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worry, sadness, and discomfort. It hung around her like a smell she could not locate or disperse. She did the small tasks of life—making coffee and toast, doing a load of laundry, washing a few dishes, sweeping the floor. She wandered slowly from room to room, only to find herself sitting on the sofa, staring out the window, not knowing how or when the scene outside had moved from the brilliant sunshine of the day to the inky darkness of night. When she heard her mother rouse herself from bed to use the toilet, she was always startled, forgetting that she was not alone. The days shortened. The gloom of winter outdoors matched the dark mood inside.
    Miranda stared out the windows and found herself wanting to trudge through the snow, even if only on some fabricated errand to the barn, just to get away from the oppressive atmosphere of the house. But it was bitter out there. The deep cold in those mountains was the sort that immediately announced its ability to kill you. No matter how Miranda layered herself in scarves and hats, gloves and coats, which collected in the mudroom, the air seared her cheeks and assaulted her nose. The evergreens that rimmed the property and staggered up the steep hillsides all around—the trees she had always loved—began to resemble sinister beings to her, their feathery branches waving in the wind like malevolent arms trying to reach out and grab her. Miranda gave up on her attempted forays and stayed indoors, sipping cup after cup of tea and staring out at the endlessly swirling storms of white flakes and the mounds of snow that Dix piled high when he plowed the almost-never-used driveway. She spent hours in her brother’s room, fingering the clothes that still hung in his closet, slowly turning the pages of his high school yearbooks and photo albums, drowning herself in deep pools of the past. She carried one of her father’s pipes in her pocket, pulling it out from time to time and inhaling the fading aroma. When she ate, she consoled herself with chicken noodle soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, and chocolate pudding. The foods of her childhood.
    Dix’s arrivals and departures were the only break in the spell of her dazed mood, the only reminder that there was a world beyond the thick walls of logs that surrounded her. Seeing his truck come up the drive, spraying snow in front of it, seeing him make purposeful movements around the house as he beat back the accumulations of winter gave her a vague sort of hope. Then suddenly the snows stopped and were replaced by mud and muck and dark puddles. There was nothing more to plow. It was just wet and cold, the threat of winter still in the air. The lonely month of March passed. Then April, with its teasingly warm days and cautiously cool nights.
    May arrived and, with it, the sound of truck tires on the gravel again. He was back. She watched as he dropped the tailgate and came around to the front of the house with a flat of annuals balanced on one arm and a bag of soil clenched in the other fist. This was once a task her mother had loved. The visit to the local nursery, where she’d wander among the bright flowers under the first hint of warm sun moderated by a still-cool breeze. Then back home, where she’d sift through the airy, salt-and-pepper potting soil, tuck in the plant pods, step back and admire how the pink, purple, and yellow blooms filling the various planters around the house stood out against the ruddy logs.
    For the first time, Dix was doing what was not his to do.
    Seeing Dix on his knees in front of the green planters with black dirt and bright annuals arrayed around him broke something loose in Miranda. She stood and shook herself as if she were a wet dog. She went into the bathroom, splashed water on her face, slapped color into her cheeks, and dragged a brush through her hair. She thought of her father and brother, and for the first time, instead of a blurry sadness, she was filled with the clarity of anger. She saw their