My husband had spent years warning me never to set foot on that farm. So after he passed away and the lawyer handed me the key, saying that from now on the place belonged to me, I was ready to sell it right away and put everything behind me. But before making my final decision, I still wanted to see it once for myself. When the door opened, I finally understood why, all those years, he had never wanted me to set foot there.

“The place before. The place now. The people carrying both.”

Jenna cried when she saw it.

I did not. Not then. Some works take the tears out of you while they are being made and leave only recognition behind.

Months later, when I watched another of Joshua’s videos and found him speaking casually about how beautiful the western hills were after rain, I realized I had begun hearing him differently. Less as a man reaching backward from death to hold me in place, more as a man who had prepared me to move forward without asking permission.

That, perhaps, was the truest thing he left me.

Not the oil. Not the legal protection. Not even the farm itself.

A future with enough room in it to become someone I had postponed.

I do not know what became of Robert in the end. Maren heard through discreet channels that he made contact with the half siblings Joshua had identified. Whether they chose to help, or even to know him, is not a story that belongs to me. Sometimes the most moral thing you can do is refuse to make another family’s turning point into your epilogue.