I drove very cautiously up the lane. The car was badly overloaded, and I didn’t know what I would do if it slipped into one of the ditches, now almost overflowing with spring run-off. And then suddenly the cabin was in front of me, the sunset making its windows reflect gold as if it had lit itself up for me; and I was home.

I was startled for a moment when I realized that I had never doubted in these past few difficult days, that this would still be my home.

I pulled the car up in front, as close to the door as I could manage, and got out to unlock it. The cabin drew me inside, and I walked slowly through the rooms, feeling welcomed, and then I did cry, but it was for joy, not regret. There was no past here. The cabin held me.

I sat again, as I had just those few days before, a life ago, in front of the empty fireplace. It came to me that it was mine now, that I could light it, that I could do whatever I wanted, and so I went outside and found some kindling, and then I thought I needed paper so I unloaded the groceries and put them away and crumpled up some of the paper bags to put in the fireplace, the kindling on top of them. I would need larger wood as well. I went back outside and found some logs, piled haphazardly at the back of the cabin, a legacy, I supposed, from Mr. Chapman’s father, and carried them in.

While the fire got going, I dragged the mattress through the cabin and into the bedroom. The place was small, but still its emptiness echoed, and it was pleasant in the living room with the snapping of the fire bouncing off the walls, and its reflection too, so that the whole room was centred on the fireplace. I watched the flames for a long time, and maybe I fell asleep on the floor for a while, I don’t know, but when I realized again where I was, from being lost in the fire, it was dark outside and the only light was from the moon.

I walked outside and there were new sounds, a breeze moving through the branches of the willow, and the branches scratching softly on the roof of the cabin; there were frogs by the stream, I could hear them clearly, very loud, and mingled with them the sounds of crickets. It was not silent, and yet it was peaceful. There had been nothing like it before.