Where regret had swallowed Mama, Dinah had chewed the fat and collapsed to resentment.
Anger and tears were now what drove her onward; further from home, further from two people she loved so deeply even still. But Judah had turned his cheek; Judah did not know what she had seen and didn't care to listen. And Daddy—
For each night that passed, she had dreams about them both. One night it was a dream of returning to them and smelling the saltbrine on their fur once again, of the splintering summer sun through the trees and the soothing air of lavender. The next had been a dream of denouncing them, denouncing God; saliva flying from between teeth, rebuking them for their sins, the near-death of Ava!
She fought with herself.
She cried often; her waking moments were divided between a strange sense of calm and disastrous weeping.
She stuck close to Simeon and Mama; the two, the only two she felt she had left. And yet she knew that if Daddy and Judah were to appear right now before them, all would be forgiven instantaneously — but should it? Should it?
She didn't know. God was not here to tell her. It pained her that she still often thought of Him.
Gramma. Gramma was here, in this jagged forest. Gramma would help.
But Mama, too, now, wanted to leave — to bring them here. Anger anger rage No, she snaps her teeth before she can even think about the words coming from her mouth. he'll just ruin everything again!
Tears, again, burning and empty; pitiful, for there were none left for her to release.