Palin stood up and stretched out across them, waking up both Taylor and Luke. Luke pulled her on top of his body, smothering her in affectionate kisses and baby talk. Palin was snuggly in the morning. She seemed to bathe in the reestablishment of closeness that took place when people came back from the short parting of dreamtime to greet her. When Luke had moved his attention to changing his shirt and pants for the day, not thinking that anyone was watching him, Palin made her way over to repeat her snuggle routine with Aria. She flicked Aria’s face with her little black nose while being prevented from licking it. Aria held her muzzle still and planted a kiss on it, making the dog exhale a little sneeze. Aria was in heaven running her fingers through her cottony hair and feeling the weight of Palin’s perfect trust against her.

Luke unzipped the tent just in time for Taylor to sit up straight and stretch his arms across both of their faces. “Who lives here?” Aria asked Luke, wanting to get a feeling for what she was about to be met with before exiting the tent.

“Well, it’s just a group of us who decided to create a little community, I guess you could say,” Luke explained. “That over there is Mike.” He pointed to the man who was playing the guitar. His white hair was tied in a ponytail behind his head and shrouded by a black trucker’s hat. “That over there is EJ,” he said, indicating a thin man who was sitting half in and half out of a broken-down black Camaro. “That’s Ciarra,” he said, pointing to a woman who was watching herself brush her hair in the wing mirror of a giant purple van. Then he pointed to a tarp on the right. It was tied between the fence and two trees. “Anthony lives there. He’s on a trip so you’ll meet him later.”

By this point, Aria couldn’t take everything in. But Luke continued anyway, and she didn’t stop him. “That place belongs to Robert. He’s a great guy, you’ll like him,” he went on, pointing to a lime-colored one-man tent with a bike near the perimeter of the lot. “Oh, and that’s Wolf,” he said, pointing to a Native American-looking man walking across the lot. “And that place over there belongs to Darren.” He gestured to an abandoned RV.

Aria counted them and said, “So eight of you live here?”

“Well, nine because Ciarra has a son, and ten if you count Palin.” Luke petted her head as an affirmation of her importance.

“Do you all know each other?” she asked.