This house was what was wrong with me. Or rather, the fact that I had avoided it for all these years. I’d convinced myself that bringing them into Nashville each month was a treat for them, a break. I knew they enjoyed their day trips, the fine meals we had, the sightseeing we did, the time we spent together. I did too. And I’d told myself we were as close as ever, but now, as I stood there in the long, narrow living room with the wood paneling on the walls, I suspected I’d been grossly unfair, and I regretted not coming back before.

“Holden Henry,” my dad said, then shook his hand.

My mom and I ended our hug, and she took Holden’s hand in both of hers, a kind of motherly handshake.

“Come on in and sit. I’ve got apple pie,” she said, and that was all it took for me to register the heavenly aroma of cinnamon and apples.

“Yes, ma’am,” Holden said. “My mouth is watering.”

Nerves aside, my stomach growled. My mom baked the best pies around.

I sniffed, swallowed, swiped underneath my leaky eyes, and led Holden to the eat-in kitchen at one end of the trailer. The table was rectangular, with ends that folded up and down depending on how big you wanted it to be. It had a laminate top with a boomerang-shaped print that screamed 1960s. On the pink laminate counter, there was a faded yellow drying rack filled with their dinner dishes, as if my mom had just finished washing them. My eyes were drawn to these signs of poverty, and I tried to imagine what Holden must think.

“Wow,” he said, his gaze locked on the baker’s rack that was crowded with hand-carved bluebirds.

“Look at all your birds,” I said, in awe of how many there were now.

“Did you carve those?” Holden asked as he went closer to the shelves.

“He did,” my mom answered for my dad. “He knows how much I love bluebirds, and he carves me a new one every few months. This one he gave me last Christmas.”

She pointed to the one front and center on the middle shelf, which I hadn’t seen before. Many of these I hadn’t seen before. This one was a single bird perched on a rock. Its eyes were glossy and realistic, and every feather was carved in detail.

“You’ve got some talent there, sir,” Holden told him.

My dad laughed uncomfortably and said, “Just a hobby to keep my wife happy. Have a seat, kids.”

While my mom sliced the pie, my dad went to the coffee maker and started a decaf pot, same as he’d done after dinner every day for as long as I could remember.

“What happened to the outbuildings?” I asked as I sat at the table. “Was there a storm recently?”