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Show 66 there was nothing to say about it. Her house was tidy, but dusty. A black cat walked around the corner. I put the cat nip out for that little devil, and he just rolled over in it, Ina said. She fed the cat, we locked the door and left. My dad drove her car and left the track in the carport. In the car this very old, supposed "aunt" talked about Christmas decorations, people in the ward and how high they were building up the mountain before moving to the subject of my brother, who was in the thirteenth month of his Mormon mission in Ecuador. I hardly ever wrote him, and had almost forgotten that he wasn't going to be waiting at home with the rest of the family. His first e-mail to me from Ecuador was a detailed description of New Year's in Ecuador, or the best version he could get having to be in bed by 9 PM. He wrote about the burning of effigies, the constant alcohol, the largeness and brightness of the fires all around-but his emails from there became more interested in proselytizing, and it is hard to get motivated to write someone only to talk about church. I was thinking about what I might say to him in my next letter when Ina managed to turn around in her seat and look at me. "How long until we're going to have another missionary in the family?" she asked, to which I mumbled some sort of avoidance and looked out the window. The weather was getting more severe. Snow whirled around the car and seemed to move back up into the sky as well as down. I was expecting standard Christmas Eve Palmer festivities, which include a straightforward ham-centered dinner on festive red plates followed by |
