He took a step closer, his eyes full of appeal. “You’re struggling. There’ve been so many changes in your life that I want to keep anything that can hurt you as far away as I can. You can tell me anything, Cammie, and I’ll help. No matter what it is. Or who.”

At that moment, she became aware of a bird cawing overhead and the whisper of wind through the pines and the way her father’s feet had planted in the snow like pylons. For some reason she registered these things-the mountain sounds and Patrick’s stolid legs, the blinding whiteness of the snow, the coldness of the air in her lungs, mingled with the pungent smell of truck exhaust. It was then that she understood: this was not a conversation about something, this was about someone. Her father had been talking about Hannah, the mother Cameryn had never known, the woman who had unexpectedly been resurrected in their lives only weeks before.

“You’re worried about Hannah,” she answered. “That’s what this is all about.”

Patrick’s silence told her all she needed to know.

“Dad, she’s- I just want to spend time with her. You said you’d let me figure things out on my own, and that’s what I’m doing. She’s my mom.”

“Genetically. A womb doesn’t make a mother. And since we’re opening this box, how long is Hannah going to stay in Silverton? Doesn’t she have a life in New York? She was supposed to come and go, but she’s still here.”

“I-I don’t know.” It was the truth. Her mother had returned, but she was elusive, as vague about her plans as she was her thoughts. “Hannah told me she’s just taking it a day at a time. She doesn’t tell me a lot. She… paints.”

“She paints.” Patrick scoffed. “Hannah doesn’t talk, she paints. Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds?”

“Don’t say that!”

The words echoed against the granite mountainside. That, that, that, rang through the air and her father stared, as though if he tried hard enough, he might somehow burn Hannah from his daughter’s mind. When she could no longer return his gaze, she watched the victim’s math book as it lay there on the road, splattered with blood, its pages turning gently in the winter wind.