She hesitated. “They said you knew.”
I pulled the car to the gravel shoulder and sat there with the engine running and the phone against my ear, and I did not say anything for a long moment because the part of my brain responsible for language was temporarily occupied with trying to process what my ears had just delivered.
“Your mama told the movers it’s family property,” Mrs. Rowan continued, almost apologetic. “They’re carrying boxes inside.”
I put the car back in drive.
The cabin came into view over the last rise, framed by the sharp silhouettes of the Colorado pines, and the first thing I saw was the truck, white and enormous, its rear door rolled up, a metal ramp angled down to the gravel. Then the people. My mother directing the movers with her hand on her hip, her posture the posture of a woman who has made a decision and is now in the administrative phase of it. My father leaning against the truck with his arms crossed as if supervising a renovation. My older sister Lydia carrying a cardboard box while her kids, Owen and Piper, darted around the yard, kicking pinecones and laughing the easy laugh of children who have been told this is an adventure.
They all looked entirely at home.
I got out of the car.
My mother saw me and smiled the way you smile when someone shows up right on time.
