“I was hoping you could look at some drawings that I’ve made, Mrs. Cochrane, and tell me what you think. Only if you want to, that is.”

“Now don’t rush along, my girl. Johnny!” she hollered, “How’s that tea coming?”

“It’s done, Mama. I’ll be out in a second.”

“It’s fun to hear someone boss that guy around.” Annie looked at Mrs. Cochrane. Her eyes had the flecks that start to fill up around the pupils as we age. The dark patches of wisdom that bodies create as they look out onto the world in a person’s final years.

Johnny brought out the tea on a silver tray. Cookies covered the old country rose design on the Royal Albert plate.

“I love this china,” sighed Annie. “I always wanted to have some china and would dream of it up home. One time I found an old teacup with this pattern. It makes tea taste better, don’t you think?”

Mrs. Cochrane giggled. “See Johnny, these are things girls talk about. So many times, I wished I’d had a daughter. For now, Annie, and for as long as you live here, you’ll be my girl.”

Annie felt comfortable. It was all surreal. This feeling of comfort and caring that washed through her. She wished she could sit with Mrs. Cochrane forever. The three of them sipped their tea and talked. Mrs. Cochrane talked about the latest gossip from home. How she had heard the Northern Store was selling legal marijuana and how that would make things worse up there. Mrs. Cochrane mentioned Moses Henry only once. Said she had heard that he was seen around town with a white woman. Annie flinched.

“Well, I’m gone, and he can do whatever he pleases,” she said. “He owes me nothing, Mrs. Cochrane. Not one thing, and we had a good marriage for a while.”

“The first two years are always good, my girl—it’s the next fifty that stink!”

Annie finally took her drawing pad out of her bag. She placed it on Mrs. Cochrane’s lap and told her she was welcome to flip through it. Mrs. Cochrane and Johnny both were stunned at the drawings of the hummingbirds and seagulls and the flowers that made you sure that you could smell them on the page. They praised her work over and over again until they came to a final sequence of drawings.

The red beards. The naked lady with long, dark hair. The man with the spear in the clouds. Blood splattered everywhere. Dark violence on the page.

Mrs. Cochrane gasped. She held her crooked fingers tight to her lips. She started to cry. Tight tears against her pinched mouth. A moan of desperation. Mrs. Cochrane shook her head and handed the pad back to Annie. Annie reached out her hand and squeezed Mrs. Cochrane’s palm in hers.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Johnny reached across and wrapped his mother’s shoulders up with one arm and glared over at Annie. “This is why. This is why you can’t come here,” he said in the quietest whisper.