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She nodded. We’d given our significant others an update when we’d gone back to meet them in the cafeteria. But none of us had gotten into anything more than technical details. I think we were all still in shock, processing what was happening in our own ways. I’d caught Hank looking at me with something like sorrow. He’d made his amends with Dad last year, after him and Casey had gotten back together. “It’s not too late to tell him how you feel,” he’d said to me while the others talked about the roads.

He was right. Even if Dad couldn’t hear me, I could tell him how I felt—that I might still be holding onto anger, but I wanted him to live. I wanted us to at least try to exist together without losing our shit on one another. I’d come back tonight, I vowed to myself, on the way to the city to pick up the girls, who were flying in late from Florida.

“We might as well go to the care home now, seeing as we’re here,” I said to Michelle now. This part I wanted to get this over with. I knew Dad’s room was going to be depressing as hell. I’d never actually been inside it, not since he moved in. The few times I’d visited him we’d been in the common area.

Despite the dreary, gray day and depressing as shit hospital parking lot, my chest swelled when I thought of how lucky I was to have Michelle with me right now.

“I’m just going to check in on Emma and Macy,” she said when we got to the car.

She sent off a few texts, smiling and showing me the text her Mom sent—a photo of her and her dad with Emma and Macy building a fort in the backyard.

“You know, Hannah’s the queen of fort-making.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I think it’s why she’s an engineering student now. Your girls are going to love building them with her.” I considered. “I hope. Remy couldn’t stand building forts with her. She used to say, ’who measures their snow blocks?’”

Michelle laughed, and a glow poked through the gray. I’d never tire of hearing that, even on the hardest days.

* * *

Just as I suspected,while the care home itself had done its best to put on a cheery visage, with a big HAPPY NEW YEAR banner strung across the front desk and balloons pinned to the chairs in the dining area, the hallway leading to dad’s room was a grim, too-bright-with-fluorescent lights space.

Then the orderly opened the door to Dad’s room.

“Oh god,” I said. It was the first time I felt anything besides blank nothing at the situation with Dad. Ironic, because the room was a whole lot of nothing. Nothing on the walls, not even any hospital-issue landscapes. Not even a damned calendar. The only things that indicated someone lived in the bachelor suite were Dad’s coffee maker, the same yellowed plastic machine he used to keep at the garage, and a model car kit half opened on the table.

I turned away from that, not liking the strange feeling it stirred in my chest.

“Maybe there’s some piece of clothing or thing in the closet?” Michelle said, her voice imbued with false cheeriness. I appreciated the effort.

I nodded, the numbness spreading now.

“How about I look?” she said.

I nodded again. “Thanks,” I said, moving to the window. It was a beautiful day, the snow crisp and white, the sky sparkling sapphire.

Too nice for what was happening here.

I peered down at the pond Hank said Dad liked to feed the ducks at. I’d fought for this room—they hadn’t wanted to give it to him, saying because of his respiratory issues they wanted him in a completely depressing room next to the nurse’s station that had a view out to the side of the parking garage next door.

Hell, maybe dad would have liked that. He’d get to look at cars, and maybe the nurses would have noticed his cough going on longer than it should have.

Maybe this was my fault.

I was about to leave the window to join Michelle at the closet, where she was on her tiptoes pulling things off the top shelf, when I caught a glimpse of green.

It was Millerville Central Park, I realized. I didn’t know Dad could see it from his room. Maybe, in some split second, Michelle and I had been visible to him that day.

I squinted. No, it was the wrong end of the park. It was where Eli had sat on that bench, taking the call from his sister.

Life felt, at that moment, like a series of serendipitous moments. What if I hadn’t gone with Hank to see his best friend’s widow that day? What if I hadn’t met with Eli at the park during my break? What if I hadn’t agreed to go on that work trip to Rolling Hills?

I almost had to laugh at that one. In the lobby, waiting for Michelle on the way out of the resort, I’d run into Charles Haverford. He’d been so surprised to see me—and I didn’t want to dump my personal business on him—I’d pasted on a smile. I told him I was there at Fred’s behest.

“I’m sorry I have to head out,” I told him, “Family business. Maybe we can have a chat about the…” I couldn’t remember the name of the proposed resort that had been mentioned on the files Sheila had stacked on my desk. “The version of this you’re hoping to develop in Jewel Lakes when we’re both back in town?” I waved my hand at the lobby generally.

Charles had given me a strange look.