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Unless…if it had the potential to affect Lila, then it was her business.
She’d have to keep her eyes open, along with her lines of communication with Sam.
Is that what the kids are calling it these days? She could practically hear Charlie scoffing. Face it, you want a lot more than “lines of communication” with that man.
17
When Molly got back to the hardware store, she found Lila in an entirely different mood. She was pacing across the floor in her favorite sunflower-patterned robe, her hair tucked into two braids.
“Molly! You’re back. Did you see Ruth?”
“The only woman I saw was Naomi, Luke’s wife. Are you feeling better?”
“Yes, yes, but I had a dream about Ruth. I think she needs us. She was drowning in a pond and I was trying to save her, but then she turned into a dragonfly and attacked my hand.”
Lila always had the strangest dreams.
“One thing you can be sure of is that she has her family around her. They seem to be very close-knit, all two thousand of them.” Molly sank into the armchair and tugged her boots off, one by one. She let out a sigh of relief.
Lila paused in front of her. “You’re wearing my clothes.” She clasped her hands together. “Just like high school. Remember how we always wore each other’s clothes, and hardly knew what belonged to who after a while?”
“I remember that nothing nice belonged to me,” Molly said dryly. “Which was why I borrowed everything. I think the rest of you did it to make me feel better.”
Lila didn’t deny that, which Molly took as confirmation. She resumed her pacing. “She must be in shock, that was probably why you didn’t see her.”
“Where and when did you even meet Ruth?”
“She was dropping off a quilt for Bear. Bear was busy, so he sent me out to pay her. That’s when I saw Daniel talking to her, out back behind The Fang.”
“Just talking?”
“Yes, but it looked very intimate. I asked Daniel about it later and he just kind of winked.”
As Lila passed the window, she touched a set of wind chimes that dangled there, sending a cheerful clinking through the room. The chimes were made of old spoons and forks; Molly imagined the old hardware store-owner passing the long winter hours making art from rusting utensils.
“Do you think the Chilkoots would accept her seeing Daniel?”
“I would hope so, but it’s hard to say with the Chilkoots. They have to marry someone, right? And Daniel was such a nice guy.” Her eyes filled with tears again. “In some ways, they aren’t that different. Daniel was kind of a hippie, but the Chilkoots are back-to-the-land people too. They’re not at all religious. I think they’re just from the school of ‘leave us alone and we won’t bother you.’ There’s plenty of people like that out here.”
Great. If the whole area was filled with creepy isolationist cult families, why on earth did Lila want to be here? “Lila, how long are you thinking of staying out here? When will you be ready to head home?”
Still pacing, Lila barely heard her at first. “Head home? I’m not sure what you mean. What home?”
“New York! I know you let your apartment go, but we can find you another place. Actually I was thinking you could stay with me for a while. I’ll have to kick out the sublessor, but according to our agreement, I can do that. No commitment on either side. Just the way I like things,” she added by way of a joke.
“Molly, if you came here to get me to go back to New York, then you shouldn’t have wasted your time. I’m not going back there.”
Molly knew that look. Lila was dead serious. “You can’t be planning to stay here. What would you do?”
“My job. I have a job here and I’m good at it.”
“You seriously want to stay here all year long? Another whole winter?”
“I don’t know, Molly. All I know is I’m not going back to New York. I like the mountains and the air and the trees and the open sky and…I can think here. It’s easier for me, I told you. I think being closer to nature helps.”
“You just had one of your meltdowns,” Molly pointed out, as gently as she could even though her insides were churning at the thought of Lila living so far away.
“It wasn’t like that. I was upset because I’ve never known someone who got murdered before.”
