Chương 3
“No.”
He stopped.
Maya’s anger surprised her.
Not because she believed him.
Because some small part of her had already started rearranging old uncertainties around his words.
She hated that.
She had spent years learning not to do that.
Maya had grown up with gaps.
Not dramatic gaps.
Not amnesia in the movie sense.
Just a childhood with too few photographs and a mother who changed subjects whenever Idaho came up.
She remembered elementary school in Oregon.
A rented duplex with brown carpet.
Her mother burning toast every Sunday because she insisted the toaster was defective and refused to replace it.
She remembered being twelve, fifteen, eighteen.
Before that, things were less orderly.
Rooms without addresses.
A motel swimming pool.
A blue truck.
A woman who might have been a neighbor or might have been a teacher.
Dogs barking behind chain-link fencing.
And that was normal enough.
People forgot childhood.
They did not turn forgotten childhood into stories about wolves.
“I’m leaving.”
Ethan did not try to stop her.
At the door, Maya paused.
“Don’t contact me.”
“I won’t.”
She opened the door.
“Maya.”
She turned sharply.
He held up both hands.
“I’m not trying to keep you here.”
“What?”
“The wolf’s reaction. It may mean nothing.”
She almost laughed.
“That’s a little late.”
“I know.”
She left.
The drive back to Missoula should have taken a little over two hours.
It took three and a half.
Snow began near the pass, thin at first, then dense enough that Maya had to slow her rented Subaru behind a county plow. She kept both hands on the wheel and the radio off.
Every twenty minutes, she told herself to stop thinking about the wolf.
Every twenty minutes, she failed.
At a gas station outside Hamilton, she bought coffee she did not want and stood under fluorescent lights watching an elderly cashier argue with a delivery driver about scratch-off tickets.
It was deeply comforting.
Maya leaned against the counter near the microwave and looked at her wrist.
The scar had been there as long as she could remember.
Her mother had always said she got it climbing over a broken fence.
Maya had accepted that because children accepted almost everything their parents told them.
She had never asked what fence.
She took out her phone.
Her mother’s name sat near the top of her contacts.
CLAIRE.
Maya pressed it.
The call rang six times.
Voicemail.
“Hey, Mom. It’s me. Nothing bad. Just call when you get this.”
She hung up.
Then added, “Nothing bad,” quietly to herself and hated how unconvincing it sounded.
She drove another forty miles before her mother called back.
Maya answered through the car speakers.
“Hey.”
“You said nothing bad, which means something is bad.”
Claire Carter’s voice had not changed much with age. It still had that faintly impatient warmth that made every question sound as if she expected an answer before she finished asking.
“It’s not bad.”
“Where are you?”
“Montana.”
A pause.
“Why?”
“I told you. I took a week off.”
“I thought you were going to Seattle.”
“I changed my mind.”
“To Montana.”
“Yes.”
“What are you doing in Montana?”
Maya watched the road.
“Mom, did we ever live in Idaho?”
Silence.
Not confusion.
Silence.
Maya’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“Mom?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
The answer came too quickly.
Maya felt the back of her neck go cold.
“So we did.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Maya, where exactly are you?”
“Driving.”
“Pull over.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re driving in bad weather.”
“You can hear weather now?”
“Don’t be smart.”
“Then answer me.”
Claire exhaled.
Maya could picture her sitting at the small kitchen table in Sacramento, one slipper half off her heel, reading glasses pushed onto her head.
“We spent some time near Coeur d’Alene.”
“When?”
“You were little.”
“How little?”
“Five. Six.”
Maya almost missed the next curve.
She corrected gently.
“Why don’t I remember that?”
“You remember plenty.”
“I don’t remember Idaho.”
“You were a child.”
Maya watched the snow.
“Did we live near animals?”
Claire did not respond.
Maya felt her pulse rising.
“Mom.”
“What happened?”
“Answer the question.”
“What happened, Maya?”
“I went to a wildlife sanctuary today.”
The line went so quiet Maya checked the screen to make sure the call had not dropped.
Then Claire said, “Which one?”
Not What kind?
Not Did you have fun?
Which one?
Maya pulled onto the shoulder.
Snow hissed under the tires.
She put the car in park.
“You know which one.”
“I don’t.”
“There was a wolf.”
Claire made a sound that was almost nothing.
Maya closed her eyes.
“Mom.”
“Leave.”
“I already left.”
“Good.”
“He recognized me.”
“That’s not possible.”
“I didn’t say his name.”
Another pause.
Maya whispered, “You know.”
“No.”
“You know.”
“Maya—”
“What was the fence?”
“What?”
“The scar. You always said I cut my wrist climbing over a fence. What fence?”
Claire began crying.
Not loudly.
That made it worse.
Maya stared through the windshield at the white shoulder of the highway.
“Mom.”
“I need you to come home.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Tell me.”
“I can’t do this on the phone.”
“You can either do it on the phone or I can turn around.”
“Don’t.”
“Then tell me.”
Claire’s breathing became uneven.
“I was trying to get us out.”
Maya said nothing.
Snow collected along the edges of the windshield.
“Out of where?”
“Your father’s place.”
Maya’s mouth went dry.
She had almost no memories of her father.
That had always been explained simply.
He had left when she was young.
He had died when she was nine.
Those two facts had been the whole shape of him.
“Dad had a place in Idaho?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of place?”
Claire did not answer.
Maya already knew.
“No.”
“Maya—”
“No.”
“He wasn’t always like that.”
“Like what?”
“He got involved with people who kept animals.”
May you like
“What people?”
“Collectors. Breeders. Men with money. Men who wanted things nobody else could have.”
