depth- once a priest, Cork thought, always a priest — but, like Rose’s, his wisdom was broader and his embrace of life much gentler. In Chicago, he ran a shelter for the homeless. Every day he helped people face bleak odds and tried to point them toward hope.
“If I made coffee, would you have some?” Mal asked.
“Yeah, thanks. But I can make it.”
“Sit down,” Mal said. “I know where everything is.”
The room was full of afternoon sunlight. Silver darts shot off the stainless steel sink faucet and handles. A gold rhombus lay across the floor, stamped with Mal’s shadow as he stood at the counter grinding beans and measuring into the filter. All day the room had felt close and stuffy, but Mal and Rose had brought in with them the perfume of the late autumn air.
“Mal, I’m going out there.”
His brother-in-law hit the Brew button and turned back to Cork. “Seems reasonable to me. When?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve been on the phone talking to airlines all afternoon. The storm’s wreaked havoc the whole length of the Rockies. A lot of flight cancellations, and none of them can get me a seat until tomorrow night. At the moment, it looks like I’ll fly to Salt Lake and catch a connection to Cody first thing the following morning. It’s the best they could do.”
“Going alone?”
“That’s my plan. I can’t sit here doing nothing.”
“Of course you can’t. And don’t worry about things here. We’ll hold down the fort.”
“Thanks.”
Rose came downstairs from Stephen’s room, followed by Trixie. The dog padded directly to Mal, who bent and gave her a good long petting.
“How’s he doing?” Cork asked.
“For one thing, he’s not Stevie,” she said. “He’s Stephen.”
“Yeah, I should have warned you. He’s kind of sensitive about it.”
“He’s also scared and angry,” Rose said. “But he doesn’t want to talk about it.”
“You were up there awhile.”
“I was doing most of the talking. I asked him if he wanted to pray with me. He told me he doesn’t believe in prayer. If there is a God, the bastard never listens anyway. Direct quote. Since when has he been like this, Cork?”
“New development. Like the name thing. We haven’t been pressing him on the issue.”
She sat down at the table. It had been a long drive to come to a place full of despair. “That coffee smells heavenly,” she said, and Mal reached into the cupboard for a mug.
“Cork’s going to Wyoming,” Mal said.
He handed Rose a mug of coffee, then gave one to Cork.
“Will that do any good?” Rose asked.
“I don’t know,” Cork said, “but I’ll go crazy if I have to sit it out here.”
“When do you leave?”
“At the moment it looks like late tomorrow afternoon.”
“Are you going alone?”
“Yeah.”
“Do the kids know?”
“Not yet. It’ll be tricky, especially with Stephen. He’ll want to go.”
“Why not take him?” Mal said.
“Too many problems with that.”
Mal shrugged, but it was clear he didn’t necessarily agree.
“Maybe they’ll find Jo before then,” Rose said.
“Either way I want to be there.”
Rose nodded. “We’ll stay and cover here for as long as you need us.”
Cork leaned to his sister-in-law and put his arms around her and laid his cheek against her hair, and for a long time they held each other.
“We argued before Jo left,” Cork said, battling tears. “We were so angry that we didn’t even say good-bye. Christ, what was I thinking?”
“That the next day would be like that day and the day before and you would have forever to make things right,” Rose said. “You didn’t know any of this was going to happen, Cork.”
“I could’ve told her I love her, Rose.”
She looked with great compassion into his eyes. “Oh, Cork, you think she doesn’t know?”
The phone rang. Mal looked at caller ID. “Owl Creek County Sheriff’s Office.”
“I’ll take it.” Cork wiped at his eyes. “O’Connor,” he said, and then he listened. “Thank you.” He returned the phone to its cradle. “The wind’s quit. Once the runways are clear, they’ll have planes in the air.”
His daughters arrived near dinnertime, pulling up to the curb in Jenny’s old Subaru Outback. They hurried up the walk in the blue of twilight, and Cork greeted them at the door with his arms wide open. It felt good to hold them.
They were different from each other in many ways. Jenny was a scholar and a scribbler, in her senior year at the University of Iowa, where she hoped, on graduation, to be accepted into the Writers’ Workshop. She had her mother’s beauty, the same ice-blond hair and ice-blue eyes. For Annie, studies had always taken a backseat to athletics. While she was growing up, her big dream had been to be the first female quarterback for Notre Dame. That hadn’t happened, but she’d been offered a scholarship to play softball for the University of Wisconsin. Tragedy in her senior year of high school had altered her life course dramatically, and she’d declined the scholarship in favor of enrolling in a small Catholic college in northwest Illinois, where she was preparing herself in all the ways she could for a life that would be devoted to serving God and the Church. Annie wanted to be a nun, which was the other dream she’d had since childhood. Physically, she looked more like Rose, with hair the color of a dusty sunset and freckles. And, like Rose, she had something calm in her eyes that made people trust her immediately.
They stood on the porch in the dying light. “Has there been any word?” Jenny asked.
“The weather’s finally broken and they’ve started the search,” he said. “So that’s good.”
“But they haven’t found anything?”
“As far as we know, not yet.” The evening air was cool, and Cork said, “Let’s get inside and we can talk more. Rose and Mal are here.”
“Where’s Stevie?” Annie asked, looking past him into the house.
“It’s Stephen these days,” Cork said. “He took Trixie for a walk. He needed to get out for a while.”
“Stephen?”
“He’s been reinventing himself lately,” Cork said.
“How’s he doing?” Jenny asked.
“Not good. But then who of us is?”
Inside, Rose and Mal hugged them both, and they all said the things meant to bind them in their mutual concern and to offer comfort.
“It smells wonderful in here.” Annie looked at her aunt. “Chicken pot pie?”
“Bingo. Get your things settled. Dinner will be ready soon.”
Jenny paused at the bottom of the stairs. “Dad, we heard on the radio that the pilot had been drinking.”
“At the moment, it’s only an allegation. We’ll know the truth soon enough.”
It was dark by the time Stephen came home from walking Trixie. Cork had begun to worry and was watching the street from the living room window. He saw his son shuffling along the sidewalk, head down, face in shadow as he passed under the streetlight. Stephen paused at Jenny’s Outback, but the prospect of seeing his sisters didn’t seem to raise his spirits at all. Even Trixie, often a little too exuberant to suit Cork, seemed to have been infected by Stephen’s mood, and she walked subdued at his side. They mounted the front steps, and Cork opened the door.
“I was beginning to get a little concerned,” he said.
“What for? I was just walking,” Stephen said.
“Dinner’s been ready for a while.”
