In Strange Woods - Claire Cray Page 0,89

“Fawn says I should try a yurt.”

“I could see you in a yurt,” Hunter said easily. “Hard to get around using manufactured materials, though.”

“That’s what I said,” Beau said with satisfaction.

James looked between them, feeling ridiculously warm and fuzzy. He knew they’d get along. “I always wanted to build a cabin,” he said, and they both looked at him in surprise. “Like, a log cabin. You know?”

Beau grinned and looked like he was about to reply, but then something by the road caught his eye and he nearly launched out of his seat. “Hunter! Pull over!”

Hunter obeyed without a word, putting the truck in park and unbuckling his seatbelt as Beau jumped out of the truck. They were on a stretch of River Road that ran along a wide, shallow bend of the river, and James watched curiously as Beau bounded over to a gap between the trees. “Come on,” Hunter said before he could ask, shooting him a smile that seemed almost hopeful. “Let’s see.”

They trudged through the grass to reach Beau, who immediately put a hand on James’s shoulder and pointed at the river. “James, look.”

James looked where Beau was pointing. It took him a moment to see a fluttering splash in the water by the bank. “What is that?”

“Salmon.” Beau looped his arm through James’s, still pointing. “See? She’s shaping the riverbed. Making little beds in the gravel for her eggs. See her partner over there? Every time she lays eggs, he comes and seeds them. They’ll do this for days.”

“They’re late,” Hunter murmured. “God only knows how they made it.”

“All the way from the ocean, James,” Beau said, shaking him slightly. “Nothing could stop them.”

With that, Beau sat down on the wet grass. To James’s surprise, Hunter did the same thing. Charmed by how thrilled they both seemed by the sight of a couple of salmon, James couldn’t do anything but join them.

So they all sat there, meditatively watching two fish splashing in the shallows as the cold wind whispered through the forest and the crows sang in the trees. And eventually, James started to get it. He thought of how the salmon had once been tiny eggs themselves, in this very place. How the river had carried them downstream as they grew up and charged into the wild open waters of the Pacific Ocean. How they’d spent the last several years in the deep, dark sea until some mysterious signal beckoned from upstream, and they followed it all the way home.

Epilogue

Late February

James had always been strangely fond of New York City winters. Not the cute Christmas shit, but the cold, slushy streets, the clumpy dikes of trash-studded snow, the wind whipping violently through the alleys and streets downtown, and all the bundled-up grumps hunched miserably outside their buildings, sucking down cigarettes while their fingers froze. That was when the city felt the realest, and he admired it.

But the cemetery was outside the city in the Hudson River Valley—a historic graveyard high on a hill over the river. Dressed in a stocking cap, peacoat and oversized wool scarf, carrying three small bundles of flowers from Grace’s favorite place on the Upper West Side, James opened the iron gate of the family plot and followed the two-century-old path around the ornate graves of the oldest Worthington Cranes. Three brand-new headstones near the back stood out in their glassy smoothness. One stone for each of his parents, and one for Robin.

James sank to a crouch in front of the headstones and laid a bouquet on each grave. Then he stayed there, arms crossed over his knees, unsure of himself and what he needed to do.

“I found Beau, Grace,” he finally said, barely loud enough to hear himself. “Deenie was right. Daisy Ann raised him. She said he floated down the river on a cedar bough. Maybe you know if that’s true or not. Anyway, he’s…wild, and weird, and amazing. You’d love him. And, um…”

He fell silent, reaching out to toy with the end of the dark blue ribbon wrapped around the flowers on her grave. It felt sad and hopeless, talking to headstones. But he’d started now, so he felt like he had to finish it properly.

“I hope you know I’m not mad about anything,” he said, hearing his voice thicken with emotion. “At you, either, Bryce. Uncle Lawrence told me everything. How you both confided in him before you got married, and how you set things up so I’d be okay if it ever came out. Which