“He’ll be fine with Stephen,” Jenny said. “We’ll talk to him later.”
“I am so sorry for the woman in that grave,” Maria said.
“We’re not entirely certain it is a grave,” Cork said.
“Waaboo saw her spirit,” Daniel said firmly.
“And I am sorry for your little boy, to see such a thing,” Maria said.
“Waaboo is nothing if not resilient,” Jenny said. “Remember, when he was just a baby, I found him under a rock.”
Which was a long story, and true. And after she’d found the child, Jenny had adopted him.
“So Annie has told me,” Maria said. “Scary, but beautiful in the end.”
“Sit,” Rainy said to the two men and lifted a pitcher from the middle of the table. “Some ice water? It’s hot out there.”
Cork and Daniel joined the women, accepting the offer of water and taking the last of the empty chairs.
“You flew into Duluth?” Cork asked.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you call us? We’d have come down to get you.”
“It was easier to Uber here,” Annie told him.
Cork sipped his ice water. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he’d become, and the water ran down his throat in a long, cooling stream. “So, you got in this morning?”
Annie exchanged a look with her companion. “Actually, yesterday. I rented a canoe from Sorley’s Outfitters, and Maria and I spent the night on Still Island. I wanted it to be her introduction to Minnesota.”
“It was a very beautiful place,” Maria said. “Very calming.”
“You’re Guatemalan, yes?” Cork said.
“My people are Mayan,” Maria replied with a note of pride.
“And how did you two become friends?”
It wasn’t the question Cork really wanted to ask. Growing up, Annie O’Connor had aspired to be two things: (1) the first female pitcher starting for a professional baseball team and (2) a nun. She’d been a star athlete in high school and after that had become a postulant with the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. In a period of personal and spiritual crisis, she’d stepped away from the formal pathway to becoming a part of the order and had gone to Guatemala to work in a school run by the Sisters there. Cork had thought at first that it was a form of running away. He knew his daughter was struggling to accept that she was what the Ojibwe called a two-spirit person. She’d fallen in love with another young woman, and it had ended badly. But as Annie had continued to communicate from a distance, it had become obvious that in Guatemala she’d found two significant things—purpose in her service to the poor there and a special person. Still, she’d always been a little circumspect when she mentioned Maria. Although he wondered about the depth of his daughter’s relationship, Cork wasn’t about to pry.
“I met Maria at a clinic where I’d taken an injured child. Maria’s a nurse.”
Cork said to Maria, “Rainy’s also a nurse.”
“Yes, and a Mide, as well, I understand,” Maria added. “An Ojibwe healer.” She smiled at Rainy. “We have healers in the Mayan culture. We call them curanderos.”
“We also have missing women in Guatemala,” Annie said, shifting the timbre of the conversation with dramatic suddenness. “And we also have buried bodies, so many of them.”
“Annie,” Maria said. “Este no es el momento ni el lugar.”
“She’s telling me this isn’t the time or place for this discussion.”
“Perhaps she’s right,” Rainy said.
“We keep talking about Olivia Hamilton,” Daniel said. “Have we already forgotten Crystal Two Knives?”
“Crystal Two Knives?” Annie said. “Is she any relation to Cece Two Knives?”
“Her granddaughter,” Daniel said.
“How long has she been missing?”
“Almost six months.”
Annie considered that, then asked, “How about Olivia Hamilton?”
“Two weeks. The search has been pretty intensive.”
“The authorities in Guatemala don’t do much searching when a Mayan woman is reported missing,” Annie said.
“It’s the same here with Ojibwe women.” Daniel’s words carried the identical acid note Cork had heard in Annie’s voice.
“Could we talk about something else?” Jenny said. “Like maybe Stephen and Belle’s wedding. That’s what’s brought Annie and Maria here.”
Cork saw a look pass between his daughter and her friend, the kind of look that made him wonder if the wedding was the only reason they’d come.
CHAPTER 5
