We drove back to the hotel, stopping along the way to eat a fast-food lunch. I got a grilled chicken sandwich and didn’t eat the fries. I was trying to eat better; I’d feel better if I did. We didn’t talk much over the food. I don’t know what Manfred was thinking, but I was trying to trace the niggling feeling I’d had when I’d first seen the Joyce party get out of their trucks at the Pioneer Rest Cemetery. I’d thought I’d seen them before, at least the men. Where would I have seen them? Could they have come by the trailer when we were all living there? There had been so many people in and out . . . and I’d tried so hard to dodge them.

I had to put that idea on the back burner when we returned to the hotel to find Tolliver in a real (and rare) snit. He’d tried to take a shower, and during the course of covering his shoulder with a plastic bag, he’d banged it against the wall, and it had hurt, and he was angry because I was gone so long with Manfred. He’d ordered lunch from room service, and then he’d had a hard time managing taking the cover off the drink and unrolling his silverware, with one good hand. Tolliver clearly had a grievance, and though I was prepared to coddle him until he was in a better frame of mind, I got into my own snit when he told me that Matthew had called to check on him, and when he heard Tolliver’s tale, Matthew had said he was coming to visit since I’d left Tolliver all by himself.

I was mad at Tolliver, and he was mad at me—though I knew this was all because I’d gone on an errand with someone besides him. Normally, Tolliver is not temperamental, and not irritable, and not unreasonable. Today, he was all those things.

“Oh, Tolliver,” I said, my own voice none too loving. “Couldn’t you just suck it up until I got back?”

He glared at me, but I could tell he was already sorry he’d said anything to his dad. It was too late, though. Apparently, McDonald’s was being amazingly forgiving in its work schedule, because in just a few moments Matthew was knocking on the door.

When Matthew came into the living room and walked over to his son while I was still holding the door open, my eyes followed him, and I froze with my hand still on the door. Matthew was the man I’d seen leaving Dr. Bowden’s office that morning. He’d been going out the doors across the lobby as we’d been entering. Same clothes, same walk, same set of the shoulders.