It wasn’t fun for Leni. It was something different. Vital. A way to release the pressure that built up all week as she walked among the hordes at the sprawling University of Washington campus, as she sold books to patrons at her part-time job at the giant Shorey’s Bookstore on First Avenue and took photography classes at night.

Leni came out here to re-find herself in nature, to recover whatever small piece of her Alaskan soul she could find, to connect her son to the father he didn’t know and the life that was his by birthright but not in fact. Alaska, the last frontier, the land that would always and forever be home to Leni. The place where she belonged.

“You can hear him laughing,” her mother said.

Cora nodded. It was true; even with the percussive drumbeat of the increasing rain, drops landing on nylon tents and plastic hoods and plate-sized leaves, she could hear her grandson’s laughter.

MJ was the happiest of kids—a boy who made friends easily and followed the rules and still held your hand when you walked down the sidewalk toward school. He cared about the usual things for a boy his age—action figures and cartoons and Popsicles in the summer. He was still young enough that he didn’t ask a lot of questions about his father, but that would come. They all knew it. Cora knew, too, that when MJ looked at his mother’s smile, he saw none of the shadows crouched behind it.

“Do you think she will forgive me someday?” she asked, staring out at Leni.

“Oh, for the love of Pete. For what? Saving her life? That girl loves you, Coraline.”

Cora took a long drag on her cigarette, exhaled. “I know she loves me. I have never doubted for a second that she loves me. But I let her grow up in a war zone. I let her see what no child should ever see. I let her know fear of a man who was supposed to love her, and then I killed him in front of her. And I ran and made her live life under an alias. Maybe if I’d been stronger, braver, I could have changed the law like Yvonne Wanrow.”

“It took years for that woman’s case to get to the Supreme Court. And you were in Alaska, not Washington. Who knew the law would finally recognize a battered woman defense? And your dad still says it rarely works. You have to let all of that go. She has. Look at her, down there with her son, teaching him how to fish. Your daughter is fine, Cora. Fine. She’s forgiven you. You need to forgive yourself.”

“She needs to go home.”