Everett’s final paragraph told me not to preserve our life by standing still inside it. He reminded me how much I had always loved mornings at Lake Marren and wrote that if the city house ever became too full of memories, I should choose whatever place made me feel alive again. Two weeks later, I listed my house for sale and moved permanently into the lake cottage.
Before moving, I changed every lock at the lake property and canceled the keypad code Wesley’s family had been using. Their clothes, fishing equipment, and children’s toys were carefully boxed and delivered to their home. Then I mailed Wesley a simple change-of-address card. When he turned it over, he found my new permanent address: the lake house he and Marlowe had spent years calling “our place.”
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