“My father owns this place. The house, the land. All of it.”

Robin leaned back, put her hands on the table’s edge. “I don’t think so, Adam.” She tilted her head, still confused. “Dolf owns two hundred acres, including the house we’re sitting in.”

I opened my mouth, but no words came. Robin spoke slowly, as if I were not quite right in the head. “That’s six million dollars, based on the latest offer. One hell of a motive to squeeze your father into selling.”

“That can’t be right.”

“Check it out,” she said.

I thought about it, shook my head. “First of all, there’s no way Dolf owns a piece of this farm. My father would never do that. Secondly”-I had to look away-“secondly, he’s dying. He wouldn’t care about money.”

Robin understood what that statement cost me, but she refused to back away. “Maybe he’s doing it for Grace.” She put her hand on mine. “Maybe he’d rather die on a beach some place far from here.”

I told Robin I needed to be alone. She put soft lips on my face and told me to call her later. What she had said made no sense. My father loved this land as he loved his own life. Guarding it was his special trust; keeping it for the family, the next generation. Over the past fifteen years, he’d given partial ownership to his children, but that was for estate planning purposes. And those interests were merely shares in a family partnership. He kept control; and I knew that he would never part with an acre, not even for Dolf.

At eight o’clock, I went to the house to ask my father if it were true, but his truck was gone. He was still out, I thought, still after the dogs. I looked for Jamie’s truck, but it was gone, too. I opened the door to a cathedral silence, and followed the hall to my father’s study. I wanted something to put context around what Robin had said. A deed, a title policy, anything. I pulled on the top drawer of the file cabinet, but it was locked. All of the drawers were locked.

I paused, considering, and was distracted by a flash of color through the window. I walked to the glass and saw Miriam in the garden. She wore a solid black dress with long sleeves and a high collar, and was clipping flowers with her mother’s shears. She knelt in the wet grass, and I saw that her dress was damp from having done so many times. The shears closed around a stem, and a rose the color of sunrise fell to the grass. She picked it up, added it to the bouquet; and when she stood I saw a small but satisfied smile.

She’d piled her hair upon her head; it floated above a dress that might have come from another age. Her movements were so fluid that in the silence, through the glass, I felt as if I were watching a ghost.

She crossed to a different bush, knelt again, and clipped a rose as pale and translucent as falling snow.

As I turned from the window, I heard a noise from upstairs, a sound like something being dropped. It would be Janice. Had to be.

For no reason that I could articulate, I still wanted to speak with her. I guess we had unfinished business. I climbed the stairs, and my feet were quiet on the thick runner. The upstairs hall was bathed in cold light through tall windows. I saw the farm below, the brown drive that cut through it. Oil paintings hung on the walls; a wine-dark carpet ran away from me; and the door to Miriam’s room stood ajar. I stood at the crack and saw Janice within. Drawers were pulled open and she stood with hands on her hips, studying the room. When she moved, it was for the bed. She lifted the mattress and apparently found what she was looking for. A small sound escaped her lips as she held the mattress with one hand and scooped something out from underneath. She dropped the mattress and studied what lay in her palm; it glittered like a shard of mirror.

I spoke as I stepped through the door. “Hello, Janice.”

She spun to face me, and her hand closed in a spasm; she whipped it behind her back, even as she bit down in obvious pain.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Nothing.” A guilty lie.

“What’s in your hand?”

“That’s none of your business, Adam.” Her features calcified as she drew herself up. “I think you should leave.”

I looked from her face to the floor. Blood was dripping on the hardwood behind her feet. “You’re bleeding,” I said.

Something in her seemed to collapse. She slumped and brought her hand from behind her back. It was still clenched shut, white at the knuckles in spite of the pain; and blood had, indeed, channeled through her fingers.

“How badly are you hurt?” I asked.

“Why do you care?”

“How badly?”

Her head moved fractionally. “I don’t know.”

“Let me see.”

Her eyes settled on my face, and there was strength in them. “Don’t tell her that you know,” she said, and opened her hand. On the palm of it lay a double-edged razor blade. Her blood put a sheen on it. It had cut her deeply, and blood welled from perfectly matched wounds on each side of the blade. I lifted the blade and placed it on the bedside table. I took her hand, cupped mine beneath to catch the blood.

“I’m going to take you to the bathroom,” I said. “We’ll wash this off and take a look.”

I ran cold water on the cuts, then wrapped her hand in a clean towel. She stood rigidly throughout the entire process, eyes closed. “Squeeze tight,” I said. She did, and her face paled further. “You may need stitches.”

When her eyes opened, I saw how close she was to breaking. “Don’t tell your father. He can’t possibly understand, and she doesn’t need that burden, too. He’ll only make it worse.”

“Can’t understand what? That his daughter is suicidal?”

“She’s not suicidal. That’s not what this is about.”

“What, then?”

She shook her head. “It’s not your place to hear about it, no more than it’s mine to tell. She’s getting help. That’s all you really need to know.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s true. Come on. Let’s get you downstairs. We’ll talk about it there.” She agreed reluctantly. As we passed the tall windows, I saw Miriam driving away. “Where is she going?” I asked.

She pulled up. “You don’t really care, do you?”

I studied her face: the set jaw, the new lines, and the loose skin. She would never trust me. “She’s still my sister,” I said.

She laughed, a bitter sound. “You want to know; fine, I’ll tell you. She’s taking flowers to Gray Wilson’s grave. She does it every month.” Another tight sound escaped her. “How’s that for irony?” I had no answer, so I kept my mouth shut as I helped Janice down the steps. “Take me to the parlor,” she said. I led her into the parlor, where she sat on the edge of the fainting couch. “Do me one last favor,” she said. “Go to the kitchen and bring ice and another towel.”

I was halfway to the kitchen when the parlor door slammed shut. I was still standing there when I heard the heavy lock engage.

I knocked twice, but she declined to answer.

I heard a high sound that may have been keening.

Miriam was where her mother had said she would be. She knelt, folded into herself, and from a distance it looked as if a giant crow had settled upon the grave. Wind moved between the weathered stones and shifted her dress; all that she lacked was the sheen of feathers, the mournful call. She moved as I watched. Deft fingers sought out weeds and plucked them from the earth; the bouquet was positioned just so. She looked up when she heard me, and tears moved on her skin.

“Hello, Miriam.”

“How did you find me?”

“Your mother.”

She pulled out another weed and tossed it to the wind. “She told you I was here?”

“Does that surprise you?”

She ducked her head, wiped off the tears, and her fingers left a trace of dark soil beneath one eye. “She doesn’t approve of me coming here. She says it’s morbid.”

I squatted on my heels. “Your mother is very much about the present, I think. The present and the future. Not the past.” She studied the heavy sky and seemed oppressed by it. The tears had ceased, but she still looked sunken and gray. Beside her, the bouquet was brilliant and stark and weeping fresh. It leaned against the stone that bore the dead boy’s name. “Does it bother you that I’m here?” I asked.