Six hours north, the city bled away. Pavement gave way to gravel. Cell service vanished. Trees arched overhead like cathedral vaults, and the air—cool, pine-scented, alive—filled my lungs for the first time in years.
Then I saw it.
Nestled in a valley where the mist clung like lace, the cabin stood—low and sturdy, built of river stone and cedar. Ivy curled around the chimney like it was hugging the house. The porch sagged slightly, worn smooth by decades of footsteps. It didn’t look abandoned. It looked waiting.
Inside, time had paused.
Sunlight streamed through dust-moted air, illuminating a stone fireplace, a wool rug frayed at the edges, and a mantle crowded not with trinkets—but with photographs.
There she was: my mother, impossibly young, barefoot in a faded sundress, her hair wild in the wind, laughing as a tall, dark-haired man lifted her off her feet. Behind them, this very cabin.
