sold and the proceeds divided according to ownership.
Melissa stopped asking me to babysit.
Mostly because Daniel finally had to start helping her himself.
Six months later, I took the road trip.
By myself.
I drove through Zion at sunrise.
I crossed into Colorado beneath a sky so intensely blue it almost looked unreal.
And I stayed an extra night everywhere Daniel would have complained was “too expensive.”
One afternoon, I stopped beside a mountain lake and opened a photograph Melissa had posted online.
Daniel stood in her backyard looking
