That night, nestled under my electric blanket, I listened to the gurgling stream outside my open window. The Sierra air, drained of its warmth after sunset, smelled of bear clover mixed with the mustiness of my creaky bedroom. I drifted to sleep thinking about childhood summers when the cabin was filled with family and Collin and I shared this room. I remembered snuggling beside him, listening as Dad captivated us with fantasy tales set in the Foxglove cabin and the surrounding woods. I wished that I could have held onto everything that had drifted by in the melted mass of days since those evening stories: countless Sierra summers, grade school and most of high school, our parents’ marriage, and now, poor little Button. Outside, crickets began to chirp—or perhaps they were frogs.

A knock on the door shook my muddled consciousness. I sat up and squinted as Collin entered, letting in light from the hallway.

“I was sleeping,” I said.

“I was thinking,” he said, ignoring me. “Who poisons owls?”

“I don’t know.”

He began to pace but stumbled over the stack of books I kept next to my bookshelf, a rickety structure crammed with summer novels left at Foxglove over the generations. “This is a mess,” he said, picking up my books and attempting to make room for them on the cluttered shelf.

“Did you really wake me to organize my bookshelf?”