The mountains were out there in the dark.
At midnight, when the last guests had gone and Megan and James were cleaning up the kitchen with the easy efficiency of people who had done this many times, I took my phone to the window seat where Pete’s daughter had been sleeping.
I sat in the window.
I could see the mountain ridgeline in the moonlight.
I thought about my mother on the phone with Carolyn Marsh, asking her to describe a house she had declined to come to.
That sounds like Miranda.
The beams. The greenhouse. The windows. The light.
She knew.
She had always known.
I opened my phone. I wrote a message. Not a long one.
I wrote: Mom. The house is still here. Come when you can. The invitation doesn’t have an end date. I’ll be here. Love, Miranda.
I sent it.
I put the phone down.
