“Why do you say things like that?” Jasper said.

“I don’t know,” River said. “Sometimes truths just come bursting out of me.”

“Let’s go find you something to eat,” Ellis said.

River gathered the remaining beers to bring with him. Ellis gave Jasper the remote to open the gate and showed him where to park and unload their luggage.

Raven was in the kitchen eating a vegetable-and-fried-seitan wrap she’d made for herself. She watched River stash his beers in the refrigerator.

“River and Jasper are staying overnight in the barn house,” Ellis said.

Raven had no response. She slid her plate of food to the middle of the table. “Do you want the rest of this?” she asked.

“You should eat it. You’ve barely had anything today.”

“I feel sick.”

She often said that. She was losing weight too fast. In the bright kitchen lights, she looked gaunt and exhausted. Being away from Washington was wearing on her. Ellis wondered if she could intervene, try to help her get back there. But to do that, she’d have to talk to her legal guardian, and Ellis didn’t want to be involved with Jonah in any way.

Jasper walked into the kitchen. “I put your bag in the guesthouse,” he told River.

She didn’t want to be involved with Jonah, yet here were the three children she’d made with him. In her kitchen. The room was suddenly small with the three young adults. Her house felt unfamiliar, like a house in a parallel world in which she’d never left Viola in the forest.

“Would you like what Raven is eating?” Ellis asked the boys.

Jasper studied the sandwich on her plate. “Is that meat?”

“Seitan. I switched from vegetarian to vegan.”

“I’m vegan, too,” Jasper said.

River drained the second bottle. “Your brainwashing worked,” he said to Ellis, opening another beer. “He never got over the guilt you made us feel for eating meat.”

“Lay off her!” Jasper said. “It was my choice. I never liked meat.”

“That’s the point of indoctrination,” River said, “to make you think what you believe was your idea all along.”

“You’re acting like a total ass,” Jasper said.

“Why would I have to act?” River said with a grin. He asked Raven, “I suppose you’re a vegan, too?”

“No,” she said.

“You eat meat?”

She nodded.

“Well, hell, no wonder you feel sick from eating that shite-tan thing. Let’s go over to the barbecue place down the road.”

“You’re not driving,” Ellis said. “That’s your third beer in twenty minutes.”

“Seriously?” he said. “You’re going to play parent all of a sudden?”

“You’re underage, and I gave you the beer. I could get in big trouble if you had an accident.”

“Okay, that sounds like the mom I knew. It was more about you than concern for me.”

“I told you to lay off,” Jasper said, shoving his shoulder.

The blow made River stumble backward a few steps. He found his feet and threw a punch that Jasper barely dodged. Jasper grabbed him by the upper arms, shouting, “Stop it! Why are you doing this?”

“Why are you?” River yelled, shoving him back. “Why did you want to come here? We could be at the goddamn beach right now!”

They crashed into the baker’s rack, toppling one of the very few possessions Ellis cared about, an antique apothecary jar Keith had given her for her birthday their first year together. Ellis had gradually filled it with little gifts of wildflowers Keith had brought from his walks on the property.

The jar exploded as it hit the floor. Parched flowers scattered in land mines of glass shards.

5

RAVEN

Raven cut her foot trying to help.

Ellis snapped at her for walking barefoot into the glass.

Jasper cut his hand.

Blood mixed in with the broken glass and dead flowers.

River did nothing, just leaned against the refrigerator, drinking his beer.

Ellis gave Jasper a box of Band-Aids and told him to clean his cut at the kitchen sink. She took Raven into the bathroom to look at the sole of her foot. “This is a bad cut,” she said.

“I can do it myself,” Raven said.

“Hold still,” Ellis said. She cleaned and bandaged the cut and had Raven sit with her foot elevated on a couch pillow.

Ellis went to the kitchen, and Raven heard her thank Jasper for cleaning up the glass.

“I hope you don’t mind that I threw the flowers away,” Jasper said. “They were too mixed in with the glass to sort out.”

“That’s okay,” Ellis said.

It wasn’t okay. Raven rarely talked to Ellis, but she’d become familiar with her moods, and she could tell Ellis was badly stressed by the arrival of her sons. Raven wasn’t happy about it either. She and Ellis had established a fragile balance. They both knew Raven would leave soon and there was no reason to try being friends. The absence of trouble and emotion between them was necessary for Raven as she grappled with everything Mama had done. All Raven wanted from Ellis was to be on her land until she could go home. Her closest companions were the grandparent oaks opening their giant limbs down to her, meadows that let her sleep on their flowered skirts, sandhill cranes bugling sweet music to her throughout the day.