Instead of looking surprised, he looked relieved she’d said it. “Did you leave it?” His liquid brown eyes reminded her so much of Sara’s, the way they dipped down at their outer corners. His skin was pale like hers, too, and he had three dark moles on his cheek. Sara hated her moles, said she was going to get them burned off when she was an adult.

“Hell, yes,” Rainy said, and he smiled. His teeth were crooked, but clean and white. The kid seemed more upbeat as he stuffed the money into his apron and nodded at the floor. She watched him in amusement, remembering her first restaurant job in New York as a hostess and then, later, a server. He could leave here and work at any restaurant; it was good money if you found the right place and got decent shifts. He could make it. When she’d first seen him, knowing he was Taured’s kid, she’d wanted him to leave, get the hell out of Dodge, and now that she saw Sara’s face when she looked at the boy, her heart ached.

“Your mom,” Rainy said, staring into his eyes and thinking of her own. “Always let her know you’re okay.” She supposed it wasn’t such a strange thing for a woman to say to a kid; she could have been a mom herself for all he knew, making sure some other mom’s kid didn’t run off without her knowing.

Derek seemed frozen in place. He blinked at her and then finally said, “My mom’s dead.”

Rainy hadn’t bitten her nails since she was nineteen and her college psych professor called her out for it in front of the class. It had been a humbling experience in not showing her tells. But as her Uber sped through the desert, she bit them till they bled. In her lap: the rescued Ziploc bag she’d dug up after burying it twenty years prior. She was purposefully not looking at it, afraid of what it might make her feel. Her jeans were brown with the dirt they were carrying; she imagined her face didn’t look any better. How had it stayed undisturbed for so long? But Rainy knew how; she’d chosen the spot for that very purpose. The locals called it Charlie Cactus: a thirty-foot saguaro cactus that Rainy agreed was impressive. She’d come here with Sara on their few trips into town for nonperishable food. It grew behind Red’s, away from the freeway and a five-minute walk up a hill. None of the adults had cared enough that they’d wanted to go see it each time they were in town, but it became a thing for the girls to walk over to visit Charlie.