Page 11 of Wolf It Down, Knot Me Up

I giggle, missing our conversations. “Six hours later and Grandma had rangers searching for us.”

“Worth it. Mostly. I did get the lecture of my life after you went to bed.”

I’m chuckling more now that I’ve heard that.

“Miss having you home.” He reaches over and squeezes my shoulder once before returning his hand to the wheel. He’s a Beta in his late twenties now, scruffier than I remember, sandy hair a mess. He’s got darker stubble now, wearing a fitted polo shirt and jeans, casual as ever.

Around us, red pines crowd both shoulders, trunks as thick as barrels, rising until the sky is a thin stitched seam above the windshield, and the light down here comes through green and dim, like driving along the bottom of a lake. I twist around in my seat to glance out the back window, and the trees seem to fold in across the road behind us. Two years in Miami, and I forgot that these woods don’t line a road—they allow one to exist.

“Almost there,” Ethan says. “Prepare yourself.”

The road spills out of the tunnel into open ground, and my words vanish.

That is not my house. It can’t be.

The lodge I grew up in was big, two stories of timber, a wraparound porch, a roof Grandma and I threw pine cones onto for luck. It creaked when you walked on the steps.

But this is something else. The new lodge rises out of the clearing in tiers of dark timber and river stone, whole wings spreading from the heart of the old cabin as if the place grew them over the winter. And there’s so much glass, climbing two stories to catch the light. A stone chimney as thick as a silo sits on one end. Stone paths curve up through beds of ferns toward the entrance. The pines stand over the entire place, crowding close.

“Ethan.” My voice comes out small. “What did she do?”

“Right?” He slows the SUV to a crawl so I can gawk. “It’s basically finished now. She’s been at it for two solid years. There were crews up here every season.” He points at the tracks disappearing into the trees. “Those go out to the guest cabins. All eight got the same treatment. New roofs, decks, wood stoves. Full outdoor experience, but comfortable enough that city people wouldn’t care how much they paid to stay here.”

“She never told me she had been doing all of this until yesterday.” I can’t stop staring. “We talk all the time, and she kept this whole thing secret. And what did it cost her?”

He laughs under his breath. “She wanted to tell you so badly; you have no idea. I’d be elbow-deep in bread dough, and she’d come find me, asking me if you’d like window seats. ‘Ethan, which green would Lucy pick?’ ” His impression of her is criminally accurate, chin lifted, vowels crisp. “But she swore everyone to silence. Said she’d been saving her whole life. Said she was building a place that would be yours one day, and she wanted you to fall in love with it all at once, the first moment you saw it.” He pulls up under the covered entrance, cuts the engine, and looks over at me. “So. Did it work?”

I have to turn my face to the window, because my eyes are stinging and I’ve cried in front of Ethan enough times for one lifetime.

“It worked,” I manage. “I just wish she were standing on those steps to see my face when we came out of the trees. She’s been planning that exact moment for two years, and she’s missing it because of her ankle.” I swipe my sleeve across my eyes. “It’s the most beautiful thing anyone’s ever built, and I want to hug her so hard.”

“She’ll be home soon, hopefully. Then you can reenact it.”

The quiet outside the car is enormous when I climb out, backpack over one shoulder. Wind is moving through the pines as I glance up at the wall of glass where my old bedroom window used to be.

The front doors are new—heavy, honey-colored timber with iron fittings—and Ethan pushes them open into an entry foyer that smells of cedar and flowers. There are iron hooks in rows for snow jackets, benches with boot trays, and even a basket of spare scarves that is so deeply my grandmother I have to press my lips together.

“She knitted every one of those,” Ethan says, smirking. “I have three.”

Then he pushes through the inner doors. I stop on the threshold, and my chest squeezes tightly.

Log beams overhead cross two stories high in the great room, a landing running around the upper floor behind timber railings, so the whole heart of the house stands open top to bottom. The far wall is river stone around a fireplace, its mouth dark and waiting. Leather couches the color of chestnuts circle the fireplace, and the rugs are reds and rusts. Crammed bookshelves built right into the walls cover one side, with antler chandeliers overhead.

And there, in the middle of all that new grandness, holding up a corner of the gallery, is a doorframe I recognize. Plain, scarred timber, out of place among the fresh beams, with a ladder of little pencil lines climbing one side and dates in Grandma’s handwriting beside each one.

My height marks, ages four to eighteen.

“She made the builders keep it,” Ethan says, studying me.

I put my fingers on the line marked nine years old, and I can’t say anything at all for a moment. The house is new, but the bones underneath are still ours.

“Okay.” My voice wobbles, so I clear my throat. “Show me the rest before I start crying with memories.”

“This way. Best part’s mine anyway.” He leads me through the open end of the great room, past a long dining space with warm, mismatched tables, into a second lounge, and the whole far side of it is a cooking station that stops me mid-step.

The counter is one continuous curve of timber, sweeping around a stone hearth where a serious-looking range sits under an arched hood of carved wood. Copper pots hang in a row above it, and stools line the outer curve so guests can chat or eat.

Ethan slaps the counter with both palms, proud as a new father. “Pizzas can be made here. Pancakes, omelets to order, and after five, it turns into a cocktail bar. Guests sit right there and talk my ear off while I cook special orders, which is my ideal working condition.”