“Please wait in the air-conditioned car while Nora and I finish this.”

Ruth didn’t move toward the car.

She reached into her leather handbag, took out a linen handkerchief, and wiped a streak of yellow corn silk off her palm.

“I’ve been sitting in that car for two hours, Mark,” Ruth said, her voice dry and crisp.

“My legs are fine right where they are.”

Carl shifted another heavy wooden crate across the truck bed, the bottom slats grating loudly against the ridged iron floor.

“We have sixty crates to load before five o’clock,” Carl said without turning around from his work.