Dad caught Bea’s eye, and she gave a slight nod. She knew what her job was, yet she also knew she had to do it in such a way that Grandma wouldn’t be suspicious.

“How about Grandma and I go for a walk and you guys stay here?” A walk would kill time until Amber arrived for Grandma’s haircut. “You guys could never keep up with us anyway, right, Grandma?”

Grandma snorted. “Of course not.”

Grandpa sank back into his chair and waved his hand. “Sure, all right. We wouldn’t want to slow you down.”

Grandma had already pulled on her walking shoes and a light jacket. She put her hands on her hips and jerked her chin at Bea. “Don’t just stand there. Let’s go.”

Bea chuckled and followed her grandma to the door and out into the sunshine. Grandma was right. It was a beautiful day.

They started down the gravel drive in silence. Some days the mountains were sharp and jagged as if carved from stone, but today they were soft. They looked as if they’d been shaped from blue-and-green sand and could collapse at any moment under the weight of the sky.

Bea took a deep breath of fresh air, enjoying how it felt to move and stretch her changing body. To work the ligaments in her hips that seemed to be loosening more each day as her body prepared itself for what was to come. She looked south and southwest at the Spanish Peaks and the Tobacco Root Mountains. They were both far grander in scale than the Bridgers, but their distance tamed them. The mountain in her backyard always appeared to be the most fearsome mountain of all.

Grandma June stopped, and Bea pulled up beside her.

“Look.” Grandma pointed.

Bea followed her finger to a small harem of elk in a field about a hundred yards beyond the jackleg fence. There was one strikingly handsome bull and about half a dozen cows with their yearlings. They’d almost walked right by without noticing.

“Wonder what they’re doing down here?”

Grandma studied them carefully. “Enjoying the day, I would say.”

After watching them for a few minutes, she started walking again, and Bea followed suit. It felt so normal. So easy. Hope surged in her heart. Maybe Grandma was going to be okay. Maybe her condition wasn’t as big a deal as everyone thought.

Bea glanced at the mountain and remembered the snowstorm. The helplessness. The fear. The woman she’d tried to help that day was not the same woman who walked beside her now. What if that other Grandma reappeared and this Grandma never came back?

Bea thought about what she and Jeremy had learned from Great-Aunt Gladys. The son out there somewhere who’d never met his biological mother. If they didn’t find him soon, he might never get the chance. This Grandma—his mother—could be gone.