His favorite picture, however, was the one she’d painted of him and his brothers standing in a field, an orange-and-white bush plane lifting into the sky, the ranchland giving way to mountains in the backdrop. The boys wore knitted caps, blue coats of various shades—she didn’t dress them alike, despite the trend to match triplets—and each seemed to embody their personalities in their actions.

Colt held a stick out to Boss, their cow dog, playing.

Ranger was crouched in the dirt, digging at a rock or maybe something he spotted alive under it.

And Dodge stood with his hand raised, waving to the departing plane.

He always sort of saw it as sad, a picture of goodbye. But maybe it held something he hadn’t seen before.

His mother had known them. Seen the men they’d become, maybe.

He’d like to think that, at least.

His father had looked up at his knock. “Dodge. I was worried. Ace Mulligan called and said that Moose had seen you in Anchorage.” He got up from his chair. “Did you find Echo?”

Dodge looked at him, not a hint of remorse on his dad’s face, and he didn’t know what to do with that. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Yes. She was out looking for Peyton. We didn’t find her, but we did find another woman. A Jane Doe. No identification on her. Not sure if she’ll make it.”

His father came around to stand in front of his desk. “Wow. Out in the woods?”

“Just lying in the snow, as if she’d dropped out of the sky. But Echo’s dog Goose was with her.”

“Huh.”

“I know.” Dodge walked over to a picture that sat on one of the bookcases and picked it up. A shot of their family in that last year before Mom got so ill. His parents leaned against a boulder, his father’s arm around his mother. Larke stood in front of her mother, clasped in an embrace. Colt stood in front of their father, and Ranger and Dodge stood on the rock behind them. Ranger’s arms were looped around his father’s neck.

Dodge’s were around his mother. He had tried so many times to tunnel back to that day, to find the memory, the smell of her skin, the feel of her touch.

Nothing but white. As if it had been erased.

He picked up the picture. “I never said goodbye.”

His father was quiet.

“That last day—Ranger and I were out with the cows. I’m not sure what we were doing—I think we were branding with Grandpa. Larke came running out of Grandma’s house, down to the field, and told us that Mom’s condition had worsened and you were taking her to Anchorage.”