The silence was infuriating. She needed spiritual guidance that had some volume. She checked on her children, their sleeping bodies illuminated by moonlight, and then she swaddled Chris tight and drove down to the pay phone.

The phone rang and rang until she heard a drowsy greeting, then whispered feminine commotion, and then, finally, Sister.

“Ruth?” Sister said. “It's the middle of the night here.”

“Same here.”

“You woke everyone up.”

“It's not fourth grade. You can't rap my knuckles with a ruler.”

“Ruthie,” Sister said, “you sound crazy.”

Ruth tried to picture what nuns wore to bed, what Sister looked like in this moment. She imagined multiple layers of garments, complicated hook-and-eye fastenings.

“Can I still pray to St. Christopher if I'm stuck here in Gabbs?”

“Prayers are like the radio, Ruthie. You never know who's listening exactly, but someone always is.” There was a pause. “Can you please tell me what's happening?”

“Del stole my creamed corn money.”

“Del,” Sister said, expelling his name with her breath, almost grunting him out. Chris startled, blinked his drowsy newborn eyes, settled back into sleep. “I'm sorry, Ruth.”

Ruth slumped down onto the sidewalk under the pay phone, her back against the cinder-block wall, the desert sky stretching endless in front of her, her newborn son cradled in one arm. She felt comfortable with the immensity of the sky. She hoped Charley was right about the aliens, that Del and Allen knew more than it seemed possible they could. The more life there was, the less lonely any one person had to feel, the more hope for a connection.

“What do you think you'll do now?” Sister had turned her volume down, or there was something wrong with the line. It was hard to hear.

“I'll just have to start over.” She wasn't ready, yet, to tell Sister about the nursing school. At least it was a safer place to put the money than a creamed corn can, even if it was a longer road back to Colorado. A way to believe, again, in her own glittering future. Something, like her children, that she'd have for herself.

Chris stirred in her arms. Ruth thought about her girls' giggled secrets, about Charley's hand on her cheek. She watched the moon traverse the patterned stars, wondered which constellations Charley would map for her if he was awake, which individual shining points of light, grouped together, would make a whole story.

Early Warning Systems