Miracle Manor had been built in 1949 on sacred Native Cahuilla land renamed Miracle Hill, and although the motel had been sold twice and upgraded, it still felt like a place from the past, with its nine small bungalow rooms curved in a horseshoe shape around two mineral pools, one encased in a glass conservatory and both offering the benefits of sulfates, bio-carbonates, carbonates, iron, and magnesium. The San Jacinto mountains glowed purple in the distance; Izzy had read that mountain ranges looked this color from far away because of the scattering of distant light. Across the street from Miracle Manor, an early settler named Cabot Yerxa had built his rendition of a Hopi house from recycled lumber, nails, and railroad ties. He’d lived there alone with a donkey named Merry Christmas.

Izzy thought of the shack she’d helped Cyrus build from all those recycled materials. For the first time, she realized: if Cyrus did not come back, she might lose the house. It was in Cyrus’s name. And she didn’t have enough money to pay for it on her own. Where would she go? Back with Larry and Leanne in the trailer? She’d sooner die. And Seth and Nephy had no room for her. She didn’t want to live with them, anyway. She imagined lying on the stuffing-vomiting chartreuse couch listening to them fucking through the walls. Listening to a baby cry.

Miracle Manor on Miracle Hill. It had once felt, to Izzy, as magical as its name, but now the sight of the little green-and-white sign made her heart swing like a pendulum in her chest.

◆◆◆

When Izzy showed the two women at the desk the missing person flyer and the receipt from Cyrus’s jacket, they only shook their neatly shorn heads in unison.

“We have to be discreet,” the gray-haired woman said. Her voice was soft and articulate. She wasn’t from around here.

Izzy tried to control her voice. “He’s missing.”

“The police aren’t investigating?”

“They’ve done nothing.”

The other woman leaned over her partner’s shoulder and squinted at the flyer. “Why?”

“Who knows? I don’t know. They think he’s some kind of delinquent. People out where I live see you the way they see you.” She found herself wanting to confide in these sophisticated women with their contrasting skin and matching haircuts. “It’s why I’ve always wanted to leave.”

The gray-haired woman said, “We thought the desert let you forget your past. That’s why we came.”

“I guess it depends on where you were born,” Izzy said.

The dark-haired woman looked up from the flyer, looked at Izzy, back at the flyer, back at Izzy. “I remember him. But he came here with you.”

“That was five years ago,” Izzy said.

“I remember. You were a striking couple.”

“What about this?” Izzy pointed to the receipt again.

The gray-haired woman stared at Izzy for a moment. Then she typed something into her computer. She nodded. “He was here.”

“Alone?” she managed.

“It’s just under his name.” She hesitated, looked at the other woman. Something intimate and tender passed between them. “But the bill looks like food and drinks for two. It’s hard to say.”