Dune leaned back against the stair railing. Crickets were in full summer chorus. Whatever had killed her mother was spreading to others. Marta made sense, but it sounded like hell. Dune didn’t know what to say.

“We?” She delayed.

“Yeah, we. You and me. I was confused! I fucked up, but I’m still your love. At least, I still love you.” Marta paused and Dune offered nothing. “Whatever. This shit? We can fight about it when we are some place where people aren’t becoming zombies all around us.”

Dune blinked, saw Kama’s stiff back outlined by sun rays against the kitchen window. She felt punched, and drew into herself.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” Marta’s words were too fast, desperate. Marta was always apologizing, never being more careful. Dune felt suddenly much older. She wondered what both of them would look like when they got sick. It wasn’t attractive. “Dunny please. Please, let’s go.”

Dune wasn’t considering it, but had never known how to say no to Marta. “What about Mama Vivian?”

Marta looked caught off guard. “Are you serious right now? That old woman don’t even like you!”

“Fuck you talking about, Mar? That’s my grandmother.” Dune thought of the old woman, who loved her, trapped in her failing senses in the shadowed house behind them.

“What am I talking about?” Marta screwed her mouth up, looking genuinely confused. “Let’s see… She’s racist, she never thought Kama was worth your dad’s attention, she hasn’t said a word to y’all since he died. Come on, you told me that. Anyway, it’s only Black people getting sick. We could put her in a home ’til it’s over.”

Dune’s shoulders sagged, heavy. She was overwhelmingly tired. It would never even occur to Marta not to shit on Mama Vivian today, not to bring up these intimate and long ago disproved suspicions, shared with the tender confidence that lives in pillows. Even if Dune could stop thinking about Marta cheating there would still be this part of her. Dune had forgotten this selfish, callous part, the survivor instinct. Marta could never hear the no between the lines, always made Dune say it aloud.

“Mama Vivian is my only family now.”

Dune saw Marta’s eyes searching the ground, gathering a response, figuring out a next move. Dune wanted to stop her. “And besides, you and I are done.” Left hook to the heart.

Suddenly Marta’s nose was running a little bit, her eyes bright. “How can you be so mean to me right now?”

Dune shrugged. “Anyone you know die yet?”

“No.” Then, again, the fumbling, “I mean yes, obviously, Kama of course. It’s, they’re all over the city, Dune. They are talking about a quarantine. We can’t stay here, Dunny. It’s ... it’s devastating.”