It’s impossible to see the creek, named for Robbie’s ancestor, that forms the property line, let alone the house where Lance grew up, but Lance can feel it—out of sight, but summoning his attention, anyway. He can trace the route from here to there in his mind’s eye, imagining the scarred surface of its solid wood exterior door and the fear of what waited for him on its other side.

“It’ll look a little different to you,” Robbie murmurs as they pull into the yard. Lance snaps his head around like he’s just been startled from a dream. Maybe he has.

He sees what Robbie means right away. The yard is the same—holding the enormous, old stone barn, the tidy, white-painted board fences, a handful of small stone buildings, and the lean-to with a few familiar horses peering out.

But the house is gone. Where it stood, there’s nothing but snow-covered emptiness; all that remains is the old hedge of rose bushes planted by some Chase grandmother along the porch. He remembers sitting on the porch swing in summertime and inhaling their heady perfume. At the moment, they’re nothing but leafless frames draped in snow.

Bewildered, Lance looks at Robbie. “What happened?”

His face is pinched with grief. “Fire. Last fall.”

Horrified, Lance thinks of the tall, two-story silhouette that he always searched for when he approached the Chases’ home. The generous porch, the white pillars—and, seemingly at random, his mind pulls another, specific memory, of the curtains billowing in the kitchen window when Robbie left it open to let out the heat; he had his sleeves rolled up, standing at the oven and reminding them not to run in the house. A rule they never heeded and which he seemed unwilling to actually enforce.

Lance also remembers sneaking up the open staircase, hand trailing along the wood bannister that glowed from the polish of generations of use. Tip-toeing his way to Danny’s room.

He’s too stunned for tears. He sees an understanding warmth in Robbie’s eyes, and for a moment thinks Robbie’s hand might land on his shoulder again, where a phantom of his touch has lived, ready to be revived at any moment, sweet and warm under Lance’s skin.

Instead, Robbie turns away to look at the place where the house used to be. “We started converting the hayloft a couple of years ago, as an apartment for Johnny, and since he isn’t using it, I’ve been staying up there.” He hesitates, looking at Lance again, and this time there’s uncertainty in his voice as he says, “I guess I should have said something before I asked you to stay.”

It’s left unspoken, but Lance understands: Robbie didn’t mention the house because, in the end, the details of the offered accommodations weren’t material. Beggars can’t be choosers.

Lance nods, his heart pounding like it could break his ribs. When he was a kid, he’d thought his heart could just bust free and run away from him. The power of his own heartbeat had terrified him. Now, he knows from countless past experiences how much his body can take.