Sole Survivor

do her best to help.
        “No, actually, the girl never said her name. Rachel introduced her. The poor child never spoke two words. She was so tired, you see, so sleepy. And maybe in shock a little from the car rolling over. Not hurt, mind you. Not a mark on her. But her little face was as white and shiny as candle wax. Heavy-eyed and not really with us. Half in a sort of trance. I worried about her, but Rachel said she was okay, and Rachel was a doctor, after all, so then I didn't worry about it that much. The little doll slept in the car all the way to Pueblo.”
        Mercy rolled a ball of dough between her palms. She put the pale sphere on a baking sheet and flattened it slightly with the gentle pressure of her thumb.
        “Rachel had been to Colorado Springs to visit family for the weekend, and she'd taken Nina with her because Nina's dad and mom were on an anniversary cruise. At least that's how I understood it.”
        Mercy began to fill a brown paper lunch bag with the cooled cookies that were stacked on the platter.
        “Not the usual thing-I mean, a black doctor and a white doctor in practice together in these parts, and not usual, either, to see a black woman with a white child around here. But I take all that to mean the world's getting to be a better place at last, more tolerant, more loving.”
        She folded the top of the bag twice and handed it to Barbara.
        “Thank you, Mercy.”
        To Joe, Mercy Ealing said, “I'm sure sorry I couldn't be more help to you.”
        “You've been a lot of help,” he assured her. He smiled. “And there's cookies.”
        She looked toward the kitchen window that was on the side of the house rather than on the back of it. One of the stables was visible through the pall of rain.
        She said, “A good cookie does lift the spirit, doesn't it? But! sure wish I could do more than make cookies for Jeff today. He dearly loves that mare.”
        Glancing at the calendar with the religious theme, Joe said, “How do you hold onto your faith, Mercy? How in a world with so much death, planes falling out of the sky and favourite mares being taken for no reason?”
        She didn't seem surprised or offended by the question. “I don't know. Sometimes it's hard, isn't it? I used to be so angry that we couldn't have kids. I was working at some record for miscarriages, and then I just gave up. You want to scream at the sky sometimes. And there's nights you lie awake. But then I think. well, this life has its joys too. And, anyway, it's nothing but a place we have to pass through on our way to somewhere better. If we live forever, it doesn't matter so much what happens to us here.”
        Joe had been hoping for a more interesting answer. Insightful. Penetrating. Homespun wisdom. Something he could believe.
        He said, “The mare will matter to Jeff. And it matters to you because it matters so much to him.”
        Picking up another lump of dough, rolling it into a pale moon, a tiny planet, she smiled and said, “Oh, if I understood it, Joe, then I wouldn't be me. I'd be God. And that's a job I sure wouldn't want.”
        “How so?”
        “It's got to be even sadder than our end of things, don't you think? He knows our potential but has to watch us forever falling short, all the cruel things we do to one another, the hatred and the lies, the envy and greed and the endless coveting. We see only the ugliness people do to those around us, but He sees it all. The seat He's in has a sadder view than ours.”
        She put the ball of dough on the cookie sheet and impressed upon it the mark of her thumb: a moment of pleasure waiting to be baked, to be eaten, to lift the spirit.
        The veterinarian's Jeep station wagon was still in the driveway, parked in front of the Explorer. A Weimaraner was lying in the back of the vehicle. As Joe and Barbara climbed into the Ford and slammed the doors, the dog raised its noble silver-grey head and stared at them through the rear window of the Jeep.
        By the time that Barbara slipped the key into the ignition and started the Explorer, the humid air filled with the aromas of oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies and damp denim. The windshield quickly clouded with the condensation of their breath.
        “If it's Nina, your Nina,” Barbara said, waiting for the air-conditioner to clear the glass, “then where has she been for this whole year?”
        “With Rose Tucker