“She’s your sister, darling.”

“Yeah, I know. But she never told me she was coming or anything.”

“Family doesn’t need to ask, Truman. Family is always welcome. She was very irritated that she made the trip all the way there only to find that person in your home.”

“Yeah, see, if she had texted, then she wouldn’t have suffered the irritation of finding I wasn’t at home.”

Truman would have been willing to bet everything he owned that Miriam had been in town for reasons entirely unrelated to familial closeness and had wanted to crash with him for the night before heading out to wherever her next stop was.

“Listen, Mom, everything’s fine. I just wanted to get away for a while. Take a vacation. That’s all.”

Vacation was a word he knew his mother could understand. She was forever planning her next weekend getaway, even though she rarely got farther away than Texas for a spa weekend with her girlfriends.

“Hmph,” his mother said, powerless in the face of the word vacation. “Well, I hope you get your fill of the freezing north. You can show me pictures at Christmas. Speaking of which, I need to discuss your father’s gift with you. I’ve had my eye on…”

Truman let his mother’s voice wash over him. It was nice to hear a familiar accent after being on Owl Island, but he found himself irritated with her faster than he usually was. Every year, she discussed elaborate plans to shower Truman’s father with a Christmas gift of his dreams, and every year, Truman’s father said in no uncertain terms that what he wanted for Christmas was a new golf club and a weekend at the races.

Truman simply mm-hmmed in the right places and watched Ash looking something up on his phone. Truman hoped it was flower-arranging event related.

“Truman!”

“Uh-huh, yeah?”

“Don’t you think that’s simply perfect?”

“Yes, Mom, perfect. Listen, I’ve gotta run because I have a work call in a few minutes, okay?”

As his mother sighed, the door to Thorn opened.

“Goodbye, dear. Do try not to freeze to death.”

“Yeah, I’ll try. Love you, bye.”

Speaking of mothers, the woman who’d just entered Thorn was Ash’s.

“Hi, Julia,” Truman said.

“Mom, hey. You okay? What’s up?” Ash asked, checking the time and crossing to her.

Julia squeezed Ash’s shoulders and smiled easily. “Nothing’s up. I’m just popping in to say hello and buy some flowers.”

Ash gave her a look. “Mom, you can have whatever you want, but I’m not taking your money.”

“That,” she said with a pat to his cheek, “is a singularly terrible way to do business.” She turned from Ash to Truman. “Talk some sense into my son, would you? His generosity is borderline self-destructive.”

Truman snorted at this perfect distillation. “Damn, she’s got you pegged,” Truman said.