“Anytime, darling. You know that.”
We talked for another ten minutes. About his students at the Denver public school. About his gardening plans in their housing development. Unimportant topics.
After hanging up, I sat watching the sun tint the mountains orange and purple. The coffee was cold, but I drank it anyway.
The phone rang an hour later.
“My parents lost their home.”
Cornelius didn’t even bother to say hello. His voice had the monotonous tone he used for his conference calls from his impersonal home office in Colorado; he was probably still wearing his shirt with the elbows rolled up, his tie undone, and his laptop open.
“They will move in with you for a few months while they find their own place.”
My hand tightened on the armrest. “Wait, what? Cornelius, I just bought this place. It’s barely big enough for me…”
“For two months, until they find something,” he repeated, as if reading from an internal memo.
“I bought this place to be alone. I devoted my entire retirement to it…”
“Then you should have stayed in Denver,” he interrupted. “Friday morning, I’ll send you a text message with their arrival time.”
The line was cut.
Sitting there, phone in hand, I stared at the clearing where the moose had been. They were gone. Intelligent animals. My knuckles had turned white on the armrest. I forced myself to let go, to relax my fingers, to breathe.
Inside, I poured myself another coffee I didn’t want and sat down at the kitchen table. From my jacket pocket, I took out a small notebook and pen – the kind of spiral-bound notebook I’d been using for forty years, with graph paper for sketches and calculations.
I started writing. Not to express my emotions, but to ask questions, estimate timelines, and assess available resources. Could the cabin accommodate three more people? Would it be accessible in winter? Would the heating be sufficient? What would be the cost of round trips between Denver and northwest Wyoming?
The cabin keys were lying on the table next to my notebook. An hour ago, they had symbolized freedom. Now, they represented something else entirely.
I picked them up, felt their weight, then carefully put them down again.
For forty years, I had been the reasonable one, the peacemaker, the one who absorbed the unpleasantness to preserve family peace.
No more.
Dawn entered through the small kitchen windows and found me still at the table. Empty coffee cups formed a semicircle around my notepad, which had become dense under the weight of lists, diagrams, and questions written and rewritten.
I hadn’t slept. I didn’t feel the need. My mind was sharper than it had been for years — focused, crystalline, functioning on something purer than rest: a purpose.
I made fresh coffee and reread my notes. Then I tidied up, loaded my truck, and hit the road again towards Cody.
Twenty minutes west of the city, right next to the highway that leads tourists to the east entrance of Yellowstone, the Yellowstone National Park ranger station stood, discreet in the landscape, a modern building clad in stone and wood that tried to blend into the foothills of the hills.
Inside, educational exhibits featured wolf packs, bear territories, and elk migration patterns on maps of Wyoming and Montana.
A forest ranger, perhaps in his forties, with a weathered face and sun-circled eyes like someone who spent more time outdoors than indoors, looked up from his desk. An American flag patch was neatly sewn onto his sleeve.
“To help you?”
“I just moved from Denver,” I said. “I bought a house near State Route 14.”
“Beautiful region.” He smiled. “We’ll have to be careful with our food storage. There are a lot of bears in the spring.”
“And the wolves?” I asked. “I heard they’re back in the area.”
“The reintroduction has been a success,” he said, getting up and walking towards a wall map, pointing to the areas marked with colored pins. “They’re usually shy, but they have an incredible sense of smell. They can detect prey or food from miles around. Do you hunt?”
“No, just out of curiosity. I want to be ready.”
“Clever.” He handed me a leaflet bearing the National Park Service logo. “Keep your property clean. Don’t leave anything lying around that might attract visitors, unless you want them.”
I took meticulous notes in my field notebook: wind direction, pack territories, seasonal behaviors. I thanked him warmly, reiterating that I was from Denver and still learning the ropes of mountain life. Every word was carefully chosen to sound naive and worried—exactly what he expected from a nervous newcomer from the city.
