Chapter Eight

This time, Donovan didn't try to rush his recovery. He couldn't have even if he wanted to, between Carina's gentle voice urging him to rest and Amalia's cool reminders that if he got sick again she was turning him out into the desert where he could figure things out on his own. He spent a lot of time in bed knotting corn into ristras for drying, carding wool, working the drop spindle and even learning to knit a little, although he did it badly and the winter scarf he made for himself was such a bedraggled-looking thing that Carina could barely suppress her giggles.

Sometimes when the women were out of the house, he went exploring. He found Carina's bedroom, fancifully decorated with mirrors, fans and pictures. She had paintings of birds and horses, and the photos of Carina with her animals were too numerous to count. It seemed she had spent her entire life caring for things that were feathered or four-legged.

As near as Donovan could tell, the women had grown up with something approximating the types of luxuries that were common before the destruction of the resource wars. He had already figured out they were well-educated, and his discovery of Carina’s school yearbooks confirmed it. The books were poorly made, but full of photographs of an urban school and the teenage students who went there. The inside covers contained the scribbled sentiments of Carina's classmates, as well as some jokes about rabbits. On an inside page for the Urban Ranching and Agriculture Club, Carina as club president posed with rabbits and guinea pigs in her lap.

It took longer for him to find anything of equal interest in Amalia's room, which looked at first as impersonal as Donovan's, only with a lot more books.

He was about to give up on her room as a source of information when he discovered a sketch pad and pencils in the bottom of a drawer, along with some scarves, ribbons, dried flowers and a few stuffed animals. He opened the sketch book and found it full of town and farm scenes, including animals and people who he recognized from some of Carina's photographs. Donovan was no connoisseur of art, but he knew skill when he saw it.

More intriguing than the sketch book were the things he found at the back of her closet. He started by examining Amalia's work clothes-- sturdy, serviceable pants and shirts, all neatly mended, but behind them were dresses in bright colors and fine material. None of this was very different from what he had found in Carina's closet, but it was so strange that Amalia could have ever been like her sister that Donovan sat down to try to piece the two images of her together in his mind.

When he resumed his snooping, he found a rusting file cabinet at the back of the closet. Inside were stacks of letters bound in ribbon, and photographs arranged in books for viewing. With no prospect that the owner of all this treasure would be back soon, he gathered as much as he could and limped to the bed. The photo albums contained not only pictures of Amalia's childhood, but photos of her parents, the lanky older brother from the hallway portrait, and people farther back in time who were presumably grandparents and great-grandparents. Some pictures were so old they were only shades of gray.

Next he picked up one of the letters and opened it. Donovan was trying to puzzle out the handwriting and having no easy time of it when a light step at the door startled him.

"What are you doing?" Carina asked, more surprised than angry.

Donovan scrambled to fold the letter. "I was just curious."

Carina pursed her lips and scooped up everything on the bed. "We don't spy on each other in this family."

"I'm sorry."

There was a rustling and banging from the closet as Carina put everything back into the filing cabinet. "You're lucky it's me who caught you. Amalia would've been furious."

"I know."

"Then why did you do it? If you think you're going to find something valuable in this room, good luck."

"No, I swear." Donovan got to his feet. "It's just that I wondered, you know."

"About what?"

"About you. And her."

Carina seemed taken aback. "What's to wonder?"

"Who you are, where you came from…why you never mention the brother in some of those photos."

The diversion worked. "We'd rather forget him if we could."

"Was he killed in the war?"

"No. He's a high-ranking officer leading the war. He could've arranged exemptions for Alan and Miles, but he didn't. The bastard won't even arrange a stockpiling certificate for us. He says he doesn't like our attitude about the war." She turned toward the doorway, indicating with a jerk of her chin that he should follow. "You are never to speak Evan's name in this house."

Donovan nodded, impressed that such an uncompromising ultimatum could come from gentle Carina.

"If you have other questions, ask me. Got it?" Carina shook her head in frustration. "With as much work as there is to do around here, you must have a pretty active imagination to have anything left over for curiosity."

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