“I’m freaking out,” Trish says. “Why did it do that?”

“It’s working,” I say. “A lot of history—good and bad—in here.”

As we walk, the sage calms and begins to smolder.

Take that, Dragoon Lady, I think.

We head back into the kitchen, and I extinguish the sage.

“We’re not done yet,” Trish says. “It’s time for my part.”

I cock my head like Sonny does.

“I told you that you need to purge,” she says. “We’re having a bonfire.”

“It’s too cold,” I say. “Ground is too wet.”

“No, it isn’t,” she says. “Your dad still has that firepit just off the patio. Let’s use it one last time before you cover it in concrete. And we have lots of Duraflame logs. I’ll clean the snow out of it and grab some sticks. You pull things from the cottage with bad energy that need to be burned, or items you need to purge.”

I look at Trish, but she just stares at me, unblinking. I crack immediately. “Okay,” I say.

“Good,” she says, taking a slug of wine before grabbing her coat.

I jog upstairs—every light is on after our smudging ceremony—and head directly to the bedroom that Nate and I used to share. I haven’t been able to sleep in here since I returned. I look around the room, memories flooding my mind.

I can’t sleep, Nate used to say. It’s too quiet. He would plug in a white noise machine that would mimic the sounds of crickets or lapping waves.

Open a window, I would say. You can hear the same thing for real.

I walk over to Nate’s side of the bed, always farthest away from the door, a preferred placement that always irked me. I open the nightstand and inside is the little white noise machine he loved. I tuck it in the crook of my arm and move to the closet.

A few of his clothes remain. I don’t know why he left them.

Perhaps, they contained bad memories for him, too.

There are some old jeans, a few flannel shirts, some sweaters stacked on the shelf above the rack. I begin to rifle through the hanging clothes, and my heart stops: Nate’s beloved YALE sweatshirt.