"Ranch crew. June. Pearl if she wants to come. Wyatt maybe." I pause. "Small. Just the people who were here for all of it."
She nods. Writes names. "I'll talk to Remy," she says. "He'll handle the setup without making it look like a setup." She taps the pencil on the notepad. "Silas will keep Laney occupied until it's time."
"How will Silas keep Laney occupied?"
She looks at me like this is not a difficult question. "He'll find something that needs doing on the ranch. Laney always does things that need doing." She says it with the affectionate certainty of someone who has been observing Laney Jenkins for four months and has her thoroughly mapped.
She's not wrong.
"What about you?" I say. "What's your job?"
She looks at the notepad. Looks at the oak tree. Looks at me with those serious eyes that have been seeing straight through people since before she had the vocabulary for it.
"I will set it up. I'll get some flowers and some candles and make it look pretty. And most importantly I'm going to get her there,"she says simply. "That's my job. I'll tell her I want to show her something at the creek." She pauses. "She'll come. She always comes when I ask."
Something moves through my chest at that.
The complete simple truth of it.
Laney always comes when Maisie asks.
She has been coming since the first morning Maisie followed her around the ranch in turquoise boots and quietly decided she was permanent.
She came to the cabin with French toast, to the round pen, to the living room with a hammer and a picture frame. She has been coming every time Maisie needed her since approximately day three without being asked twice.
That's not a coincidence.
That's love.
The kind that built itself quietly in the background while everyone else was watching the other kind.
Maisie closes the notepad.
She looks at the oak tree one more time, then back at me.
"Saturday evening," she says. "Six o'clock. The light will be perfect."
I look at my daughter standing in the south pasture with a notepad, a pencil behind her ear, and the absolute calm confidence of someone who has known how this was going to end since before either of us did.
"Saturday," I say.
She nods.
Puts the pencil back behind her ear.
Starts back toward the ranch house.
"Maisie," I say.
She stops. Turns.
"Thank you," I say. "For all of it. Since day one."
She looks at me for a moment.
The full smile comes out.
"I knew you'd figure it out eventually," she says.
