Chapter 7
Ethan
The sign appeared around a bend in the road, hand-painted, cracked down the middle, its blue paint faded to a ghostly gray.
Welcome to Maplewood. Where the Lake Shines Brighter.
The words blurred as rain began to fall, thin and cold against the windshield.
I flicked on the wipers. They squeaked with the steady rhythm of something both familiar and unwelcome. I’d driven this road a hundred times before, summers, holidays, the night I’d left and told myself I wasn’t coming back.
But it was different now. The trees leaned closer, the air heavier, the silence sharper.
I’d spent the last ten days off-grid, living on coffee, trail mix, and the hum of wind through pine. When I finally turned my phone back on yesterday morning, I was greeted by a handful of bars and a storm of missed calls.
I didn’t listen to them. Just read the text that sat like a gunshot on the screen.
Ethan, it's about Matt and Jenny. Please call me. It's urgent. - mom
I’d read it twice before I understood the words.
Now, less than twenty-four hours later, I was back in the town I’d spent a decade avoiding, wearing a suit and a heart that didn’t fit.
I stood, feeling every inch of the distance between what I should say and what I could.
The sound of rain grew heavier outside, a steady percussion against the old windows.
◆◆◆
The Walker farmhouse appeared through the curtain of rain like an old photograph, washed out around the edges, familiar enough to ache.
The porch light was already on. It had always been on when I was late coming home. Some things, apparently, didn’t change.
I parked crookedly in the gravel, killed the engine, and sat there with my hands on the wheel until my knuckles whitened. The silence inside the truck pressed down on me, thick with anticipation.
I had missed the funeral.
All because I’d turned my phone off for ten damn days, trying to escape. The guilt crawled up my ribs. I forced myself out of the truck.
The screen door creaked just the same as it had when I was seventeen. And then my mother was there, small and kind, silver threads streaking through her chestnut hair, but her face was older in a way that had nothing to do with time.
“Oh, Ethan.” She cupped my cheek like I was still her little boy. The warmth of her palm nearly undid me. “Come in, sweetheart. Come in.”
I stepped inside.
The house smelled of stew and lavender cleaner. My father stood near the table, stiff and sturdy as ever, though his eyes were rimmed red in a way he probably hated anyone seeing.
Bill Walker didn’t cry. Except he had. Recently.
“Dad,” I said.
“Son.” He nodded once, like even that motion cost him effort. “Long trip.”
“Yeah.”
We stood there for a beat too long, neither of us quite sure what came next.
Mom cleared her throat. “We, um… we spoke to the lawyer. After the funeral.”
The air shifted. My stomach tightened.
I swallowed. “Yeah? And?”
My parents exchanged a look that carried weight, worry and a thousand unspoken things.
Mom’s voice softened. “Matt and Jenny… named you, Ethan.”
I blinked. “Named me?”
“As Lily’s guardian.”
For a moment, everything in the room fell away. Just a hollow ringing inside my skull.
My brother.
Perfect, reliable Matt. And Jenny, who had barely tolerated me after I’d shattered her best friend’s heart.
They chose me?
“That, that can’t be right,” I said. My voice cracked on the edges. “They wouldn’t have picked me. I mean… why would they?”
“They did,” Dad said quietly. “The lawyer wants to meet with you as soon as possible.”
The world felt off-center, like someone had tilted the floor beneath me.