Royella too, unbeknownst to Dad, had been interested in logging the property. However, she had no intentions of beginning again with him elsewhere. Before her husband had died, the couple had been working on a charity project to build a school at Table Mountain, the Indian reservation and casino where Taylor had run into Royella. They had set up a very successful online contribution page on their church’s website. Unfortunately, with the pastor’s death, the gambling problem Royella had suppressed since the day they had married had flared up again. When her own money had run short, she found herself borrowing from the congregants’ donations for the school. Now the Table Mountain community and the pastor’s congregation were both pressuring her to move forward with building the school, but she had squandered the money she needed to finance it. Desperate, she had contacted an insurance company to learn the value of Foxglove’s trees. Given that Aunt Taylor and Dad had recently been fighting over their parents’ will, she had assumed that Aunt Taylor needed money and would be on board with her plan to log the property and split the cash. The will’s ambiguous wording left open the possibility that Taylor had a legal claim to the property, meaning that even if Dad rejected the logging plans, Taylor might be able to provide authorization. In either case, Dad would receive at least half of the logging money, which Royella knew would then effectively become hers, as the two had become accustomed to sharing expenses and earnings. And if for some reason Dad selfishly hoarded the money, Royella could always marry him.

As the stars came into focus on Calling Rock, the silhouettes of towering pine trees solidified in shape against the night sky. I watched the campfire slowly transform into a pile of glowing embers. For the second time that year, Dad’s plans were smoldering and disintegrating while Collin and I watched.

                                                                                         *

I looked out the window as we took off, the nose of the plane tilting upwards. We gained altitude. The Los Angeles runway disappeared below me, and I closed my eyes, visualizing our return to New York. Rachel and Marissa had made plans for a picnic dinner in Central Park that night, though I wished they had chosen a restaurant. After returning from Foxglove summers, any “natural setting” paled in comparison and made me homesick for the mountains.

Beside me, Dad sat with his eyes closed. He had shaved his beard and dressed in freshly washed jeans with an ironed button-down. Even if Mom wouldn’t agree to take him back, I knew he planned stay in the city. I think I was glad for that.

I wasn’t sure how to find a way to forgive him for his selfish attempt to log Foxglove, and I knew he would never forgive Royella for using him. Royella had assumed that, since they were both at fault, they could just continue the way things were and move forward together with their logging plans. But Royella’s scheme was just the reality check Dad had needed. He had broken up with her, right there under the twinkling stars of Calling Rock. When Royella stood up outraged and asked Collin and me how we could possibly hope that our parents would reconcile after Dad had betrayed us—choosing her, and attempting to destroy the two-hundred-year-old family mountain place for her sake—I had found myself wordless. But Collin, who was absentmindedly stirring the fire’s glowing embers, had quietly told her to leave. We didn’t really know her, he had explained, and Dad was family.

I leaned against the airplane window, shifting my body and trying to find a comfortable position. The patterned blue fabric of my seat looked new, as if the plane had recently been reupholstered. I thought of the duct tape-patched seats of Dad’s Chevy and wondered whether the government would hire a new ranger to take his truck, fill his place. Maybe not. Perhaps the drought would end soon and there would be less work, less concern that so much as a stray ember could cause a fire.