“Not relevant,” he said. “Your mother, your real mother, is gone. No one else can ever take her place, and that’s why Daphne and I will never adopt. We are not in the business of stealing other mothers’ babies. So if you were hoping—I’m afraid you aren’t going to find that false solution here with us.”

“Okay.”

“What we can offer,” Daphne sniffed, “is the opportunity to help you nurture the vivid memories you have from living in your mother’s womb, to try and recover the time when you had a real family, and together we can try to revive your heart.” Her face was pink, shiny with tears and sympathy.

The house was dark, eleven-thirty and everyone was asleep when I snuck down to the kitchen to use the cordless phone they kept there.

Joellen answered on the second ring.

“Come get me, please,” I said. “Now.”

“Well, blessed afternoon to you, too, Happy!” Natan said when I walked at last, still confused and frustrated, through the lodge and into the field to my respite, my Salishwood. This day had been crap, and I was not here for Natan making it worse; I made a beeline away from him. Glad to be early, I filled my water bottle and went to the quiet of the trees to get a minute of calm. A quick recon walk, as Sean called it, to the trail slated for the day’s classes. Perfect time to find new birds’ nests to point out to the kids later, check for trail debris. And get away from Natan.

The birds were noisy in the late-afternoon chill, maybe already sick of the cold, too, and complaining about it. I love seeing nests, hidden the rest of the year among the leaves, now exposed but safely tucked in the crooks of the bare branches. Trees are baby-bird nurseries.

“Muiriel.” Natan came loping up the trail, bun bobbing, shattering my calm. “I keep forgetting to ask you something.”

If there’s one thing living in a city had instilled in me, it was iron-clad personal-space boundaries and an acute and trusting ear for my own inner voice. That voice screamed that I did not want to be alone in the woods with Natan.

I stood, feet firmly planted in a wide stance, arms crossed and not even a half-assed attempt to hide my annoyance. “What is it, Natan?”

He bent forward and caught his breath. For a self-professed “explorer of our home, Mother Earth,” he was in pretty crappy shape. Skinny and pale and always dragging behind, even after the kids. “Your name,” he said. “You know it’s spelled an unusual way.”

I stared at him.

“It’s not the way you normally spell Muriel,” he explained.

“Natan,” I said, “I am aware. It’s my fucking name.”