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  Had he lived, Warren explained, her father might have been able to extricate himself from the mess, but without him here, it seemed the best strategy was to help her find a way to cut the losses, staunch the bleeding, and try to get a fresh start and a clean slate. An unburdened future, Warren added.

  Miranda blinked at him and nodded.

  Warren told her what he needed right away was for her to get some paperwork signed by her mother—perhaps by her mother’s doctors, if she was truly incapacitated—so Miranda could get power of attorney. Then he could act on her behalf. Something he assured her he wouldn’t do without consulting her. He promised complete transparency.

  “For now,” he said, sighing with relief at the sound of a door opening and closing in the outer office and the footfall of boots on the rug, “go home and get some rest.”

  “I feel a bit shaky,” Miranda said.

  “I can imagine,” he said, taking her elbow. “I called Dix. He’s here now. He’ll take you home.”

  Miranda went home and sat alone in the house her father had built. Flashes of memory exploded around her. Her father complaining about the neighbors to her mother. Her mother begging him to not dig out the river. Her father screaming on the phone. Throwing tools at a pickup truck as it blew gravel out behind its back tires and raced down the drive. Whispered conversations with men who were not friends and who did not come indoors but stayed close to their vehicles in the driveway.

  Miranda was fearful. She had no idea how she would sort through all of this. She was afraid of the financial reality that she might be facing. She’d always had an allowance. Her credit card was connected to her father’s accounts. She’d never even balanced her checkbook. She always knew she’d have to face the fiscal facts of her own life someday, but that day had been so easy to keep pushing off. Yet, as sobering as this news was, she felt sure that Warren’s solicitude as she sat in his office was a sign that he was doling out the bad news a bit at a time. She felt sure there was plenty more to come.

  Which it did. She learned bit by bit of her father’s financial misdeeds and the mess he left behind. She looked at the numbers Warren showed her—the amounts wasted and lost left her breathless and dizzy. She cried so much over the ensuing six months that she felt desiccated, like something left in the desert. But in between the tears, she made things happen. She did what needed to be done. Guided by Warren, aided by Dix, she rose to the demands life—and death—required of her. Her mother was not going to recover, the log home was not going to be brought up to code, she was not going to inherit enough money to keep them both comfortable for the rest of their lives, as they both had expected.

  Barbara Steward was installed in a small assisted-living community. She had often talked of going to a retirement community in the past, on days that she found the management of two large homes overwhelming. She said she’d play bridge, learn to paint watercolors, and never have to cook again. Miranda had seen the “senior living” brochures her mother had once collected, their slick pages filled with photos of vibrant, lightly wrinkled, silver-haired and smiling people biking, painting, listening to a concert, driving a convertible. Bunny hadn’t done any of those things when she was well and would certainly not be doing them in her “retirement.” The only wish of hers that would come true was never having to cook again. Instead, she was fed soft foods in her room by a cast of laconic, leathery women because she refused to eat in the dining rooms with the other residents. One afternoon when Miranda was visiting her dazed, confused, and silent mother in her beige room in the one-story complex up near Plattsburgh, she watched as a brusque woman briskly and efficiently tightened the sheets and comforter of the bed without disturbing their occupant, wiped her mother’s face, brushed her hair, and tidied the food tray, all in a few economical moves. Miranda found herself envying the other woman’s uninflected competence.

  Maybe, Miranda thought, I could learn to be that good at something. Maybe I could get into some sort of helping profession. Miranda looked at the woman’s nametag. TIFFANY. How incongruous, she thought.

  “Thank you, Tiffany,” she said, “for all your help with my mother.”

  The other woman murmured something and shrugged.

  “Do you mind if I ask how you got into this line of work?” Miranda persevered.

  In a few staccato sentences, Tiffany told her she’d gotten training as a health-care aide after her abusive husband burned down their trailer, mistakenly thinking she and their three kids were in it. Miranda brought her fingers to her mouth. Fortunately, Tiffany explained, without emotion, she’d left just that morning and was holed up in a battered women’s shelter with the kids. It was too bad that the dog, two cats, and a parakeet had died in the fire, she added, but thankfully the bastard shot himself in his truck in the driveway while the trailer burned.

  “The one thing he did right in his whole life,” Tiffany said as she grabbed a tray and left the room.

  Miranda got a real estate agent and put the Connecticut house on the market. It sold quickly, above the asking price, but her father had taken out a large second mortgage on the place and invested the resulting proceeds poorly, so after the taxes and Realtor’s fees, Miranda was left with a sum that seemed to be missing a couple of zeroes at the end of it. Between these funds, the proceeds from a life insurance policy, the much-reduced assets in her father’s once-hefty investment portfolio, and his Social Security due to her mother, Miranda and Warren were able to pay off some back debts, settle a couple of lawsuits, provide her mother adequate care, and put $75,000 into an account for herself. She accurately saw this as a sum that would merely buy her a bit of time to get settled, and then provide a buffer as she found her way into some sort of a modest job and new life. When she tried to imagine what that new life might look like, she could conjure only the image of an empty blackboard, smudged with the recent erasure of whatever guidance might have recently been scribbled there. She told herself, and Warren told her, too, to just focus on the tasks at hand. The rest would sort itself out soon enough.

  The log home seemed beyond salvage. The expenses to get it up to code would be too great. It could no longer be lived in, but it likely would not sell with all its encumbrances. There were plenty of other places in the area rich people could buy that were just as pretty and a lot less burdened. Fortunately, since a bank would never have loaned money for a property like that, her father had paid cash. It was debt free. Miranda could just walk away from it. Dix helped her close it up. He drained water lines, sold the mower, tractor, and her father’s lightly used tools. They took a few truckloads of furniture, clothes, books, and other items to Goodwill. Anything of value went into a storage unit while Miranda “sorted herself out.”

  When the day came for the final walkthrough, Miranda watched Dix survey the grounds, check doors, locks, and faucets, sweep the garage and barn. She didn’t cry. She had no tears left. She knew Dix was also watching her, careful and gentle with his gaze, and she felt swaddled by the snug pressure of his attention. She reached over and squeezed his arm. His limb felt to her like a young tree with the bark stripped off. She knew he was concerned for her. She didn’t allow herself to take it too personally. She knew he always cared for things that were broken, and she accepted that she fell into this category.

  “I’ll be OK,” she said, trying for a smile.

  “Where will you live?” he asked.

  “I’m renting a little place in town.”

  “The Lewises’ house?”

  “Yes.”

  She had gotten used to Dix knowing things. She had stopped wondering how he knew so much and yet told so little. They stood in the yard in the late-afternoon stillness. A raven croaked from somewhere overhead, a desolate sound that somehow became companionable when another answered. A chipmunk ran under the porch. Miranda noticed that light was low. The days were short. Summer had come and gone without her noticing. The leaves had bloomed with color, faded to brown, and fallen to the ground. Snowflakes blew thr
ough the air. She shivered. Dix removed his coat and placed it over her shoulders. She shrugged herself into it gratefully.

  “It’s like a graveyard,” Miranda said.

  “Yes,” Dix answered. “A peaceful place full of memories.”

  “Funny, that’s not how I think of a graveyard. More like a place filled with ghosts.”

  Dix nodded slowly.

  “I got some good news from Warren,” she said, scuffing a toe in the dirt.

  Dix lifted his eyebrows in question.

  “Looks like someone may be interested in buying. Warren wouldn’t tell me much. Someone he knows personally. Someone who wants to remain anonymous. He said he thinks whoever it is just wants the land and doesn’t care about living here or the problems with the house. Wants to protect the land. Keep it wild.”

  Dix nodded again, a little more slowly this time.

  “Must be nice,” Miranda said.

  “What must be nice?” Dix asked.

  “To be able to do something like that. To be able to be generous. To have that abundance and instead of holding on to it, to share it. Quietly. Without drawing attention.”

  “Well, maybe the new owner won’t post the land and you can still visit,” Dix said hopefully.

  “No, too many bad memories,” she said. “I have to move on and get my own life started. Time to smash the rearview mirror.” Her mouth twisted a bit. “Besides, they’ll have to post, Warren says. Liability issues. Can’t have someone coming up here, breaking into the house, getting hurt and suing.”

  “You’ve had quite the legal education lately,” Dix said.

  “Yes.” Miranda thought briefly of the legal education her brother was supposed to have had. She sighed. “This place has had enough lawsuits for several lifetimes.”

  They were quiet together for a few minutes. Then Dix rolled his shoulders back and crossed his arms. He cleared his throat and rubbed his forehead. Miranda glanced at him. He was not a man given to unnecessary movement.

  “I thought the Lewis place wasn’t available for a bit,” he finally said. “All rented out with summer people who were keeping it through the holidays.”

  Miranda sighed. Was there anything of import to her life that this man did not know?

  “That’s true. I’m going to stay at a little hotel near Mum until it’s ready. I’ll be able to check in on her. Look for a job. Probably need to take some classes. Not much in the way of employment for someone with my skill set, such as it is.” She shook her head. “Weeding and harvesting vegetables is not much to start a career with. Neither, apparently, is a liberal arts degree.”

  Dix repeated his forehead rubbing.

  “I . . .”

  Miranda had never heard him hesitate, stammer like that. He seemed to be someone who did not speak unless he knew what was going to come out of his mouth. She looked up at him. He was a full head and shoulder taller than she. He stared resolutely ahead and she stared at the stubble, a cut cornfield, on the hard line of his jaw.

  “I have a guest cabin,” he finally said, his voice so quiet she had to lean toward him to hear.

  She waited for more. She had no idea why he was telling her this. He was not someone who spoke about himself or his own life very much. At all, really. He didn’t continue.

  “Yes?” Miranda finally said. “A guest cabin?”

  “It’s a small outbuilding,” he repeated, starting over, trying again. “At my house. Off in a corner of the property. Private. Tucked beneath some big pines.”

  Miranda felt her pulse tick up with hope. She was ready to be rescued. She imagined a cabin from a child’s picture book with lightly frayed, white-lace curtains and a musty handmade quilt on a big bed built from logs. A rocker made from birch twigs on the porch and an old traveling chest that had been turned into a coffee table in the center of the room. But she pushed the image away and tamped her hopes down. A cabin like that, where she could find refuge under Dix’s watchful eye? It was too good to be true, too much to wish for.

  “It’s not been used in years,” he continued. “Not since my mother died and some of her people came up to pay respects.”

  Her people. Miranda had never heard relatives referred to in that way. She’d also never heard Dix refer to his family at all. She wasn’t even clear where he lived. She’d asked him once. He’d responded with a single word: “North.” Then, when she had looked at him quizzically, had elaborated. “North of here.” Then, had nodded to indicate direction. As if this narrowed down the possible location of his home in any meaningful way. His voice moved on now, slowly, carefully, like someone crossing a river by stepping from stone to slippery stone.

  “She used to invite people up from time to time. My mother, that is. She was from Virginia. My dad was from here. She had it fixed up real nice. No kitchen. But you—her people, friends, I mean, visitors—they used the main house for that.”

  Miranda clung to the word you. She felt the soft warmth of his kindness spread through her insides, push gently into the coldness that had settled there. She was afraid to speak, almost to breathe, in fear of breaking the fragile thing hope had become to her.

  “I don’t cook much,” he said, sidling slightly off topic.

  Miranda thought of the sandwiches he ate, which were made on big slabs of bread she knew he had kneaded and baked himself. The stews and soups that filled his thermos she knew were made from vegetables he grew, venison he hunted. She couldn’t recall where she got this information from, but she knew it was true.

  “It’s empty,” he said. “The cabin. Might as well put it to use.”

  Miranda stood, desire and fear competing for her attention. She took a breath.

  “Dix, are you offering me . . . like, is this, would you be open to renting . . . ?” Miranda murmured, allowing herself to be enchanted with the image of a mossy cabin in the woods, a place for gnomes and fairies—or orphaned children.

  “Oh, you don’t need to pay me,” Dix interjected, his voice suddenly in a hurry. “I wouldn’t take any money for it. You could use it, just, you know, for as long as you need it. So you don’t have to stay in a hotel. ’Course, you’d have to come see it. See if you’d be comfortable there. No TV. Sketchy cell service.”

  Miranda sighed. She nestled into her own fantasy of the place. “It sounds wonderful,” she said. “I’d love to come see it.”

  They settled into quiet, each chewing silently on the decision they’d somehow just made together, the barrier they’d just crossed. A barrier they’d been getting closer to these past few months. Even though Miranda had insisted on paying him for as many of his services as she could, there were so many things he did for her that were impossible to quantify. The counsel and advice. The long talks. The ride to Plattsburgh when her car broke down and the trip to Albany to collect her mother. He was not a hired hand any longer. He was a friend. The only one she had. This kindness, this generous offer, she would accept. This she would take for free. Because it was for herself. It was a gift that had nothing to do with her parents or the past or the relationship of employer and employee Dix had had with her father. This was something between them alone. Miranda touched Dix’s arm again. Let her hand rest there a moment this time.

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice a released breath.

  Dix dipped his head. And for just a moment, the edges of his mouth turned up.

  Dix gave Miranda careful directions, but his place was still hard to find, and there were few signposts along the way. She had asked him what color his mailbox was, but he said he didn’t have one, as he picked up his mail at the post office. The first two turns were marked by street signs, but then she had to watch her odometer and count the tenths of a mile off one dirt road and then another, look for a falling-down barn and an abandoned farmhouse, try to find a bridge obscured by scrub growth, and then, if he hadn’t been standing there like he had been set down by aliens, she still would have missed his driveway.

  “You startled me,” she said as she
rolled down her car window.

  “I thought I better come down and wave you in,” he said.

  “Good thing. I almost missed it.”

  He seemed nervous, something expressed only by an obliqueness in his gaze.

  “Better let me in,” he said. “It’s a long driveway.”

  He climbed into the passenger seat of her Subaru, where he looked like a grown man on a tricycle, all knees and elbows in the compact space. Miranda stared straight ahead. She wondered if this was a mistake. She wondered if he was wondering the same thing. A man didn’t live in a place this hard to find if he wasn’t someone who valued solitude. Or if he liked the company of other people. She wondered why she’d been invited in.

  Did he like her or feel sorry for her? Was he lonely or generous?

  She’d known him for years, yet she knew him not at all. He was a collection of adjectives—reliable, capable, trustworthy, hardworking, skilled, private—but these words did not add up to a full person. Not yet. She wondered if that would change. If the man behind the list of admirable qualities would emerge.

  The driveway took a turn and suddenly the view opened up. She saw a small glade among tall pines. At the center was a single-story home that took her breath away with its simplicity and elegance. There was a central square to the building, with two wings set at forty-five-degree angles flowing away from it. Large overhanging eaves protected its face while the arching branches of some deciduous trees she’d never seen before caressed the corners. The overlapping shakes were a lightly weathered brown, like bark. Several low walls and walks made of muted grayish-blue stones gave dimension to the yard. Mosses and creeping plants cascaded and merged together among the rocks. The home had the appearance of something that had sprouted up naturally. There were a few similarly subtle outbuildings scattered nearby, like leaves fallen from a tree. Everything was dusted with the first light snow of the season. Miranda turned off the car and sat, intimidated into silence by the serenity of the setting.