Chapter 10 - A Toast to Robert
One year later.
The snow on Peak Nine was four feet deep, pristine and heavy, clinging to the branches of the aspens like thick white velvet.
Inside the cabin, the great stone fireplace roared with dry pine logs, sending sparks dancing behind the iron mesh screen. The dining room table was set with my mother’s china—not because strangers had raided my locked cabinets, but because Jason and I had spent the afternoon preparing Christmas dinner together.
Michael sat near the hearth, laughing as Jason recounted a ridiculous story about his residency clinic in Denver. Jason looked healthy; the gaunt, hunted look that had shadowed his face during his marriage had been replaced by a quiet, grounded confidence. His divorce had finalized in June. Sarah had relocated to Arizona with her mother, living in a rented townhouse while Bradley worked off his civil penalties under court supervision. They were gone from our lives like a bad winter fever that breaks at dawn.
I walked to the kitchen counter, where an empty bottle of Robert’s fortieth-anniversary Cabernet sat upon a polished walnut stand.
Beside it lay a small brass plaque Michael had engraved for me in the spring:
*Robert’s Wine.*
*Opened in battle. Drunk in victory.*
*A reminder that love defends what greed cannot comprehend.*
I picked up three glasses filled with fresh cider from the local orchard and carried them into the living room, handing one to Michael and one to my son.
“The tree looks beautiful this year, Mom,” Jason said, looking at the silver ornaments and handcrafted wooden birds we had hung that afternoon.
Beneath the tree, there were no silver boxes. There were no architectural renderings. There were only small, simple gifts wrapped in brown butcher paper tied with twine—the way Robert and I had always done it.
“Your father would have loved this tree,” I said, sitting down in my favorite blue armchair—the chair that no longer smelled of Brenda Collins, but of cedar, woodsmoke, and home.
“He’s here, Mom,” Jason said softly, lifting his glass toward the fire. “Every time the wind hits this roof and the logs don't move, he’s here.”
May you like
We raised our glasses together in the warm, golden light of the mountain evening.
Outside, the Colorado winter raged against the pass, fierce and cold. But inside, the fire burned steady, the doors were locked, the foundation held fast, and the house that love built remained unconquered.
