My husband had spent years warning me never to set foot on that farm. So after he passed away and the lawyer handed me the key, saying that from now on the place belonged to me, I was ready to sell it right away and put everything behind me. But before making my final decision, I still wanted to see it once for myself. When the door opened, I finally understood why, all those years, he had never wanted me to set foot there.

Not because I had discipline so much as because once the door reopened, I could not seem to close it again. I painted mornings and threw them out. Painted horses badly, then better. Painted the western ridge in six different moods. Painted memory badly and weather beautifully and human faces with embarrassing caution. Ellis, who had no patience for false modesty, would stop by the studio door each afternoon and say things like, “That horse’s neck’s too short,” or, “The sky in this one looks like it means business,” and then leave before I could ask whether either was criticism.

Jenna laughed more during that period than she had since the funeral.

There is no measuring what it means to watch your daughter come back to herself after nearly handing her grief to the wrong people. She and I did not become sentimental just because the crisis had redirected us. We remained who we were. She was still quick-tempered, still analytical, still impatient with vagueness. I was still prone to overthinking and sudden, useless guilt. But the farm made honesty easier. Perhaps because the place itself had been built from hidden truth finally forced into daylight.