Fuck Miracle Manor. Fuck Cyrus.

Fuck. Cyrus.

Dog and Yard were her only miracles now.

Part II

California Love

Dog batted gently at Izzy’s arm with articulate paw-hands, and she opened her eyes, feeling half-dead, poisoned with yesterday’s adrenalin. But Dog needed to run. And maybe running would make Izzy stronger, sharper, more alert. Maybe it would move the anger out through her body. So, she got up and pulled on sweatpants, put on a sports bra under her tank top, smeared on sunscreen without bothering to wash her face. Added a cap and sunglasses. Called for Dog. They walked outside, the sun bright as glass shards in her eyes even behind dark lenses.

She inserted her headphones, tapped the music icon on her screen, and she and Dog took off running. He heeled naturally, long legs keeping pace with hers, his jowls and ears flapping. A woman’s voice sang about a man crashing and burning in Malibu. About rescuing him. But what if he did not need or want to be rescued? The song had such a happy, jangling sound Izzy had thought; later, when she interpreted the lyrics a little, they shocked her. Tears flecked her cheeks, and then the wind brushed them away. She picked up her pace until her breath seared her chest.

It was not until she got back to the shack that Izzy remembered the piece of paper in her jeans’ pocket, the piece of the paper from the woman at Miracle Manor. “The House of Hearts Retreat Center: Heal from Grief and Childhood Trauma with Sky Larkin L.S.W.” And an address in Joshua Tree.

Izzy typed the information into her computer. A picture of a woman came up. She had tan skin and long, dark hair with bangs, wore lots of silver jewelry. It was hard to tell her age from the photograph, but she was probably in her forties, maybe older though her skin was unlined. Melissa “Sky” Larkin L.S.W. Grief and Childhood Trauma. There was an upcoming date for a meeting. “Everyone welcome.”

“Heal from Grief and Childhood Trauma.” Well, Izzy needed help with grief and trauma herself now. And even though she’d told herself she’d given up on trying to find Cyrus, had accepted the fact that he’d left her, a part of her still needed to know why. What had changed? Why hadn’t he told her? And, of course, the question remained—whom had he brought with him? Maybe if she knew these things, then she could begin to heal.

Izzy stroked Dog’s head and gently pried a nugget of crust from the corner of his eye. He let her groom him manually this way, without flinching, as if they had done this a thousand times.

“I guess we’re going on a road trip,” she told him.

◆◆◆

A dead dog—brindled—lay on the side of the road, its entrails strewn around it like ripped red flowers.

“Don’t look, Dog,” Izzy said.

Telephone poles lined the highway, irrigation ditches pumped water through the desert, bales of hay were stacked like a wall, smokestacks billowed clouds into the air. Citrus and date groves and tented crops of corn. Human attempts at trying to make a wasteland livable. The mountains multicolored—purples, blues, pinks, striated layers in the distance. The colors of my love for—No.