“You were fourteen. I remember because that was the year your dad was hurt.”

“You mean mauled within an inch of his life.”

Effie sucked in a breath. “I came to the hospital, you know. I heard about the accident and flew up to Anchorage. I saw you outside the door, and I . . .” She sighed again. “I guess I was ashamed.”

And that, Echo didn’t expect. “What?”

“I knew I could never make up for leaving you. You needed me, and I wasn’t there. And—”

“So you decided to never return? That makes no sense.”

“You were so brave standing there outside the ICU. You had the backpack and that grizzly bear I sent you—”

“My dad gave me that bear.”

“Right. Maybe he thought it would be easier if you thought I wasn’t coming back.”

Her mouth tightened. “So I could get used to being alone?”

“Oh, please. You weren’t alone. You had Charlie. He was a great father. And I knew it.” She walked over to the window, stared out at the landscape, the mountains a deep amber. “I knew it would be best for you to stay. Charlie raised you on the homestead. He taught you how to survive. How to thrive. I couldn’t do that.”

“So you gave up.”

She rounded. “I made a choice to let you go. But I did pay for his medical bills. And I sent money to Charlie, to help. He mentioned a camera for your eighteenth birthday?”

Her mother had paid for her first SLR? Echo opened her mouth, closed it. Then, “He never said anything.”

“I suppose not. I got another fellowship, in Seattle, and almost didn’t come back, but then he wrote and said you were going to go to the University of Alaska, and I thought maybe we could be in Anchorage together.”

“He wrote to you.”

“We stay in touch.” Her mouth tightened. “I still love him, Echo. I just can’t . . . I can’t live there. Every moment I’m there, I feel like the world is closing in. Getting darker.” She shook her head. “I believe now that I was clinically depressed in the winter. Some people call it SAD—seasonal affective disorder. I was better in the summer, but every year, the sadness got a little worse. I thought that someday it would simply consume me, and I’d be lost to myself.”

Echo just stared at her, trying to piece together the words.

“I’m not like you, Echo. I don’t revel in that world. That life is . . . it’s too big. Too . . . wild. Too alone.” She worked up a smile, something fragile. “But you love the homestead, you always have. You love to mush and to work your garden and can and guide, and your photography is amazing.”

She walked over to her desk and picked up a picture, then handed it to her.