“We’ll figure it out.” She pats my arm. “But we might as well get back to your place. It’s getting dark, and I’m guessing it’ll be awhile before any truck makes their way out here.”

“I guess I can’t avoid him anymore, can I?”

Agnes offers a sympathetic smile. “He can be a pain in the butt, but it’s only because he cares about you so much.”

With a resigned sigh, I reach into my pocket for my phone.

“Hello, Simon?” My mom’s voice carries. “I need you to come get us. We’re down the road. Calla put her Jeep in the ditch …”

“Ugh. Great.” Jonah’s going to be pissed that he didn’t hear about this from me. This keeps getting worse!

Agnes nods toward something in the distance. “Someone’s coming.”

I follow her line of sight to the set of headlights. It can’t be Kelly, who will be riding a snowmachine. Jonah and Simon are at home with our only other vehicles.

There’s only one person who lives beyond us on this road, and he doesn’t get any visitors.

We edge to the side as the big black truck crawls forward, coming to a stop beside us.

“Do you know him?” my mom asks.

“That’s Roy.”

“The Roy?” My mom gives me a look.

“Whatever he says, don’t take it personally,” I warn her, though I told him long ago that I might put up with his bullshit, but if he tried it on my loved ones, he’d be dead to me.

“That is a winch,” Agnes says over the rumbling engine, nodding at the front grill where something that looks like a spool of wire is mounted.

“And that’s a grinch,” I counter quietly, earning Mabel’s giggle.

The driver’s side opens with a creak and Roy hops out, tugging that Davy Crockett raccoon-fur hat Jonah loathes so much onto his head. He rounds the front of his truck. His weathered face looks none too pleased as he inspects my predicament.

I decide on humor to kick things off. “My first foray into off-roading didn’t go as planned.”

The corner of his mouth kicks up a notch. “I see that.”

Agnes offers him that wide smile. “Hello again, Roy. I don’t know if you remember us. I’m Agnes. That’s my daughter, Mabel. We met in August.”

He makes a grunting sound that could be considered an acknowledgment, but then adds, “The night Calla shot that bear.”

Agnes nods. “That was quite the night.”

I gesture toward my mother. “Roy, this is my mom, Susan.”

“Roy.” She forgoes offering a handshake—her arms wrapped tightly around her body for warmth—and dips her head in greeting. “Calla has told me so much about you. She took me to see the cabin. Your work is impeccable.”

He studies her a moment before nodding once, and then he turns back to my Jeep. “Everyone all right?”

“Yeah, we’re fine. Just a little shaken up. Could have been worse, though, right?”

“You goin’ too fast, like usual?”

“See? I told you! I told her,” my mom exclaims triumphantly.

“And then she hit the brakes. You never hit the brakes like that when you’re sliding,” Mabel adds matter-of-factly.

Roy frowns at her. “How old are you again?”

Mabel adjusts her stance as if she’s trying to make herself appear taller. “Thirteen and a half.” Though she could pass for sixteen, with her sleek chin-length bob and angular jawline.

“Sounds like you’re already a better driver than Calla.”

Oh my God. “Okay, are we done here?” I snap.

Roy smirks. “Jonah on his way?”

“Yeah, that’s a safe bet.” And I’m sure he’ll be here momentarily.

Roy eyes my Jeep, then his truck, then the winch, and then finally his gaze lands on my mother, who chose to wear her lighter shopping jacket instead of her parka and is shuddering uncontrollably. “You should go on and sit in my truck where it’s warm.”

She rushes for the passenger side, uttering a breezy thank-you.

“You, too, if you want,” he adds to Mabel.

“Nah, I’m good. My friend’s on her way here to get me. I think that’s her.” She points to a small approaching light in the distance.

Roy slips on his gloves and, stooping in front of his truck, unfastens a heavy-duty orange hook. “What were you guys doin’ out in this, anyway?” If I didn’t know better, there’s a touch of scolding in his tone.

“Shopping.”

“Actually, we were out looking for a wedding dress for Calla. Did you hear the good news yet?” As usual, Agnes speaks to him as if he cares. “They’re getting married on New Year’s Eve!”

He merely grunts in response.

Kelly coasts in then on her dad’s yellow-and-black snowmachine.

“Excuse me.” Agnes leaves us to walk over and talk to Mabel before she takes off.

I perk my ears to try to catch the conversation over the idling engine. I’m sure I hear Agnes say five o’clock. I’m also sure that Mabel will come back later than that. More and more, she seems to be testing her mother’s patience, which is endless with Agnes—a flaw in this regard. Jonah and I have already discussed the need to step in and keep Mabel in line when they move here next summer. How Mabel will respond to that, I can’t guess.

“You find one?” Roy’s grating voice cuts into my thoughts.

“Huh?”

“A dress.”

“Oh. Yeah. But I have to get it basically cut in half to fit me. Hopefully it still looks like a dress after it’s dissected.”

“I’m sure it’ll look fine.” He yanks on the cord to unfurl the wire.

And I quietly watch him.

Does he ever wonder what Delyla looked like on her wedding day? Does he regret not being there to walk her down the aisle? Does it burn deep, knowing that his replacement, this man who Nicole spent thirty happy years with, likely did?

How often does Roy think about his daughter, especially now that she’s no longer just a distant memory, a cherub-cheeked toddler in a thirty-odd-year-old department store portrait?

Now that he knows she has thought about him, at least enough to sit down and write that letter?

These are all questions I wish I could ask. If Roy were anyone else, I would.

“So, I guess you decided to pull a weddin’ out of your ass, then?”

“I did. We’re having a reception at the Ale House for family and close friends. Muriel promised to take all the dead animals and tacky signs down and my mom is a florist, so she can make pretty much anything look nice.”

With mention of my mom, Roy steals a glance into his truck’s cab, where she sits huddled. “You look like her.”

I smile. “Yeah, I’ve heard that once or twice.”

His jaw works as if he’s going to say something else, but he must decide against it, choosing silence instead.

“So, you’re going to come, right?”

“To what? Your wedding? Why on earth would you want me there?”

I was expecting some lame excuse, but his response catches me off guard. Or rather, it’s the genuine shock in his voice that surprises me. “Because I do?” I can’t come up with a better response at the moment. His name is on our guest list, below our family, but ahead of Marie, and George and Bobbie. He’s in that in-between category, along with Agnes, Mabel, and the McGivneys—people who may not be in the blood-related “family” bucket but don’t fit into the “friends” bucket. They’re those important people who are woven into the fabric of our daily lives, and their absence would surely leave holes should they disappear.