CHAPTER 2: Homecoming

The rental car handled the highway well enough, but the dirt roads were another matter. Claire had forgotten how Montana measured distance—not in miles but in the quality of road surface, in the time it took to navigate ruts and washboard that could shake fillings loose.

She'd made good time from Missoula. The highway had been clear, the October sky that particular shade of blue that only existed at altitude, so sharp and clean it hurt to look at directly. Mountains rose in layers—foothills gold with aspen, higher peaks already dusted with early snow. The land opened up in a way Seattle never did, stretched itself to horizons that seemed impossible after years of city living where the view ended at the next building.

But the pavement had run out twenty minutes ago, and now Claire was navigating the final thirty miles on roads that were more suggestion than infrastructure. The car bucked over a particularly deep rut and she slowed, gripping the wheel tighter. Dust rose in plumes behind her, visible in the rearview mirror like smoke signals announcing her arrival.

She'd forgotten how alone you could be out here. The last house she'd passed was ten miles back—a modular home with a satellite dish and a chainlink fence containing three dogs that had barked at her car with the enthusiasm of boredom. Before that, nothing but national forest land, empty range, the occasional cattle guard spanning the road with its warning rattle.

The landscape was simultaneously familiar and strange. She recognized the shape of things—that particular ridge, the way the road curved around a stand of lodgepole pine—but it was like remembering a dream. Details had softened in her memory, or perhaps she'd never really seen them clearly to begin with. At eighteen, desperate to leave, she'd looked at this country as a prison. Now, at thirty-seven, she could see what she'd missed: the austere beauty of it, the way distance and sky made a person feel both small and infinite at once.

A mule deer stood at the roadside, watching her pass with dark, unconcerned eyes. Claire slowed instinctively, remembered her father teaching her to watch for wildlife. They have the right of way, he'd said. We're the visitors here, even when we think we live here.

The road climbed. Her ears popped. The mountains closed in, pine and fir replacing the open grassland, shadows lengthening as the sun dropped toward the peaks. It was just past four in the afternoon, but October days were short this far north, this high up. She'd be lucky to have another hour of good light.

And then, rounding a familiar curve, she saw it.

The ranch.

Claire pulled over without meaning to, the car rolling to a stop on the shoulder. Her hands stayed on the wheel. She'd been bracing herself for this moment since the plane had taken off from Seattle, but preparation didn't help.

It looked smaller. That was her first thought. The house that had loomed so large in memory was just a modest two-story structure, wood-sided and worn, with the porch she remembered but somehow shrunken, diminished. The barn listed more severely than she recalled—another few years and it would probably collapse entirely. The fence line needed repair. Weeds had overtaken what had once been her mother's vegetable garden.

But the mountains were the same. The forest pressed close on three sides, dark and dense, a wall of pine that seemed to breathe. And beyond, the peaks caught the late sun and threw it back in shades of gold and shadow.

More isolated than she'd remembered, too. The nearest neighbor was eight miles away. No cell signal out here—she'd lost that twenty miles back. No visible power lines, which meant Ruth was still running on the generator and propane. No sounds except wind moving through pine and the tick of the rental car's cooling engine.

Claire had lived here for eighteen years and spent fifteen trying to forget how alone alone could be.

She put the car back in gear and drove the final quarter mile. The driveway was two tracks worn into the earth, grass growing between them. She parked next to a Subaru that must belong to the nurse—practical, all-wheel drive, spotted with mud. A hiking boot print on the bumper. Sarah Chen, she remembered. The woman who'd called.

Before Claire could gather herself, the front door opened.

The woman who emerged was compact and sturdy, probably in her early fifties, with short black hair streaked with gray and the kind of face that smiled easily. She wore scrubs—dark blue, practical—and carried herself with the confidence of someone who knew exactly what they were doing. She raised a hand in greeting as Claire got out of the car.

"You must be Claire." Her voice was the same as on the phone—warm, capable. "I'm Sarah Chen. Your timing's good—she's been awake most of the afternoon."

Claire shook her hand. Sarah's grip was firm, her palm warm despite the October chill.

"How is she?" The question felt inadequate even as Claire asked it.

Sarah's smile dimmed slightly. "Holding on. Your mother's a strong woman." She paused, choosing her words. "There are some things you should know before you go in. She's declined significantly in the past week. The hospice doctor was here yesterday—we're managing her pain, keeping her comfortable. That's all we can do at this point."

Claire nodded. She'd expected this. Had prepared for this.

"There's something else," Sarah said, and her tone shifted—still professional but with an edge of uncertainty. "She's been talking. Not always coherently. Sometimes she seems to be having conversations with people who aren't there. That's normal at this stage—the medication, the body shutting down. But she's also been..." Sarah hesitated. "She's been talking to the trees. Or through the window, toward the forest. She seems very focused on something out there."

The trees. The forest. Claire felt something cold move down her spine.

"What does she say?" Her voice came out steady, which was a small victory.

"I don't always understand it. Sometimes it's not in English—or if it is, it's not any English I recognize. But she's very calm when she does it. Peaceful, even." Sarah studied Claire's face. "Has she always been... spiritual? Connected to nature in particular ways?"

You have no idea, Claire thought. Out loud, she said, "My mother's always had her own relationship with this land."

Sarah nodded as if this confirmed something. "Well. She's resting now, but she'll want to see you. Let me show you in."

The porch steps creaked under Claire's weight—the same creak, the same third step that gave more than the others. Muscle memory guided her. How many times had she climbed these steps? Thousands. Coming home from school, from helping her father in the field, from walks in the woods she'd taken to escape the house's silence.

Inside, the house smelled like her childhood: wood smoke and old books, coffee and something herbal she couldn't name. But underneath was the clinical smell of hospice care—antiseptic, medication, the particular odor of a body slowly failing. It made the familiar strange.

The living room was much as she remembered. The same worn couch, the same woodstove in the corner, the same bookcases filled with her father's field guides and her mother's eclectic collection—Native American history, plant medicine, poetry. New additions: a hospital bed had been set up near the window, medical equipment on a rolling cart, oxygen tanks standing like sentries.

And in the bed, Ruth.

Claire's breath caught.

She'd known her mother would look different. Dying changed people, hollowed them out. But knowing didn't prepare her for the reality of Ruth Larsen reduced to angles and shadows. Her mother had always been sturdy—not large, but solid, capable of carrying fifty-pound feed bags and splitting her own firewood. The woman in the bed was skeletal, her skin paper-thin and pale, her collarbones sharp enough to cut. The silver-gray hair Claire remembered was thin now, spread across the pillow like silk thread.

But her eyes.

Ruth's eyes were the same—fierce blue, sharp, fully present. They tracked Claire's entrance with an intensity that made fifteen years collapse into nothing.

"Claire." Her mother's voice was soft but clear. Not a question. A statement of fact.

"Mom." The word felt strange in her mouth. She approached the bed slowly, unsure of protocol. Did you hug someone this fragile? Sit down? Stand awkwardly like a stranger?

Ruth made the decision for her, reaching out one thin hand. Claire took it carefully, shocked by how light it felt, how the bones shifted under skin like a bird's wing. But the grip was firm.

"You came." Ruth's eyes searched her face. "Wasn't sure you would."

The words landed like a slap. Claire wanted to protest—of course I came, you're dying—but honesty stopped her. Her mother was right. If she was being truthful with herself, she'd considered not coming. Had thought about sending flowers, making a donation to hospice, finding some way to honor the obligation without actually returning.

"I'm here," was all Claire said.

Ruth nodded slightly and released her hand. "Sit down. You look exhausted."

Claire sank into the chair beside the bed—Sarah must have placed it there for visitors. The vinyl seat was cold through her jeans.

Silence stretched between them. This was familiar too—the Larsen talent for quiet, for letting words scatter and die unspoken. Claire had learned young that her mother could outlast any attempt at conversation, could simply exist in silence until the other person gave up trying.

"The drive was fine," Claire offered. "Roads are rough."

"Always are this time of year. Worse after the snow."

Another pause. Outside, wind moved through the pines with a sound like rushing water. The house settled around them—creaks and sighs, the language of old wood.

"Sarah seems competent," Claire tried again.

"She is." Ruth's eyes had drifted to the window. The light was fading now, the room dimming. "She doesn't understand, but she doesn't judge. That's rare."

"Understand what?"

But Ruth didn't answer. Her gaze was fixed on something beyond the glass—the tree line, the forest gathering darkness. Her expression was difficult to read. Waiting, maybe. Or listening.

"Mom?" Claire's voice came out sharper than she'd intended.

Ruth's eyes snapped back to her. "You've done well for yourself. Seattle suits you."

The abrupt change of subject was disorienting. "I like it there. The work is good."

"Making parks for people who've forgotten what wild means." There was no judgment in Ruth's tone, just observation.

Claire bristled anyway. "Green spaces matter. Urban environments need—"

"I'm not criticizing." Ruth's hand moved slightly on the blanket, a gesture that might have been dismissal or simply exhaustion. "You made the life you needed to make. I understood that."

"Did you?" The question came out before Claire could stop it. Fifteen years of it sat between them—the phone calls that went unanswered, the invitations Ruth had never extended, the silence that had calcified into something permanent.

Ruth was quiet for a long moment. Then: "I understood that some people need to leave. Your father never did. That's what killed him."

The words hung in the air. Claire wanted to ask what she meant—her father had died of exposure, of a blizzard and bad luck—but something in Ruth's face stopped her.

"I'm tired," Ruth said quietly. "You should rest too. Your room is the same. Sarah's made up the bed."

It was a dismissal. Claire recognized it, had heard it countless times growing up. I'm done talking now. No argument would change it.

She stood. "I'll be here. If you need anything."

Ruth's eyes met hers one more time, and in them Claire saw something she couldn't name—sorrow, maybe, or regret, or simply the vast accumulated weight of everything they'd never said to each other.

"I know," Ruth said. Then her gaze drifted back to the window, to the darkness gathering beyond the glass.

Sarah was in the kitchen, making tea. She looked up as Claire entered, her expression sympathetic.

"That went about as well as these things ever do," she said gently.

Claire leaned against the counter, suddenly exhausted. "Does she sleep?"

"On and off. More off lately. She seems to be waiting for something." Sarah poured hot water over tea bags—chamomile, from the smell. "She talks more at night. To the window, like I said. I've learned not to ask about it."

"Probably for the best."

Sarah handed her a mug. "Your room is upstairs, first door on the right. I'm staying in the guest room—I'm here overnight until we can get more coverage. If you need anything, or if you hear her call, come get me."

"Thank you." Claire wrapped her hands around the mug's warmth. "For being here. For taking care of her."

"It's what I do." Sarah's smile was kind. "But your mother makes it easy, honestly. She's very clear about what she wants. No fuss, no complaints. Just..." She trailed off, looking toward the living room. "She's ready, I think. That's rarer than you'd imagine. Most people fight to the end. Ruth seems to have made her peace."

Claire thought about her mother's face turned toward the window, toward the darkening forest. Made her peace.

Or kept a promise.

The thought came unbidden and unwelcome. Claire pushed it away, drank her tea, and tried not to think about what might be waiting in the trees outside as night came on and the house settled into its old, familiar patterns of silence and secrets.