Fighting her way out of a sudden flashback to grade eight math, Charlie frowned. “They’re Socrates and we’re the cat?”

Auntie Catherine sighed and crossed her ankles. She was wearing opalescent silver-gray nail polish the same shade as her hair. “It isn’t time for you to be on your own yet,” she said, avoiding the question.

“And yet you’re always after me to . . . How did you put it? . . . slip Allie’s leash.”

“This isn’t about Allie. Go home.”

Because it was, by auntie standards, more of a suggestion than a command, Charlie returned a less than definitive answer. “I can’t.”

“You can. I Saw you there.”

“I don’t care.” She finished the coffee and crushed the cup. “I’m not going to be tamed by Auntie Bea.”

“On the one hand, good for you.” Bracelets chimed again. “On the other hand, she’s frightened. They all are. The asteroid is outside their circles, and they don’t want the world to end any more than you do.”

“I doubt that,” Charlie snorted.

“Well, they don’t want their world to end,” Auntie Catherine acknowledged. “It amounts to much the same thing.”

“There’s a lot of people in that qualifier.” She watched dawn tint the ripples in the pool pink and orange. “I’m not ready to stop trying to save them.”

“You’ve made that quite obvious. If you’d pressed your point, Bea couldn’t have stopped you. All four of them working together might have been able to, but I’m not sure they’d have realized that in time. I’m not sure Gwen wouldn’t have stepped away in the end.”

“I have never used my voice against the family.”

“Of course you haven’t. Isn’t that what I just said?”

Her half smile looked entire false. “Did you challenge Auntie Jane? Is that why you left?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Charlotte. I’ve challenged her authority on numerous occasions, but I’ve never challenged her. I play the long game and my sister is as capable of holding a grudge as my granddaughter. Someday, when I’ve Seen enough, I’m going to want to go home.” To die. For a moment, Auntie Catherine looked old. “But that’s me.” The moment passed. “You, however, you need to stop sitting around, watching your ass spread, and feeling sorry for yourself.”

“I’m . . .”

“I still haven’t Seen the impact.”

The words dropped between them like pebbles dropped down a well. Charlie listened to the echoes for a while, then she said, “So there’s still hope.”

“There’s always hope, Charlotte, that’s the point of the story.”

“Yeah, well my story’s a little more complica . . . Oh, crap!” The lounge rocked back as she stood, scraping against the concrete tiles loudly enough to flush a pair of birds from the shrubbery. “I told Jack I wouldn’t leave again without talking to him first.”