I grin, remembering that boring frosty day in the basement. She glances over at me and smiles. Her well-manicured, salon-tanned hand reaches out to mine. I let my hand slide into hers. I tell myself that I haven’t made a mistake by opening a door that had been shut more than a decade ago. I tell myself that right now, right here, on this bumpy old Ghost River Road, I have done something that is good. Yet the voice of caution sings around the outside of my heart, reminding me to be careful.

“Can we turn the radio back on?” I ask Sister. I’m tired of hearing my own thoughts. I’m tired of how she hasn’t changed after all this time. I want to stop remembering.

We arrive at camp. Sister resides in the only double-wide trailer on the property. There are trail horses here and campers, mostly drunks, who stay throughout every summer. They have tents pitched along the river and there are outhouses with showers in them. Sister is like the Queen of the Camp in her fancy trailer—it has running water, three bedrooms, a large kitchen and living room complete with satellite television. I always wonder how people can call this kind of comfort camping, but Sister is happy to have us all jump out of her Jeep and pile into her big trailer. It’s comfortable, and for now she’s not alone.

We stack groceries from the Jeep onto the shelves and Sister reads the kitchen clock out to us. “Wine Time!!” she shouts. It’s barely past one in the afternoon.

I have never been a drinker and I don’t understand Sister’s announcement. If there was one thing that she hated, it was Dad’s breath always stinking of booze. And now, decades later, here Sister is inviting us to drink with her, and she is as excited as a child going to a parade. I don’t know what to do except to agree. We are digging tall crystal wine glasses out of the cupboards. My sons are popping beer cans and we each grab a chair and head off to the riverbank. The roar of the water makes it hard for to me hear their voices, but this is a comfortable form of deafness.

Sister and I each fill up a wine glass with the red liquid. Raise our glasses high into the air and toast our being together. We laugh. We hug each other.

It is a beautiful scene. The foothills in front of the mountains around us. The river is dappled in greens and blues. Squirrels run up and down trees while we talk about world events and the people who stay in this camp summer after summer. We laugh about different things but never bring up the past.