Linnie swatted the air. “Go get it.” As Caleb made for the stairs, she turned her glare on Sam. “And I’ll read it in my own time, when I’m good and ready, without an audience, thank you very much.”

“What?” Sam held up his hands. “I didn’t even say anything.”

She sniffed and went back to scowling at the sun-silvered clouds.

Sam surreptitiously turned to Maggie and mouthed, Yay!

After Linnie dropped her off at the cabin, Maggie went in search of Wren.

Linnie’s willingness to read the letter and face its news, no matter how potentially grim, made Maggie feel optimistic. She wanted to talk to Wren about it.

But the aunt wasn’t in the studio, and her bedroom door was closed. Maggie wasn’t surprised. Wren had been feeling wiped out lately, juggling all the media inquiries about the exhibition. She was probably resting.

Maggie trudged up to the loft. She tried to read but couldn’t concentrate. She tried to nap but couldn’t fall asleep. After a while, she wandered back to the kitchen and fell into a chair at the table. It was suppertime, but she was still full from the leftover spanakopitas.

She checked her phone. Her father had texted, so she wrote back to let him know she was fine. She hesitated, then texted her mother as well, just to say she missed her. Her email was still crammed with the new and unread. She had to get rid of some of them. She tapped the icon and discovered, right at the tippy-top, a message from Jane Cannon.

Maggie was dumbfounded.

With a shake of her head, she opened the message.

I’ll go back if you go back.

That’s it. That was all it said.

Maggie sat in the chair for the longest time, mentally replaying the handful of words and automatically rejecting them, her refusal repeating like a refrain, I can’t go back, I can’t go back. She might have done this for the rest of the evening if the door hadn’t suddenly flown open, ushering in a thin scattering of snowflakes.

Linnie stood there, the night behind her. Her expression was unfamiliar, un-Linnie-like, an exercise in Os, rounded mouth and eyes.

Crap. Maggie set the phone on the table. “Bad news?”

“Just … weird.” Linnie blindly closed the door behind her. “Margaret, I—I have a sister.”

“A sister?”

“Half sister, from my dad’s side.”

“Your dad?”

“And not even a younger sister.”

“Not even younger?”

Linnie smiled, her old self again. “You sound like a parrot.”

Maggie, still discombobulated from Jane’s email, struggled to process Linnie’s news. “Wow,” she finally managed. “Tell me about her.”