A dry laugh escaped me. “That can’t be right.”

“It is.”

“She had nieces. Friends. Half the town adored her.”

“Yes,” Caroline said softly. “And she chose you.”

After the call ended, I sat in the gray morning light with the phone still in my hand. Birchwood. Even the name stirred something deep. I remembered racing barefoot down the dock while Eleanor shouted I’d crack my skull open.

Skipping stones until sunset while our father called us in for supper. The smell of pine, lake water, fried perch, and my mother’s lemon soap. Back then, family was something you leaned on, because you never imagined it could collapse beneath you.