“If an alarm goes off, oh well. It’d be a miracle if the police appeared.” Calliope turned toward Eunjoo. “Chica, you stay in the car.” She had no idea if Eunjoo would listen, but if there was a lunatic at this gas station, she figured the girl would be safer locked in the back seat. She thought of breastfeeding Phoenix during an electrical storm when the power had gone out. Calliope feared the dark storms and loud noises. She still slept with the bathroom light on most nights. But that night, nursing him, watching the way he suckled by candlelight, undisturbed, tucked between Calliope’s breast and the pillow, she’d felt calmed by him. The baby boy, comforting his mama just by his being there. She mostly hated breastfeeding. It hurt, chafed her nipples, kept her awake at night. She’d developed mastitis three times, always with a high fever and rash. It was sheer bullheadedness that kept her at it. But that night during the storm, she loved it. Eunjoo’s presence now comforted her too.

The parking lot was eerie with no lights or people, but no chains or closed signs either. Only empty buildings. Only whistling through the trees. Calliope stepped out, holding her belly below her abdomen. Amy watched her waddle around the front. “You’re gonna pop any minute, huh?”

“Not for two months. It’s just like this with twins.”

“Yeah, my aunt had twins. She was huge too.”

“I’m a cow.”

“You’re brave.”

Calliope smiled briefly. She didn’t feel brave, but she’d take it. She searched the ground. “Could you throw whatever it is we’re going to throw through the window? I’m brave but not strong.”

“Sure thing, momma,” Amy replied, and Calliope cringed. That was the third time she’d called her that. Calliope hated when anyone said it. She thought of big momma, fat momma, old momma, and a whole stream of your-momma jokes she’d heard when she was a kid. But she couldn’t afford to alienate Amy, so she held her tongue.

Nothing on the ground immediately stood out as throwable.

“We could try throwing the keys?” Amy suggested.

“I don’t want to break them.”

“Do you have one of those window-shattering tools?”

Andres might have stored one in the glove box, for emergencies. That sounded like him. But she didn’t want Amy to know about the gun. “No, I don’t have anything like that.”

Amy shrugged, then chucked rocks from the median. They didn’t make a dent. “Not heavy enough. We need something bigger.”

“Trash can?” Calliope asked, nodding toward the metal can in its cement casement. “We could try pulling it out. It should be heavy enough.”