“Goodnight, Cole,” she says.
“Night.”
She heads toward the hallway, then stops. “The storm. It’ll be clear by tomorrow?”
“By the afternoon, yeah. I’ll get your car running. The sheriff will have the roads open by evening.”
She nods, looking relieved. Another emotion flickers across her face too fast to name.
She disappears into the bedroom. The door clicks shut. The lock slides into place.
Good.
I bank the fire and check the candles, blowing out two and leaving one burning low on the table. The generator hums steadily. The cabin’s warm and secure.
I head toward the ladder to the loft, then stop.
The storage closet door is cracked open. Just an inch. I must’ve knocked it when I grabbed the blankets earlier.
I know what I should do: close it, walk past, and ignore it.
Instead, I open the door fully. The cardboard box sits on the top shelf. Corners battered. Lid taped shut three years ago. Never reopened.
Emma’s ornaments.
Red and gold glass. Wooden stars she carved in high school. The angel topper she insisted on every year. Garland that she strung herself while humming carols off-key.
All of it was packed away the Christmas after the accident.
My teeth clench. I close my eyes.
Then I shove the door closed. Hard. It bounces open an inch.
I leave it.
The box isn’t going anywhere. Neither is the past.
I climb the ladder to the loft and strip down to my boxers and a T-shirt. The bed’s cold as always, so I pull the quilt up and stare at the beams overhead.
Holly’s sleeping in Emma’s guest room. Tomorrow, I’ll send her back down the mountain.
One night. That’s it.
Wind howls. I close my eyes.
I count backward from ten. Usually, it quiets the noise in my head.
Tonight, it doesn’t work. And I already know why.
In the morning, I climb down and rebuild the fire. Add coffee to the percolator. The cabin’s cold enough to see my breath until the stove kicks heat into the room.
The cold has a dry and sharp quality up here, the kind that makes your lungs ache if you breathe too deeply. I blow on my hands while the kindling catches, watching flames lick around the bark until it crackles and pops, sending sparks up toward the chimney. The percolator starts its familiar rhythm, and the smell of brewing coffee cuts through the woodsmoke.
The bedroom door’s still closed.
Good. Let her sleep.
I pull on boots and a jacket, then head outside.
