To defuse the situation, I deployed my most sociable smile. I waved, as friendly as a next-door neighbor dropping in for cookies and tea. She slipped off her headphones.
“Ma’am, I’m wondering if you can help me. I’m in a pickle,” I said. With that, I brushed at my eyes with the back of my hand, as if wiping away tears. “Maybe you saw me drive past a couple of times? I’m trying to find my way to St. George. I’m lost. I don’t know how, but I took a wrong turn. And I need to call my sister to tell her that I’m going to be late. I need to get her to the doctor for her treatments. I promised. I just can’t let her down.” I gulped, like I was trying to hold back sobs. “She must be worried sick that I’m not there.”
“Oh, dear, that’s terrible.” A tall woman with a rawboned face and clear blue eyes, she smelled of sweat, dust, and grass as she walked toward me. “Why don’t you use your cell?”
“That’s the problem,” I said, holding up my phone’s blank screen. “I do such stupid things sometimes. I didn’t bring the cord, and it’s out of power. And the car’s navigation system hasn’t worked in more than a year.”
“Well, I…” she said. “I don’t have a cell phone. My husband has one, but he’s not home. All we have is the house phone, but he wouldn’t like it if I let you in.”
“Oh, it would just be a minute. If I could use any phone, it would be such a blessing,” I said. In this world, I understood what people wanted to hear. “I was praying for help when I saw you.”
“Well…”
“Any map would work. My sister lives a few blocks from the downtown temple. If I get there, I can find her house.”
The woman paused, I guessed assessing the situation. I was a woman alone, in my scenario lost on the road. She smiled ever so slightly. When she spoke, she sounded pleased that she could help. “My husband has a map in the kitchen. I think it has a blow-up of St. George. Let’s go inside, and we’ll get you taken care of.”
On the front porch, the screen door rattled, and I was inside. The furniture was aged and worn, the house conspicuously clean. “I’m Jessica,” the woman said.
“I’m Jane,” I said, looking around. I stared at the staircase and wondered about the rooms upstairs. Could Delilah be confined there? Did she see me arrive? Of course, if she had, she wouldn’t know me, or realize that I’d come looking for her. “It’s nice to meet you,” I said to Jessica.
“Stay here,” she said. “I’ll bring the map. It may take me a few minutes to find it.”
She hurried from the room. I waited until she disappeared through a doorway, and then walked toward it. I paused when I heard another woman whisper, “You shouldn’t have brought her in here. If Evan finds out, he’ll be mad.”
“We won’t tell him. Then there isn’t a problem. Take the children upstairs, and don’t come down until I tell you. She’ll be gone in a few minutes,” Jessica said.
A herd of footsteps ran up a back staircase. Frustrated, I realized I couldn’t risk sneaking up the stairs to the second floor to look for Delilah, not with Evan’s wives and children peering from the shadows. Oh, Delilah, where are you? Are you here?
I heard rustling from the kitchen—Jessica rifling through drawers, looking for the map. If I couldn’t get upstairs, I still intended to see as much of the house as I could. Quietly, I stepped back and turned to the right, into the living room. Over the fireplace hung a family portrait, a photo with Evan Barstow in the center, three wives including Jessica beside him, surrounded by thirteen children. The room had couches against three walls and a bulky recliner in one corner, lamp tables and a barren pine coffee table.
I glanced over the room, looking for something, anything out of place, while I listened for Jessica to return. Nothing. From the living room, I turned into the dining room, a long table encircled by seventeen chairs, including two high chairs, a wooden bowl of bright red apples in the center.
“What are you looking for?” Jessica asked. She stood in the doorway with a confused look on her face. She held a folded map.
“The phone,” I said, smiling broadly. “I thought I could call, to tell my sister what happened and that I’m on my way.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, okay. I’ll take you to the phone. But let’s get the directions figured out first.”
I followed her into another room, a man’s study. Evan had a large carved maple desk in the center, the legs ending in claw feet. Behind the desk a hunting trophy stared down at us—the long-snouted head of a bull moose, its bulky rack of antlers nearly four foot across. Shelves lining the walls strained under the weight of encyclopedias, religious books, math and science texts, and children’s chapter books. Evan’s wives, it appeared, homeschooled.
Jessica spread the map across the desk. I stood a step back, hoping she wouldn’t notice that I wasn’t following her finger as she traced the route from the house to St. George. “It’s really easy,” she said, “You just have to…”
Framed family photos and a stack of bills sat on the desk. I saw a computer hookup where Evan must have plugged in his laptop. Everything looked maddeningly ordinary.
“Do you have it memorized?” Jessica asked. “Can you get to your sister’s house?”
“I think so,” I said, focusing
