At sunset, Emily made a decision.
“Mom, come to Colorado for a few months.”
Mara hesitated.
“I don't know.”
“You don't have to decide forever.”
Mara looked at the house.
“I don't want to sell.”
“Then don't.”
“I can't maintain it alone.”
Emily smiled.
“You don't have to.”
They agreed on something simple.
Mara would spend part of the year with Emily.
The house would remain.
A neighbor would check on it.
And the riders promised to return.
Caleb shook his head.
“We'll probably make it an annual stop.”
Mara laughed.
“You'll ruin my peace.”
“You haven't had peace since 1979.”
“That is true.”
The house was no longer a place where Mara waited for life to end.
It had become a place where life could begin again.
A month later, Caleb returned.
This time he came alone.
Mara was sitting on the porch.
He handed her a helmet.
“What is this?”
“Put it on.”
“I haven't ridden a motorcycle in forty years.”
“Perfect.”
She laughed.
“You're insane.”
“Thomas said the same thing.”
Mara stared at him.
Then she stood.
The motorcycle waited at the bottom of the driveway.
It wasn't fast.
It didn't need to be.
Caleb drove carefully.
Mara sat behind him.
They traveled through the desert as the afternoon sun turned the mountains gold.
For years, Mara had thought of the road as something that took people away.
Thomas had left.
Emily had left.
Friends had left.
Everyone seemed to leave.
But now she understood that roads worked both ways.
People could return.
At a hill overlooking the valley, Caleb stopped.
Mara removed her helmet.