Elise looked at her sleeping son. At the snow. At the wedding band on her own hand, simple platinum she and Daniel had chosen in a shop on South Broadway while rain streaked the windows and they were still stupid with hope.
"I need air," she said.
She took her coat from the hook and stepped onto the covered porch. Cold hit her lungs cleanly. The mountains were invisible behind weather, but she could feel them — that old Colorado gravity, stone and pine and the indifference of altitude. Daniel did not follow immediately. He gave her three minutes, then came out with her scarf and draped it over her shoulders without speaking. They stood side by side watching snow erase their footprints on the steps.
"I keep thinking about the beach joke," Elise said eventually. "Toby in that hat. Ready for the beach. And we laughed, and then the world under the laugh was this."
"I know."
"Did you ever consider that Toby finding the bag was Natalie interfering from wherever she is? Because that is exactly the kind of theatrical nonsense she would have loved."
Daniel's mouth twitched. "She would have cast him as the messenger and then demanded popcorn."
Elise wiped her face with the edge of the scarf. "I'm not ready to forgive you."