“Yes.”

He leaned against the hood of the SS, looking at nothing in particular. “Remember how beautiful she was?” He shook his head slowly. “Our beautiful sister. That bastard—that beast—cheated her out of all the years she still had coming, then took the coward’s way out.” He swiped a hand across his face. “We shouldn’t talk about Claire. It makes me emotional.”

It made me emotional, too. Claire, who had been just enough older for me to see her as a kind of backup Mom. Claire, our beautiful sister, who never hurt anyone.

We walked across the dooryard, listening to the crickets sing in the high grass. They always sing the loudest in late August and early September, as if they know summer is ending.

Terry stopped at the foot of the steps, and I saw his eyes were still wet. He’d had a good day, but a long and stressful one, just the same. I had been wrong to bring up Claire at the end of it.

“Stay the night, little bro. The couch is a pullout.”

“No,” I said. “I promised Connie I’d have breakfast with him and his partner at the Inn in the morning.”

“Partner,” he said, and rolled his eyes. “Right.”

“Now, now, Terence. Don’t go all twentieth century on me. These days they could get married in a dozen states, if they wanted. Including this one.”

“Oh, I don’t mind that, who marries who ain’t none of mine, but partner ain’t what that guy is, no matter what Connie may think. I know a freeloader when I see one. Christ, he’s half Con’s age.”

That made me think of Brianna, who was less than half my age.

I gave Terry a hug and a peck on the cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Lunch, before I head back to the airport.”

“You got it. And Jamie? You played the spots off that guitar tonight.”

I thanked him and walked to my car. I was opening the door when he spoke my name. I turned back.

“Do you remember Reverend Jacobs’s last Sunday in the pulpit? When he gave what we used to call the Terrible Sermon?”

“Yes,” I said. “Very well.”

“We were all so shocked at the time, and we chalked it up to the grief he was feeling over the loss of his wife and son. But you know what? When I think of Claire, I think I’d like to find him and shake his hand.” Terry’s arms—brawny, like our father’s—were folded over his coverall. “Because what I think now is that he was brave to say those things. What I think now is that every word was right.”

 • • •

Terry might have gotten rich, but he was still thrifty, and we ate catered leftovers for Sunday lunch. For most of it, I held Cara Lynne on my lap, feeding her tiny bits of things. When it was time for me to go and I handed her back to Dawn, the baby held her arms out to me.

“No, honey,” I said, kissing that incredibly smooth forehead. “I have to go.”

She only had a dozen words or so—one of them was now my name—but I’ve read that their understanding is much greater, and she knew what I was telling her. The little face wrinkled up, she held her arms out again, and tears filled those blue eyes that were the same shade as my mother’s and my dead sister’s.

“Go quick,” Con said, “or you’ll have to adopt her.”

So I went. Back to my rental car, back to Portland Jetport, back to Denver International, back to Nederland. But I kept thinking of those chubby outstretched arms, and those tear-filled Morton Blue eyes. She was just a year old, but she had wanted me to stay longer. That’s how you know you’re home, I think, no matter how far you’ve gone from it or how long you’ve been in some other place.

Home is where they want you to stay longer.

 • • •

During March of 2014, after most of the ski-bunnies had left Vail, Aspen, Steamboat Springs, and our own Eldora Mountain—came news of a monster blizzard approaching. Our piece of the famed Polar Vortex had dropped four feet on Greeley already.

I hung in at Wolfjaw for most of the day, helping Hugh and Mookie batten down the studios and the big house. I stayed until the wind began to pick up and the first flurries started to scatter down from the leaden skies. Then Georgia came out, dressed in a barncoat, earmuffs, and a Wolfjaw Ranch gimme cap. She was in full scold-mode.

“You send those guys home,” she told Hugh. “Unless you want them stuck side o’ the road somewhere until June.”

“Like the Donner Party,” I said. “But I’d never eat Mookie. Too tough.”

“Go on, you two, scat,” Hugh said. “Just double-check the studio doors on your way down to the road.”

We did so, and checked the barn for good measure. I even took the time to dole out apple slices, although Bartleby, my favorite, had died three years ago. By the time I dropped Mookie off at his rooming house, it was snowing hard and the wind was blowing thirty or more. Downtown Nederland was deserted, the traffic lights swinging and drifts already piling up in the doorways of shops that had closed early for the day.

“Get home fast!” Mookie shouted to be heard over the wind. He had knotted his bandanna over his mouth and nose, making him look like an elderly outlaw.

I did as he said, the wind shouldering at my car like a bad-tempered bully the whole way. It pushed me even harder as I made my way up the walk, clutching my collar to my face, which was clean-shaven and unprepared for what Colorado winter felt like when it decided to get serious. I had to use both hands to yank the foyer door shut once I was inside.

I checked my mailbox and saw a single letter. I pulled it out, and one glance was enough to tell me who it was from. Jacobs’s handwriting had grown shaky and spidery, but was still recognizable. The only surprise was the return address: General Delivery, Motton, Maine. Not quite my hometown, but right next door. Too close for comfort, in my opinion.

I tapped the envelope against my palm and almost obeyed my first impulse, which was to rip it to pieces, open the door, and scatter the shreds to the wind. I still imagine doing that—every day, sometimes every hour—and wonder what might have changed if I’d done so. Instead, I turned it over. There, written in the same unsteady hand, was a single sentence: You will want to read this.

I didn’t, but tore it open, anyway. I pulled out a single sheet of paper wrapped around a smaller envelope. Written on the face of this second envelope was Read my letter before opening this one. So I did.

God help me, so I did.

March 4, 2014

Dear Jamie,

I have obtained both of your e-mail addresses, business and personal (as you know, I have my methods), but I am an old man now, with an old man’s ways, and believe that important personal business should be conducted by letter and, when possible, by hand. As you can see, “by hand” is still possible for me, although for how much longer I do not know. I had a minor stroke in the fall of 2012, and another one, rather more serious, last summer. I hope you will excuse the execrable state of my handwriting.

I have another reason for reaching out to you by letter. It’s all too easy to delete e-mails, a bit more difficult to destroy a letter someone has labored over with pen and ink. I will add a line to the back of the envelope to increase the chances of your reading this. If I get no reply, I will have to send an emissary, and that I do not want to do, as time is short.

An emissary. I didn’t like the sound of that.

When we last met, I asked you to serve as my assistant. You refused. I am asking again, and this time I am confident you will agree. You

must

agree, as my work is now in its final stage. All that remains is one last experiment. I am sure it will succeed, but I dare not proceed alone. I need help, and, just as important, I need a