“What’s all this about, Sylvie?” Dad quietly asks. “Why’d you really come home?”

To buy time–gain sympathy–manipulate Thomas–save my career–survive. But there’s another painful reason. I was afraid to come home before this. Afraid to see if my parents still loved me. It’s one thing to call on holidays and have a short conversation; it’s another to be rejected face-to-face. Maybe Thomas gave me the excuse I needed to see if the relationship with my parents was salvageable. It was easier not knowing the truth. “I don’t know.”

“Your agent called. Lucas something. I didn’t tell Mom.”

I stare into the fields, try to see what Dad sees. It was always beautiful, a living quilt of roots, bark, branches, blossoms, and pears, but never seemed mine, like one day my parents would realize a stranger had sat at their dining table for years, ate their food, slept in their bed, and I’d be sent away. “What’d Lucas say?”

“That you might come our way; that there was a decent chance you wouldn’t have access to your phone; I should tell you, when the journalist wasn’t around, to call him. Sounded like you were in some kind of trouble.”

Dad withdraws his phone from a flannel pocket, holds it out to me. The rectangle is warm from his body heat, heavy in my palm. This is my chance. Lucas will have scraped together every piece of dirt in Thomas’s life. I can use it to help take back control, stop him. A phantom’s kiss skims the tip of my nose. I hear the whisper, same as before my last show. For the first time I can tell it’s a woman’s voice . . .

“Are you going to call him?” Dad asks.

I hand the phone back. What’s wrong with me? “Maybe later.” I take in my dad. There’s less than a foot between us but it stretches for miles. Unlike Mom, he’s visibly aged. His hair has grayed, thinned, and once smooth, tanned skin is now a network of lines and creases. Gravity has drawn the corners of his mouth into the start of a permanent frown. Or did I do that to him? He reaches out, tucks a loose lock of hair behind my ear. The red barn door materializes in my mind. There’s a hard knock from the other side. The energy is male, older. I taste metal. Or am I just imagining that one of Dad’s ancestors has come so I can prove to him that leaving was the right thing to do? Dad’s fingers linger on my cheek for a moment then return to his lap. The spirit retreats, the door fades.

“I’m sorry . . . for coming home, upsetting you both.”

Dad leans back, pushes off with his feet, and the swing slowly arcs. “When your mom and I married, I made a vow to put her needs first, even above my own; to be her best friend, husband, and defender; forsake all others for her,” he says. “I loved you, Syl, still do. But your decision torched our hearts. Mine still has space for you in the remains, but your mother’s . . . it was burned to ashes.”