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The discarded ends of Miranda’s once-glorious mane filled the trash can. Even though Sally knew this was what Miranda had asked for, seeing the evidence of the drastic deed took her breath away. She was surprised at how affected she was by what she saw. It looked as if a long-haired animal were curled up atop the garbage heap, asleep. Some clot of emotion shifted deep inside of her. Sally found a bag and lifted Miranda’s disembodied locks from where they lay, placed them gently in the cocoon of brown paper, and took them with her back to her room. She put the bag in the back of her closet. She didn’t know why she saved Miranda’s shorn hair. She simply felt that it must be saved, that something of Miranda must be saved.

Dix began to doubt himself. He was waiting for Miranda to do something, to give him a sign. But what if she was waiting for him? He was hoping she’d return. But what if she was hoping he would rescue her?

Eventually, he tired of wondering. He had nothing to lose. He had the one person he cared about in the world to gain. Even more important, to help. He decided to go on a Tuesday afternoon. There seemed to be a logic to this decision, something about the potential likelihood that it would be quiet out there, that Darius might not be around, but it was a rationale that existed only in Dix’s imagination. Certainly the people at The Source did not recognize the flow of weekdays and weekends in the way that he or most others did. They lived and worked according to their own rhythms. But it soothed Dix to think that there was some reason to his choice of day and time that might lend his errand a better chance of success.

It was a bitter January day. The skies were heavy with snow that would not fall, so there was no fresh, white icing atop the dark and dirty piles of frozen accumulations that lined the roads. As he made his way up the pitted driveway, Dix’s stomach lurched as much as his truck did. He pulled into the gravel area near the ratty farmhouse and sat, unsure what to do, hoping some person would appear and give him a reason to get out of the truck. He wanted to be drawn forth instead of having to step into the void of the empty yard, go up to the door, and knock—and suffer the indignity of having to ask for her.

Nothing happened to help him. So he stepped from the truck and slammed the door. A little too hard. Then the farmhouse front door slammed, as if in response. There was a woman on the porch. She was wrapped in an oversize coat, a man’s coat. She had a baseball cap pulled low over her forehead, a rough fringe of hacked-off hair peeking out the back. She pushed the bill of the hat back with her wrist and crossed her arms over her chest. She was not smiling.

Dix was stunned to realize it was Miranda.

He felt the casualty of her missing mane like the loss of a once-close but long-estranged friend. She’d told him, in what felt like a prior lifetime, that the women here cut their hair for modesty. It was part of rejecting the celebrity-obsessed, culturally misogynistic, male-dominated, overly sexualized, capitalist-controlled outside world. Dix thought at the time that there was little enough excess here in these unforgiving and parsimonious mountains; cutting your hair to make a statement seemed to be an inverted, highly perverse form of vanity. Now here was Miranda with the same short hair, the same rough attire. He feared the gesture completed her estrangement not only from him but from the rest of the world.

“Miranda.” Her name was a plea in his mouth.

“Dix.” His name was a statement in hers.

He took a few steps toward her. Her posture tilted slightly, but she did not step back. “How are you?” he asked, catching a new, weathered roughness that had come into her face.

“I’m well,” she said, her voice assiduously neutral.

“You look it,” he replied, lying.

She cleared her throat and asked, “What brings you here?”

Dix saw a face move into and then quickly out of an upstairs window. “I . . . I . . .” He had no idea where to begin. The words finally fell from his mouth. “I miss you, Miranda.”

She winced. Which caused him to do the same.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” she said, looking down and shifting her feet.

Dix knew this wasn’t going well, but he didn’t know what to do, how to fix that, so he blundered on, desperate to try any words that might reach her. “I’m sorry I upset you. I’m sorry we didn’t fix things. I’m sorry you’re not with me anymore. I’m sorry I don’t know what to do about any of it. I’m worried about you. I love you. I want to make things better. I want to be a couple again. What can I do, Miranda? Tell me what to do.”

She watched him quietly.

“I wish you’d come home,” he said, now out of words.

Miranda cleared her throat, squared her shoulders, and said, “Dix, this is my home now.”

His body drooped under the finality of her words. He turned his face from the sting of them. He closed his eyes against the pain. He had never imagined she could speak to him so coldly. Then he heard boots bang against porch steps. He felt his hands taken up, calluses and ragged nails against his palms. He opened his eyes on Miranda’s upturned face, her eyes shadowed by the cap’s brim.

“Dix,” she pleaded with him, suddenly the soft, kind Miranda he once knew.

He tried to meet her eyes but found it difficult.

“I need some time,” she said. “I think some time apart is important. I need to find out who I am. I need to find what’s important to me.”

He wanted to ask her why she couldn’t do that with him, how she could possibly do that here. But he knew she had no answers to those questions. Perhaps no answers were even possible.

“Try, Dix. Try to be happy for me,” she said.

He nodded, his face averted. He gently pulled his hands away from hers. She held on.

“Look at me,” she implored him.

He turned to her.

“I love you, Dix. You’ve been nothing but good to me. You’ve done nothing but care for me and about me. I owe you everything. But I need this. I want this. The most loving thing you can do for me right now is to leave me be.”

Dix leaned down and pressed his lips to her cheek. “I love you,” he whispered, then removed his hands from hers, got into his truck, and drove away.

Miranda felt restless nausea slosh in her gut. Her diet had changed so much since she’d come to live at The Source full-time. This bloat and tiredness and stomach upset was just her body trying to rid itself of the toxins it had accumulated, she reminded herself. She told herself to lie still and breathe it all away. She remembered her meditation instruction, to send her breath deeper into her lower chakra. She tried to visualize the process of healthy digestion. She set her intention to allow her body to expel the fear and blood of all the meat she’d consumed in her life and, in its place, absorb and embrace the nutrients and nourishment from the new, natural, and lovingly raised foods she was eating at The Source. With each exhalation, she imagined dark vapors leaving her body. She listened to the breathing of the other women around her. Someone was snoring. Violet. They teased her about it. Luna had suggested a buckwheat pillow, but they were unsure of where or how to procure one made from organic materials. Miranda smiled at the sound, the comfort of being in this place, with these women.

No one was touching her where she lay on her thin futon, yet she felt embraced by the presence of several sleeping bodies nearby. She thought of the animal bodies nestled in straw out in the barn. The seeds dormant in the ground. The soil itself under its blanket of snow. She felt connected to it all. She remembered how she had felt separate, distant from everything around her, for so many years. No longer. Her stomach settled. The bile subsided. She listened in the predawn darkness to footsteps overhead. Darius was rising. Darius, who had brought all of this together, who had created this sanctuary. Darius who knew her brother, her parents, who was somehow the string that connected her past with her present and, she felt sure, her future.

How improbable it all was, Miranda thought, smiling to herself. How perfect. How magnificent the world was when you could tap into its inherent magic and ride its ancient and everlasting rhythms. It was time to rise and greet the miracle of a new day free of dread and anxiety. There was, after all, nothing to do other than that which presented itself. So easy in the end, that which had seemed so hard for her for so long. Darius had taught her all of this. Darius had shown her what she hadn’t even realized she’d been seeking. Silently, she thanked him.

An undulation of queasiness hit her again. She began a check-in and assessment, starting at her toes and slowly working her way up her body, asking each part to relax, flow, connect with every other. She willed tension out of her ankles, from behind her knees, from deep within her hips. She spread her palms over the taut skin below her belly button. She whispered soothing words to her innards. She imagined them as calm seas. Her tummy did a flip under her hands. Her eyes shot open.

Wait,
she told herself.
Could this be something other than simple nausea?

She felt energy moving from the inside of her body outward, warming her palms. She felt what seemed to be movement.

My God,
she thought.
Finally. It’s happened.

She dared not say the word, even to herself. She’d waited far too long to jinx her sudden certainty that a new life was at last growing within her. A vision of Dix flashed behind her eyes, his soft green eyes, his sheepish smile.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for giving this to me.”

She heard footsteps. Darius coming downstairs, past her door. A picture of Darius supplanted the one of Dix, the green eyes turned bright blue, and the awkward grin became a confident smile.

Yes, Darius,
she thought.
Thank you. This happened because of you.

It had happened because she was finally doing the right thing with her life, and her body had become receptive to what she had wanted for so long. It was only because of Darius that she had been awakened in this way. This was a gift from Dix, but even more, an acknowledgment from the universe to her because of Darius, through Darius, because of the larger gifts he had bestowed upon her. She was sure of it.

Dix sat with a cup of tea going cold in his hands and watched the snow fall. He plowed, shoveled, scraped, and pushed it back. It came again. He returned to his truck and shovels. Then he’d drink tea and watch the paths he’d cleared refill with dense, white clouds of snow. Weeks drifted by. He didn’t mark the days or notice the time. One early morning when the entire landscape looked like the color of old steel, the sound of gunshot in the distance reminded him that, somehow, he’d missed deer season this year. He’d never even cleaned his guns. That was a first. It was small-game season still. Maybe he could get a rabbit or two. Possibly even a partridge. Unlikely. But he was growing restless. He’d been sitting too long. His body was starting to protest.

He cleaned his gun, loaded it onto his truck rack, got into his camo, and headed out. If he didn’t hunt, at least he’d hike. But by the time he got going it was late morning, no time for hunting, and it was bitter cold, so the animals would be hunkered down. As he should be. He drove aimlessly. Or what seemed to be. Until he found himself on a particular dirt road near a certain driveway. He didn’t hesitate, just turned in again without thinking. He didn’t know why he had returned. He had no plan, no idea what to do once he got to the end of the drive. He simply stepped from the truck, slammed the door, and waited. He had nothing else to do, nothing else to lose. Once again, the front door answered him. But this time it was a man who stepped forth. He stood cross-armed on the porch.