making her way toward the door. He needed to get home to Meg. “I can’t thank you enough,” he said, and meant it. The boy snuffled in his sleep and rolled onto his side. Len gazed at him. Then he turned on his heel and left.
The cab of his truck seemed oddly empty on the short ride home.
Ruthie slept in the chair that first night, waking often to make sure that the boy was still breathing, adjusting the blankets when he flung them off, once moving him back onto the cushion when his thrashing left him curled like a snail on the bare floor. She was too excited to sink deeply into sleep. His presence felt like an unearned reward, some random jackpot she didn’t deserve and couldn’t keep but which, however temporary, she was determined to treasure.
By morning her resistance was down. The light filtered in to play on the mottled pink wrinkles of her face, and her snores abraded the silence like the honks and squeaks of raucous waterbirds.
A catch in her own labored breathing startled her and she floundered toward consciousness, rubbing her eyes with both fists and creaking to standing. The boy was still there. Ruthie peered closer. Still there and awake, now. He had the blanket over his head and was observing her through the crocheted eyeholes. She stretched and yawned and looked out the window. “Well, I’ll be chicken-fried,” she said, loud enough for Wrecker to hear. “Snow?” She blinked hard to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. “I can hardly believe it.” She turned to face the couch and said, “Kid. Get up. This’ll melt by noon and you don’t want to miss it.”
A layer of white blanketed the world outside, ice riming the tree branches, the evergreen boughs dusted with snow. Inside, Wrecker froze in place beneath his blanket. Ruthie moved near him. She squatted down and put her face close to Wrecker’s, so her eyes filled the eyeholes from the other side. She did something funny with her eyebrows. Then she crossed her eyes, tightened her lips, and wiggled her ears.
“Good morning, Wrecker,” she said in a normal voice. “I’m Ruth. I’ll be your pilot for this morning, so fasten your seat belt, secure your tray table, and prepare for takeoff.”
“I’m hungry,” Wrecker said, his voice muffled by the throw.
“Right this way.” And Ruth didn’t seem to mind that Wrecker followed her into the kitchen with the crocheted throw draped over his head.
Len held on to the pay phone handset so tightly his knuckles were white. He’d never had a line put in at the house. Who had the money for that? When he had a call to make, he’d drive down the mountain and use the booth outside the Mercantile. “Miss Hanson,” he repeated for the eleventh time. “I’m holding for Miss Hanson.”
“Please deposit forty cents for the next three minutes,” the operator whined. Len searched his pockets. He had thirty-five cents. He dropped it into the coin slots.
“Please deposit—”
“This is Miss Hanson.”
“—five cents more for the next three minutes.”
“Miss Hanson!” But Len had no more change, and the operator terminated his call.
Len slumped against the grimy glass of the booth. He needed to reach the social worker to let her know he was bringing the boy back, could not keep the child. He flapped open his wallet to reveal three worn ten-dollar bills. He would walk over to the Mercantile and get change for one of them. He would return to the phone booth and feed quarters until, come hell or high water, the woman took his call.
“I’m sorry,” the receptionist said when Len finally reached her again. “Miss Hanson has left for lunch.”
“What time do you expect her back,” Len asked, weary. He’d been at this all morning. He winced to think what kind of trouble the kid was stirring up at Bow Farm.
“She’s scheduled to be out until Tuesday. Shall I take a message?”
“Tell her—,” Len said, and then stopped. Tuesday? Len stood there in despair. He could think of nothing to say.
“Sir? Are you there, sir?” A long pause and a sigh.
And then the phone went dead in his hand.
It was not a matter of keeping up with Wrecker. Melody learned early on how impossible a task that would be. She marshaled the efforts of Johnny Appleseed, short and furry and rapid as a squirrel, and woke Ruth from her recuperative slumber and stationed her at the far end of the field, and the three of them