Ripplewood, opening scene in progress

Emlyn Grady braked her biodiesel-powered Jeep Liberty, turned off of Fort Ross Road and, for the first time since she'd rushed outside with her pullover on backwards and straw hat slapped on to hide a tangle of unbrushed hair, she smiled. The Ripplewood sign was gone again. It disappeared on the last day of school every year. A cluster of memories arrived like a warm wind at the thought of the sign. In high school, Emlyn and several friends had planted it at Jethro Osborn's grave, a daring act of disrespect for the town's founder. It easily could have turned up at the dump, in the library stacks, atop a doghouse—anywhere. One year it was found dangling 75 feet up a Redwood tree.

No one was ever punished for this annual prank; it had become part of Ripplewood's lore and charm. And the townsfolk, once leery of outsiders, now welcomed their business.

While Emlyn chugged along the bumpy, winding road toward home, she tried to keep her memories front and center, but fears skulked around her like a black heron lulling prey. A lump in her throat that had pulsed the entire drive from San Francisco to Sonoma County made it difficult to breathe. Swallowing didn't help. She veered to avoid a huge pothole, turned onto Topaz, the town's main street, and sped through the short downtown strip. She took a right, and drove a few blocks uphill to the driveway. Home.

Her phone pinged. Jessie again, she was sure. He'd texted like a seal pup calling for its mother during her drive. She couldn't respond. She had scant information to relay; plus, she wasn’t ready to face his inevitable upset at her leaving town instead of meeting new investors in his tech startup.

Emlyn accidentally turned her oversized shoulder bag sideways on the way out of the Jeep and stooped to grab the wallet, toiletries bag, T-shirt and a few other items spilling out. She stuffed them back inside and then looked up at the sugar cookie-yellow home, with poppies and lavender swaying in the yard. A dim pang, distant yet familiar, passed through her. Gravel crinkled beneath her feet when she walked along the driveway. She breathed in a hint of exhaust that smelled like French fries and remembered fondly how her dad had converted the Liberty to run on vegetable oil and given it to her when she graduated from high school in 2007.

The front door opened when she reached the stairs, which groaned under her weight, a surprising sound because her dad usually fixed every little thing at the first sign of rot or breakage. Liam slumped onto the porch, looking like a beanbag chair, no trace of the former high-school track star who loved to pedal his mountain bike through the forest and who'd run the Bay to Breakers with Emlyn and her mom, Eva, every year of Emlyn's childhood. With calloused fingers, Liam Grady brushed thick brown waves from red-rimmed eyes. Hints of gray in his eyebrows and at his temples caught the late-afternoon light. The cuffs of his flannel shirt were frayed, his chinos stained with brown blotches. He wore socks, no shoes, with one big toe poking through a hole.

"Oh, Dad," she said.

He backed over the threshold. She followed him. The house was the same as always: bright, welcoming, crowded with the small decisions her mother made everywhere. The dark oak floors half-covered by mismatched Persian rugs. Potted plants leaning toward the light. Family photos layered instead of aligned. 

"Long drive, huh. You must be tired."

"Not really." Emlyn put her purse down on a marble-topped side table, stretched her arms up high and wide, then lowered them and looked at the man who'd raised her. "More like wired and confused and worried, really worried."

Liam ran his fingers over a glass sculpture of cornflowers he'd mounted on the wall. "Your mom loves these, even though they grow like weeds. But this needs something else, another kind of flower, I think. I have to finish it for her."

Emlyn glanced at the sculpture. "Poppies. It needs poppies. But maybe not orange like ours. Maybe red?"

"Here we are, collaborators again. ... I don't know why you left San Francisco Art Institute. It's like you're lost at San Francisco State, rudderless."

She closed her mouth in a tight smile and gave him a look both reproachful and affectionate. "How long have I been home? All of three minutes? And you start—"

He pulled a handkerchief from his pack pocket, leaned in close to the sculpture and wiped away something only he could see. "So, red, yes. I like it."

Emlyn took in a deep breath and smelled no trace of cooking and baking. When she came home, her mom always arranged chocolate chip cookies, still moist and warm, on a plate Emlyn had painted when in preschool. In the oven would be chicken roasting, along with vegetables seasoned to perfection. Emlyn’s favorite meal when growing up.

Fleet, the family dog, trundled up. “Hey buddy.” Emlyn knelt down, ruffled his fur, and let him lick her face. “Glad to see you, too.” She hugged the shaggy dog with stumpy legs, long body, and a tail full as a feather duster.

Emlyn rose and regarded her dad, whose shoulders slumped more than they ever had. "What are we going to do now, Dad? What should we do first?"

"I'm not sure."

"When did you last see her? This morning?"

Liam blinked several times, something he always did when searching for words. "It was at the co-op. She stopped in to tell me she'd made a big pot of chili for me, and cornbread." He put his hands at his lower spine, pulled his shoulders back and groaned. "That was in May. May fifteenth.

"A month ago? And you just called me today?" Emlyn kicked Fleet's rubber Kong toy across the room. "Why?"

"I don't know." Liam pushed his hair off his face again and sank into the living room couch. "I honestly don't know."