Decades had slipped by like snow melting into spring, yet the house in Evergreen Hollow remained rooted to the same gentle slope overlooking the pond. The clapboard siding had been repainted twice—once sage green, once soft gray—but the bones of the place were unchanged. The pond still caught the sky each morning, mirroring clouds, sunrises, the occasional heron lifting off with slow, deliberate wingbeats. Winter after winter, someone flooded the backyard rink. The wooden boards had been ...