Turning back to the room she said aloud, however, “Oh, who are you kidding?”

She made her way down to the garage for the last box, which contained the course books for the classes she would be taking at Yale this summer and fall, as well as the required readings for the prerequisite classes she’d taken years ago. She was frankly surprised that the admissions committee had agreed to accept her somewhat outdated previous work and had willingly agreed to three additional classes to bridge the time gap. That meant two classes during the accelerated summer “semester” and the remaining five during the fall semester. By the end of the year at least one of her life goals would be complete.

Not that she knew what she would do with an MBA. She wanted to finish what she’d begun, that was all. It was obvious she might be far happier spending her life immersed in her father’s botany and biology pursuits. Small wonder her mother had insisted that the natural sciences weren’t in the realm of possibilities. Lindsey Vanessa was a Price, not a Bartok, and the Prices went into business.

Perhaps by year’s end she’d know what she intended to do with her life, something that didn’t involve living through and for someone else. She wanted to get in touch with Marissa but was wary now that Marissa could be another kind of running away from the emptiness in her own life. Besides, it had been nearly three months and Marissa no doubt hated her and had moved on.

One idea that tickled was combining her hands-on cultural experiences and ecotouring with her MBA and looking for an environmental group she could work with. She would finish up the loose ends of the past and then look around at what the world might need that she could give.

She explored the cabin thoroughly, finding more traces of her father. Her parents’ estrangement had been decades in duration. She frowned at the painting of her father that hung in the study. Though she’d not hinted anything to Matt, she was mad at her father sometimes. Just because he hadn’t gotten along with his wife didn’t mean he had a right to abandon his daughter. His absentee parenting had left her vulnerable to her mother’s twisted plans and he, better than anyone maybe, should have known what her mother was capable of. It was sad that he, like so many others, had only seen her as beautiful. He never knew she inherited a love of nature from him. They never had a chance to do any of the things they might have loved exploring together, and that was his choice.

She took down the painting, angry and hurt, but not confused. She might as well acknowledge it, feel it. She’d put it behind her in due time. Meanwhile, the painting went into the closet. The bound volumes of his carefully preserved plant samples she would treasure.

Nightfall brought a beautiful vista of scattered sparkling lights down the mountain, then sprawling across the wide valley basin. Above her was a dazzling array of stars. She hadn’t seen a night sky quite like it since the Alps. A glass of hot cider in hand she picked out familiar constellations and counted falling stars. She was not the same woman who had gazed at night skies from all over the world.