I told myself children misunderstand all the time.

I told myself my daughter Clare was stressed, that Derek was out of work again, that they’d moved back to the property two years ago and everyone was stretched thin.

I told myself a dozen comforting lies, because mothers do that.

But that night, after the sun dropped behind the bare oaks and the December wind began worrying the shutters, I sat alone at my kitchen table, wrapping presents on the same scarred wood where I’d rolled pie crust for forty-three years.

The farmhouse had been in my family for forty-three years.

Every floorboard knew my footsteps. Every window had reflected seasons of my life—pumpkin-orange sunsets, spring rain, the hard white glare of snow across the fields.

At seventy-two, I’d earned the right to call it mine in a way that went beyond the certified copy of the deed locked in a safe deposit box at the bank in town.

My name is Lucille Johnson.