My husband laughed beside his mistress at my funeral, never knowing the woman he’d pushed off a cliff was still alive.

Mom had always said spring planting required optimism and a good shovel. Lily brought the shovel. I brought Wren, who sat on a blanket beside Mara and tried to put a leaf in her mouth.

The ownership fight had taken months after the criminal case. Caroline helped me clear the forged sale from the property records, and the resort company eventually agreed to pursue a route that did not cross my land. I had gone to meeting after meeting, answered questions, signed forms, and learned more about boundaries than I ever wanted to know.

At the end of it, Willow Bend was still mine.

Some days I wanted to live in Mom’s farmhouse. Other days the rooms felt full of everything I had nearly lost. I let myself take time. Lily and I repaired the porch first, then the kitchen window. We left the crooked shutter until summer because Mom had left it crooked for years.

When Wren took her first steps, she did it on the farmhouse floor. She walked from Lily to me, arms raised, while Mara cheered so loudly that Wren sat down in surprise.

We celebrated with apple cake.

Lily baked it from Mom’s recipe and burned the edges.

“I did it correctly,” she said.

I laughed until I couldn’t speak.

There were difficult days, even then. A news story about Owen could send me back to the mountain. I sometimes woke at night and checked Wren’s breathing before I could sleep again. When that happened, I talked to Lily or my counselor. I learned that a good life could have room for healing still in progress.

I returned to teaching art at the community center for two mornings each week. My first class back was full of children who wanted to paint birds. I had not suggested the subject. Lily had told everyone about Wren’s stuffed one, and the children decided I needed a whole flock.

We hung their paintings along the classroom wall.

One afternoon, Elaine came to Willow Bend. She had faced the consequences of her part in the forgery and had written several letters I hadn’t answered. I met her on the porch while Lily stayed inside with Wren.

Elaine looked at the new tree.

“Your mother would have liked that,” she said.

“Yes.”

“I know I can’t ask you to forgive me.”

I leaned against the porch rail. “You can’t.”

She nodded. Her eyes filled, but she didn’t look away.

“I wish I had protected you when I had the chance,” she said.

“So do I.”

After she left, I felt sad for the woman Mom had trusted. I also felt glad I had told her the truth. I went inside, where Wren was banging a wooden spoon against a pot and laughing at the noise.

That summer, Mara asked whether her rescue team could use the lower trail at Willow Bend for a training day. The property connected to a path that ran toward Blackpine, though the gorge was miles away.

I said yes and made sandwiches for everyone.

When the team finished, Mara introduced me to a young volunteer who had joined after hearing how I was found. He was nervous and asked whether I minded talking about it.

“I don’t always want to,” I said. “Today is all right.”

He asked what I remembered most about the rescue.

“The flashlight,” I told him. “Someone had to stop long enough to hear me, and then I saw the light.”

Mara looked down at her boots.

“You did more than that,” I told her.

She shrugged. “You kept tapping.”

“We both kept going.”

In September, Wren turned one. Lily filled the farmhouse with paper birds. Mara brought her son, who showed Wren how to knock over a tower of blocks. Simone came from the hospital with a card signed by several of Wren’s nurses.

Wren tried to eat a corner of it before I could put it away.

After the guests left, Lily and I sat on the porch while Wren slept inside. The orchard was dark, and the house smelled of cake.

“Do you remember when Mom asked what we wanted to be when we grew up?” Lily said.

“You said a veterinarian.”

“I said that every year. You said you wanted a house where people could come when they needed one.”

I had forgotten.

Lily looked through the open door at the crowded kitchen table. “You got it.”

I thought about the people who had carried us through the year: Mara on the mountain, Ada asking careful questions, Simone teaching me how to hold a child small enough to fit along my forearm, Caroline defending my choice to keep this land. Lily, answering the phone when I finally called.

I had spent so long fearing what Owen could take that I had nearly missed how many people had stayed.

The next morning, I took Wren to the edge of the orchard. From there we could see the new apple tree. Its trunk was thin, and its leaves stirred in the breeze.

“Your grandmother loved this place,” I told her.

Wren reached for my hand. She was too young to understand the rest, but I told her anyway.

“She left it to me so I could choose what came next. And I choose us.”

We walked back toward the farmhouse slowly, stopping whenever Wren wanted to inspect a stone or a fallen leaf. Lily waved from the porch. Breakfast was ready.