“Are you sure you want to go now?” I say. “I mean, it’s almost dark.” I gesture to the window, already in shadow.

I’m not ready for this.

She comes to stand in front of me and lays her hands on my arms. Her left brow is angled a few degrees higher than her right. But instead of making her appear asymmetrical, which all faces are, it intensifies her gaze.

“You’re doing fine, Emily. Your procedure was a success. You have your fresh start. It’s time to live.”

A fresh start. A weird concept when you don’t know what you’re starting over from.

She gives me a squeeze and shoulders her purse. “I could, however, use a lift to shore and into town.”

“Right. Of course.” I pull my jacket from the peg near the kitchen door. I knew this day was coming. Then why do I feel like I’m being abandoned?

I shove my feet into my boots and grab my keys, but the questions that came at me like a horde of insects those first few days—before Clare firmly counseled me to trust my decision—have come swarming back, louder than ever. I push them away, but when she meets me at the door there’s something in her hand. An envelope.

The handwriting on the outside is mine.

She holds it out. “You wrote this before your treatment.”

I take it slowly. It’s sealed, my initials scribbled across the flap where it’s stuck shut.

“Most patients choose to write a letter to reassure their postprocedure selves. You can read it when you get back.”

I nod, but a part of me wishes she hadn’t shown it to me at all. I slide it onto the counter. “Okay.”

Outside, we climb into the johnboat and I start the outboard motor. It takes all of five minutes for me to guide us into the dock two hundred yards away. I grab the flashlight from the boat, knock it with the heel of my hand when it sputters. The owner’s beat-up Ford Bronco is waiting near the slip.

I ask what time her flight is as we turn onto Lily Bay Road, make small talk about the magnificent foliage around the lake. Finally ask if she ever saw a moose. No, she says, she never did.

Twenty minutes later we pull into the Food Mart at the top of the hill—the same place I caught my breath as the lake first appeared below us the day we arrived. There’s a black town car waiting in the parking lot, and she directs me toward it.

I put the truck in park, wondering what one says in a situation like this. I’m glad it’s nearly dark out.

“I’ve got it,” she says when I start to get out. After retrieving her suitcase, she leans in through the passenger door.