“Ah. Yes. Well first I really want to apologize to you Dune. There’s really no excuse, this is the most devastating part of being a doctor, having no room to help people because of the way the medical system is set up in terms of insurance. So many random situations come through. You never know when something odd is actually something new. I doubt we could have saved your mother, I want to say that. But you shouldn’t have had to care for her like that. Bury her like that. I am sorry.”

“Thank you.” Dune was surprised to realize that Dr. Rogers knew what had happened here, had been paying some attention to her through this time. “I hear that. But, I’m curious. Do you still think she was patient zero?”

“I do. Everyone who survived that first wave agrees. Whatever it was, is, it touched Kama first. Though she wasn’t the first to die.”

“Is it only us—Black people, people with African ancestry?”

“I am not at liberty to affirm that.” Heavy pause. “By telephone.”

“Oh.” Dune thought into the silence for a second. “Where could you affirm that?”

“You’re on Second, near Brainard?”

“I am.”

“Go to Jumbo’s.”

Dune saw the green windowless brick of a bar in her mind, chained up for months now. “OK.”

The phone buzzed with completion and Dune felt a flurry in her belly—curiosity tinged with fear, or vice versa. She was going, but she thought it was most likely a trap. Her only negotiating leverage was that Mama Vivian was here and needed her to return.

Then she caught her racing and suspicious mind. Whose trap? Leverage for what? And with who?

She resolved again to take a break from weed.

The mural was on the parking lot side of the evergreen building, lush bright flowers unfolding around ringed witchy hands. Dune leaned against the wall near the back of the lot, close to the alley that would take her home if things looked shady and escape was an option. She heard a vehicle park nearby, and then Dr. Rogers came walking around the corner, crossing the gravel lot.

Dune stayed easy, let the doctor approach. She didn’t look like Dune remembered or expected, her face was a soft worn brown, eyes gentle, fatigued and inquisitive above her mask. The doctor said hello with open palms, waiting, as if Dune had initiated this meeting.

“Why you still here?”

“I’m actually leaving tomorrow,” Dr. Rogers answered, with an intense, invitational gaze. “I was supposed to evacuate weeks ago, but the research is here.”

“But why—”