squeezes through this room. Today, though, Lark and Ruby have the shrine to themselves, if only until the next belching bus arrives.
    “Maybe you could come live in Texas, too.” Lark sifts her fingers through the dirt, to which people trek from afar for its purported healing properties. “Maybe you could live right next door.” She’s now trying out the bargaining phase, it seems.
    Ruby plops down on the cool earth next to Lark, leans back against the clammy wall. She doesn’t tell Lark that she, too, has had the same thought, that holding on to the idea that theirs will not be a forever good-bye is the only way she’s made it this far. Cell phones, e-mail, airplanes. Like a mantra, Ruby repeats that trio every time she wants to scream.
    She has moments when she worries about how Lark will handle it, straddling a chasm between two worlds. Her grandmother had some saying that Ruby can’t quite remember, about a person who tries to be two things ending up being no one at all. But Lark wouldn’t be all that different from children of divorce splitting their time between parents. Except that this is nothing like that at all. It’s odd, sending her kid off to live with someone she doesn’t know, when all these years Ruby has insisted on meeting a parent before even an afternoon playdate.
    “Maybe they won’t like me. Maybe they’ll send me home.”
    “You have to give them a chance.”
    “But maybe…”
    “Give them a chance, baby bird.” Ruby almost smiles as she imagines Lark being such a stinker that those other parents tuck tail and run.

THIRTY
    When they return from Chimayo, a plastic grocery bag hangs on the front doorknob. A yellow sticky note stapled to the bag is labeled lark in black marker, and in smaller blue ink, a scribbled, We missed you today, Mrs. G .
    “That was nice,” Ruby says. “Mrs. Graciella dropped off something from Girls Inc. camp.”
    Lark snatches the bag out of Ruby’s hands and tucks it under her arm as they walk into the house.
    “Well? Open it,” Ruby says.
    Lark tosses a “no” over her shoulder as she heads for her bedroom.
    Ruby gives her a few minutes then knocks at the half-open door. “Lark, is it your T-shirt? May I see?”
    “It’s nothing.” Lark’s voice is choked with tears. “Just some stupid thing.”
    Ruby held the bag; she could see below the knotted handle to the green fabric inside. But she doesn’t challenge Lark. Instead, she walks the few steps to the bathroom and strips off her clothes. As she stands under the shower, the road dust slides off her. Yet the worry and sadness cling to her skin like wood stain.

THIRTY-ONE
    The galvanized tub radiates the warmth of the afternoon sun. Inside, Clyde shivers with the indignity of bath time.
    Despite her best efforts at remaining morose, a tiny giggle burbles through Lark’s cherry-candy lips. “That’s what they call ‘hangdog.’” She lifts Clyde’s chin from his chest and nuzzles his soapy nose, water hose writhing beside her. “You’ll go with me, boy. You’ll be my friend.”
    While Ruby combs burrs and mats from Clyde’s tail—the perfect henna color for which Margaret’s redhead wannabes would kill—she tells Lark more about that day nine years ago. Ruby talks about seeing the torn Clark wrapper on the seat beside the baby carrier, the C left behind in the rest stop trash bin, the remaining letters leaping out at her like a banner headline. Lark Leander , she had thought, now that sounded like the alliterated cheerleader she herself never was. Ruby closes the cap of the shampoo bottle, lays it beside Clyde’s brush.
    Lark sprays the hose on the dog’s underbelly, eyes avoiding Ruby. “Is that what I was to you, a lark?”
    Ruby cups Lark’s cheek with her palm. “Oh, baby bird. You were—are—everything to me.” An early reader and a precocious child, Lark was only