The taxi driver dumped my two hard-shell suitcases straight into a puddle at the end of the driveway.

He didn’t climb out to help with the trunk, and I didn’t hand him the extra five dollars tucked in my coat pocket.

Three pickup trucks I didn’t recognize and a silver sedan were parked across my front lawn, their tires sunk deep into the soggy grass.

Bass from a speaker inside the house throbbed through the damp night air and rattled the kitchen windowpanes.

My son Clay was six days into a two-week shift on the oil rig outside Williston, North Dakota.

He wasn’t due home until Tuesday.

I hauled my suitcases up onto the concrete porch and wiped cold rain from my forehead.

The taxi’s red taillights shrank away down the two-lane road toward county line six.

“That your party, ma’am?” the driver had asked before he pulled off.

I hadn’t answered him. The front door was locked. My brass key turned the lower deadbolt, but the chain was fastened tight on the inside.

A high voice laughed above the music, sharp and clear just inside the front entry. It was Jaclyn. Clay had moved her into my house four months earlier, three weeks after my sister Margaret died.

Jaclyn was twenty-six, with long acrylic nails that tapped on my kitchen counter every time she wanted coffee or a clean towel.

I rubbed my right thumb over my knuckles, standing on the porch while water dripped from the clogged gutter onto my shoulder.

She believed I was still in County Clare, buried under two days of rain and family estate papers.