“I’ll be back in two minutes.”

“Don’t leave me out here by myself, Grandma.”

“I’m not leaving you,” I said.

I got up out of the mud, turned toward the dark garage, and walked into the rain with total determination.

The side door of the garage was unlocked, just the way I’d left it two weeks earlier before catching my flight to Dublin.

My phone light sliced through the dark and glinted off rows of glass jars full of rusty nails and old wood screws.

The air inside smelled of stale gasoline, fertilizer and dry cedar dust.