“You’re holding a copy of The Idiot . Spine uncracked.” She finally turned, squinting up at him. “You’re also a terrible liar.”

He arrived at the clearing to find no romantic picnic, no stolen kiss under moonlight. Instead, Mara stood in the center, holding a single shovel and a headlamp. Beside her was a hole—three feet deep, five feet wide.

“You’ve been up there for six hundred and forty-seven days,” she called out, not looking up from her pruning shears. “Give or take a weekend.”

His stepmother, Celeste, was a formidable woman who collected antique porcelain and second husbands. She’d married Leo’s father for his money, and Leo was certain she tolerated him only as a footnote in the will. If Celeste caught him so much as looking at her gardener, she’d have Mara transferred to the Arizona property within the week.

He never did finish The Idiot . But he learned that sometimes the thing you’re searching for isn’t a person at all—it’s the permission to stop hiding in the shade and dig up your own buried truths.

The return address on the top letter was a women’s prison in Nevada. The date was thirty years ago. The signature: “Your mother, Elena.”