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And.

The.

Next.

I don’t talk to her; she doesn’t talk to me.

When Wren’s in the house, Molly lies beside her with her chin resting on her crossed front paws. When Wren leaves, Molly chews everything that isn’t nailed down and barks like she wants my ears to bleed.

I’m peeling wallpaper off the living room wall when she walks in, silent yet again as she drops her backpack and claims her usual perch. Contrary to the home renovating blog that called thisa job so easy it’s more relaxing than work, I’d prefer getting a pap smear with a meat cleaver than doing it a second longer.

Vince told me in his email this wallpaper had to go forusto get the biggest bang forourbuck, so it’s going.

I drag a wet sponge across the wallpaper, wedge the blade of a scraper under a corner, and pull. Praying for a big satisfying piece like the peeling skin of a sunburn, I swear when it’s only a sliver. The size of the ridiculously sloped wall seems to multiply with every too-small piece.

“Fucking wallpaper,” I mutter, wiping my forehead with the back of my arm. Wren watches me from her upside-down bucketas she pets Molly. She’s quiet, staring at me with big blue eyes—which I now see are very much Ford’s—through a ridiculous curtain of hair as I chug water. She looks so much like Ford’s kid it stings like saltwater in a cut. Like I always imagined it would.

I roll my eyes, turn the music up, and get back to work, trying my best to ignore the fact that she’s sitting there like some kind of paralyzed mime. And while it’s the kind of conversation I usually prefer with most people, after an hour of me scraping and swearing and her staying silent, I’m a twig ready to snap.

I can’t do this.

Climbing down the two rungs of the stepladder, I drop the scraper, sponge, and gloves to the floor. With a pen on a yellow legal pad, I scribble a note and hand it to her.

Wallpaper

Ruins

Every

Nice day

She reads it and gives me an uncaring look.

“I wrote an acrostic poem with your name.” She rereads it, softening slightly but staying quiet. “You want to go for a drive, or just sit there and mope all day?” For the first time in days, her eyes light up. “Text your dad on that dorky watch and tell him I’m taking you out to get a tattoo.”

She pounds away at her wrist then follows me to the Bronco, Molly right behind her.

“Aren’t we the trio of bitches?” I ask with a smile as I start the ignition.

Wren cuts her eyes to me, a silent scolding for calling usbitches, but her lips lift slightly enough I know she’s coming around. With Molly’s head out the rear window, Wren rolls hers down and props her elbow on the opening. I pick up the speed once we’re on the main road and her hand reaches into the air, dancing in the breeze the way people seem just drawn to do. As her palm rises and falls with the force of the air, the fabric of her sweatshirt flutters like a kite in the wind and her brown hair whips around her face.

“What kind of music do you like?” I shout over the wind.

“Lindsey Stirling,” she says, without looking at me, hand riding the waves. My eyes catch on her arm. Two Band-Aids slash across her forearm. She sees me looking and pulls her arm in the car, pinching her sleeves in her fingers and glueing them to her lap.

At the next stop sign, I fumble with my phone to find the unfamiliar musician. “You get hurt?” I lift my chin toward her arm.

“Just a cut.”

I look at her. She looks at her hands in her lap. I drop it.

When the music fills the speakers, it’s an explosion of the unexpected: Chords of a violin rip through the air without a single lyric. I can’t tell if it’s lovely or lonely, but by the second song, I realize it’s maybe both.

At a red light, the familiar downtown and the colorful town mural welcoming summer tourists to the lake with obnoxious cheer greets us.Life on the Ledge.I almost laugh:mission accomplished.

The buildings run into each other in two parallel strips as we cruise through town. Faded bricks that are now home to modern shops, cafés, and even an art gallery line the street. It’s as small as it was when I was a kid, just newer. A little more sparkly, a little less sleepy. One thing untouched: the timeless mountains painting the backdrop.

Out of town and away from the lake, the views are magnified. Summer’s refusal to relent to fall is evident by the still mostly green rolling hills around us. The roads wind by picturesque farms until the houses get farther between and more dilapidated; the music seems to know. Shifting from sharp riffs to something more subdued. Melancholy.