On the road out of town I think to ask her about the rental. "Anything in the car you need tonight?"
"No. Just clothes and books. They can wait."
"Toby can drive it out in the morning with the rest of your things. If that works for you."
"It does. Thank you."
We don't talk for the rest of the drive.
I pull up the gravel drive and kill the engine. Callie has her bag in her lap. She's been quiet for the last ten minutes, watching the road. I get out, come around, and open her door, but she steps down before I can think to offer her my hand. I take her bag from her and lead her up the porch.
"Boots come off when you come in, if you don't mind," I tell her at the door. "The floor's pine and it picks up marks from anything harder than a sock."
"Okay."
Inside, I add a log to the stove. She stands in the middle of the living room and takes it in: the couch, the chair I sit in by the stove, the bookcase, the small carved animals on the side table by the couch, the workbench against the back wall with the half-carved pieces of pine in a row, the kitchen through the doorway on her left, the hall behind her. "Sun goes and the cold comes in fast up here," I tell her. "You'll be glad of this in a couple of hours."
"Guest room's at the end," I tell her. "We'll share the bathroom. I'll show you the trick to the heater dial."
"Thank you."
I take her bag down the hall and set it on the foot of the bed. The room is small and plain. For five years it sat empty. When Jaxson asked once why I didn't furnish it, I told him nobody was coming. Then I called her, and inside of a week the bed, the dresser, the chair, and the lamp were all in the back of my truck on the road home from Bozeman.
She follows me down, clocks the simplicity of the room, and doesn't say a word. Considering I picked out every piece of it, I'll take her silence as mercy.
Back in the living room I ask her to sit down. "For your safety while you're here, there are a few rules I need to walk you through."
She takes the couch, and I sit in the chair across from her, with the coffee table between us, the closest thing to a bench I have in this house.
"Three things. One. You stay inside or on the property unless I take you somewhere. That isn't a request. The property runs back about twenty-eight acres with a creek at the far end, so you shouldn't feel locked in. There's room to move. Two. You don't open the door if I'm not here. If anyone knocks, you go to the back room and stay there until I'm home. Three. If your phone rings and it isn't me, you let it ring until you check the number against the list I'm about to give you."
She listens with both hands wrapped around her own forearms and her ankles crossed under her chair.
"Anything you want to add?"
"How long is this list?"
"Six names."
"And the rest of the time? When I'm in the house and you're not?"
"You read. You eat what's in the kitchen. You sleep when you're tired. You stay off the porch after dark."
"I have an exam in about two months. Will I be back in time for it?"
"That's the goal. If it runs longer, your advisor can probably push the date."
"I'll need to call him at some point either way. He'll notice I'm gone."
"Tell him you had a family thing. Tell him you'll be back when you can. Don't say where you are."
She nods, takes it, lets a beat go before she speaks again.
"I'm going to follow your rules. Don't mistake that for me agreeing with all of them."
"I won't."
"Good."
