I smile into his chest. Spool appears in the doorway, surveys the destruction of the living room, and lies down in the hall with a long sigh.
Jace’s warm hand settles on the back of my neck. I press closer, where I belong.
epilogue
. . .
Rosalind
Evelyn crieswhen she holds the finished catalog. “This is exactly what I wanted. It’s better than I imagined.”
In six short weeks, I’ve launched Hollow Peak’s backcountry lending program and matched thirty-two households with their starter collections. My system hums along on index cards designed at Jace’s kitchen table. But it wasn’t the flawless execution that made my throat seize. It’s Evelyn’s tear-streaked face and the certainty that for the first time, I hadn’t only built a system. I’d found a home.
She closes the binder. “I want you to stay and work here. I can’t pay city money, but we’ll figure out something to make it worth your while. You belong in Hollow Peak.”
Her words wash over me, a lifeline. To belong. Not just to a project, but to a place, a person, a life.
“Yes,” I whisper. “Thank you.”
She hugs me.
I drive back to Denver. My life—what little of it mattered—fits into my leaky hatchback and two boxes shipped ahead with the rest: books, clothes, my grandmother’s vanilla extract,and the consulting binders I’ll never open again. It’s less than I owned six weeks ago, and somehow, infinitely more.
I stand in the empty space, the air cool and still. I wait for a tug, a pang, any whisper of regret or nostalgia. My chest is empty.
My hands, surprisingly steady, reach for the lock. Nothing. I lock the door and leave the key with the landlord.
I call my mother from a gas station on the way to Hollow Peak, because if I don’t call her until I’m settled, she’ll find out from Margaret, who discovered everything from someone, somehow, by a mechanism I haven’t been able to track.
The line clicks. “Rosalind?”
“Hey.”
“Where are you? It sounds like a parking lot.”
“It is. I’m calling to let you know I’m moving.”
A pause. “Where to?”
“Hollow Peak, Colorado. At the bookstore I consulted for.”
The quiet grows.
“Sweetheart,” Mother says. “Are you sure that is wise?”
Her question settles over me, heavy and familiar from twenty-eight years of it. My fingers tighten on the phone. She’s not cruel, but she doesn’t know how to ask anything else.
“Yes, I’m sure it’s wise,” I say for the first time ever. “I’m also moving in with someone.”
The static hisses, the silence heavy with her disapproval. I square my shoulders against it.
“You met someone at the bookstore?” She sounds confused.
“No. In a cabin. During a rockslide, actually. His name’s Jace. He’s a lumberjack. Reads Wendell Berry. Even carved me an aspen bookmark. And he has a dog named Spool.”
“Rosalind.” Her voice is softer, uncertain, almost fragile. “Are you happy?”
The question stops me. She’s never asked me that before.
