Page 9 of Snow Creek

“Dad wanted me to take care of the livestock,” Joshua replies. “Sarah has her schoolwork.”

The clouds open up and the soft rain becomes a deluge.

“It’s too wet out here. Can we go inside and talk?” I ask.

Joshua leads the three of us into the house. It’s cozy, though on the minimalist side. Lots of wood and only a portrait of the kids, much younger, adorns a wall. There is no TV. No video games. Nothing of the outside world.

Only Joshua’s graphic T.

Ruth asks for a cup of tea. Sarah goes into the kitchen and turns on the kettle.

“My dad made all this furniture in his shop,” Joshua tells me, noticing my eyes on a massive dining table. It’s made of cherry with a beautiful matchbooked top. It resembles a tiger trapped inside an encasement of wood.

“Does he sell his furniture?” I ask, running my fingers over the glossy surface.

Ruth puts her hand on my shoulder.

“Merritt would never sell anything to the outside world,” she says, nearly beaming.

A source of pride, I think. Tied to their beliefs and their need to unspool their lives from even the most casual encounter.

Joshua offers his aunt some taffy that Sarah made, but she declines.

“Mom’s favorite,” he says.

I decline too. Last time I had taffy it pulled a filling out, and it took me a month of pain and embarrassment before I could get into the dentist. The kids have nice teeth, I think, just then. I wonder how they manage that without the benefit of a dentist.

“When were your parents due back?” I ask.

“We thought they’d be back by now,” Sarah says, entering the room with a tray of mugs and some sugar. “No lemon,” she adds with a touch of disappointment. “We’ve never been able to get citrus to fruit in the greenhouse.”

I nod not because I understand the self-sufficient family’s setback with the lemons, but because I didn’t come for a social visit. I came because a woman freaked out back in my office that something terrible had happened.

I give Joshua a card with my phone number.

“Will you please call me when your parents get back?”

“Will do,” he says, looking at the card, “Detective Carpenter.”

Ruth is suddenly very quiet. I assume she’s still processing the trauma and worry of wondering where her sister and brother-in-law are. Considering the chilly rain outside, Mexico should be a relief, even the source of a little sisterly envy. That is, if envy wasn’t a sin—which it was in any Bible I’d read in a hotel room.

I face her. “Are you going to stay with your niece and nephew?”

“No,” she says, snapping herself out of her stupor. “As I said back at your office, I have to head back to Idaho for the church caucus.”

“Right,” I say, though I know she’d told me no such thing.

I turn to Joshua and Sarah.

Ruth tugs at me.

“Let’s go now, Detective.”

Four

Ruth doesn’t utter a word until we are back on the gravel road. Her jaw is clenched, and I watch her grasp her hands and press them between her knees. I crack the window. Her wintergreen deodorant is working overtime.

“I’m sorry you came out all this way,” I say. “The kids should have called you or something.”

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