“I don’t know.”
Another pause.
Then his mother said, “Walt still has the key.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Mom—”
“Don’t explain.”
“I wasn’t—”
“You were.”
He almost smiled.
“The upstairs radiator runs cold.”
“I remember.”
“The washing machine sticks on the rinse cycle.”
“I remember.”
“Your father says the back steps need replacing.”
“They needed replacing six years ago.”
“Exactly.”
She paused.
“Daniel?”
“Yeah?”
“Take the house.”
He swallowed.
“Thank you.”
“And take blankets.”
The drive from Portland to Sunridge took roughly ninety minutes without traffic.
Lily sat in the back seat with Biscuit.
No tablet.
No music.
Just the window.
Daniel watched the landscape change in the rearview mirror.
Freeway barriers gave way to open fields.
Then low hills.
Then longer stretches of road with no buildings.
Sunridge sat in a valley surrounded by rolling terrain that turned gold during dry summers and deep green after the rains returned.
The population was barely above three thousand.
Main Street had one diner.
A pharmacy that also sold fishing tackle.
A hardware store.
A small grocery.
A bakery.
A used-book shop where Daniel once spent an entire summer allowance on science fiction paperbacks.
Nothing in Sunridge moved urgently unless something was on fire.
Daniel had spent much of his twenties trying to escape places like it.
Now it looked like oxygen.
Birch Road curved along the northern edge of town.
The Brooks house stood near the end.
White clapboard.
Dark roof.
Covered porch.
Two rocking chairs.
Wide yard.
The oak tree still dominated the side lawn.
Daniel had climbed it as a child.