At My Daughter’s Colorado Ranch Wedding, She Slipp…

They see trees and think they’re in a movie.”

“Maybe,” I said. But my gut kept twisting. Claire had brought Tyler home for the first time on Thanksgiving.

Six months earlier, though it felt both shorter and longer. Time plays tricks when you’re lonely. I remember the day clearly, the way you remember the first tremor before an earthquake.

The house smelled like turkey and sage and the yeast rolls I’d been making from the same hand-written recipe card for thirty years. Linda’s handwriting, looping and neat, stared up at me from the counter, smudged with old grease stains. Her voice lived in that kitchen—the way she’d tap the back of my hand with a wooden spoon when I tried to steal a taste, the way she’d hum without realizing it.

Linda had been gone three years by then. Cancer had taken her fast—faster than I’d been ready for, if there is such a thing as being ready to lose half your heart. One spring she was planting tomatoes, laughing at a stupid joke I made.