It was a shock to hear from Blaze Wilson, especially in the state she was in. After she hung up on me I felt guilty for being so hard on her. And then I felt angry at myself for feeling guilty. I didn't owe her anything. She just sounded so damned sad, though.

That tone I heard in Blaze's voice reminded me of Grandma Dottie and the way she would blink away her tears and pretend there was something in her eye or that her allergies were acting up when Blackjack would have too much to drink and start in on her, raging and screaming for hours while she took it – and while the rest of the family pretended it wasn't happening. Afterwards, when Blackjack had made it to the bottom of the whiskey bottle and passed out, I would creep into Grandma Dottie's room and lay my head on her bosom, weeping with the helplessness any small child feels when he can't save someone he loves from their tormentor. And every time, Grandma Dottie would tell me it was fine, nothing to worry about, she could handle Blackjack etc. And we would both act like I was the only one crying.

That's probably why I felt such a sudden softening of my heart when it became apparent that Blaze was upset. She was exactly the type to repress her emotions, too. I reckon that incident with the flood probably messed her up pretty good, and she didn't know how to handle it. I didn't know her life, of course, but she definitely gave off a certain vibe. There was that air of certainty about her, that aura people who have never really suffered give off. A lot of those people – the ones from good, stable homes with loving parents – go through life without ever truly encountering difficulty. Sure, bad things happen to everyone, but they have a support system and it never occurs to them to question it, or to accept that not everyone has that system. Some of them, though, they get attached to their own idea of themselves as particularly competent. Particularly good at handling life. They don't look back and see all the people who supported them and loved them and patted them on the back. They look at the present and think they're entirely responsible for where they are. And those ones, when something terrible happens, are prone to completely falling apart. They can't handle it when the truth dawns on them that they're not actually better than all the fuck-ups and losers – they just had a lot of help.

That's what I thought, anyway, that night. It was uncharitable, I know that. But I was in the middle of packing up my things in preparation for the move into Brandon Schneider's basement, and I wasn't feeling particularly well disposed to the IRS or to anyone even distantly related to the IRS. DeeDee's older brother had agreed to take me in on a short-term basis, on the understanding that it wouldn't be longer than a few weeks and that I would help out around the house. It was humiliating. All the more so because I knew Brandon Schneider had always resented me for being better looking and more popular than him in high school. Now he finally had something to lord over me. It may have been the only reason he agreed to the arrangement in the first place.

* * *

The day after that phone call from Blaze, I ran into Sheriff Randall at the grocery store. He nodded at me in the cereal aisle as I tried to figure out if I could afford the brand name oat cereal or not.

"Jack McMurtry – how you holdin' up, kid?"

'Kid.' I was always going to be a kid to the Sheriff, who must have been pushing 80 by that time. Everyone in town knew Sheriff Randall – and most of us knew he could be sweet-talked, too. Not in a really crooked kind of way, but he was a wise man, he knew how to balance the law with a more humane sense of fairness and community. I know I'd benefitted a few times as an idiotic underage boy with a penchant for drinking whiskey and making out with girls on the vacant lot behind the old abandoned sawmill.

"As good as can be expected," I replied, deciding I did not have enough for the name brand cereal.

"It'll work itself out. Not that I'm trying to downplay what's happening – the loss of Sweetgrass Ranch is a huge blow. Not just to you but to this town. But a lot of folks here respect your family, and no one wants to see the last McMurtry leave Little Falls for good. You got people here you can count on. You hear me?"

The Sheriff was trying to help, trying to provide some comfort. I knew it and I appreciated it. But as willing as people were to help, I knew that accepting what was basically charity was no kind of long-term solution.

"I know that, sir." I said respectfully, because there was a part me that was always going to be an awed five year old around the Sheriff. "I know people care."

"That IRS agent came sniffing around my office, you know," he said, leaning in conspiratorially, so no one who happened to be passing by could overhear. "Wanted to know if I had any of Blackjack's papers – or yours. Any records, anything like that. He was on a fishing trip."

"Well," I shrugged, "I guess they've got to do their jobs, too. And it's not like any of Blackjack's paperwork was in any kind of order, that's for damn sure."

Sheriff Randall eyed me, like he was trying to figure me out. "You know, Jack..."

I looked into his rheumy blue eyes. "What?"

"There is one thing. I didn't mention it to that IRS jackass – damn near totally forgot about it, if I'm honest. But this whole thing with Sweetgrass Ranch reminded me. Blackjack had a safety deposit box at the Little Falls bank. Told me about it way back, said Dottie made him set it up."

I was on the very verge of dismissing Blackjack's safety deposit box, which as far as I knew might not have even existed anymore, when Blaze's voice popped into my head again, urging me to track down every possible lead, to contact everyone, to take every step necessary.

"Oh yeah?" I asked. "So – what, this thing still exists? You think there might be something important in there?"

"Don't have a clue, son. But I was thinking about this recently, and I remembered Blackjack complaining – this would have been years ago now, when you were just a little nipper – that Dottie wouldn't let up, kept insisting he open a deposit box at the bank. I think you know your grandma didn't insist on much, so if she insisted on this it must have been mighty important to her. Probably just some sentimental items, you know, baby pictures and the like. Women get so attached to things like that, don't they?"

I wanted to nod and concur with Sheriff Randall but the truth was I had no idea what kind of things women got attached to, because I'd never really stayed with one long enough to find out. Instead I asked him if he thought I would even be able to get access to it.

"Oh I'm sure you would. It's Andrew Battleford that's manager down at the bank, ain't it? He's my niece's kid, he'll let you take a look if I ask him."

None of that sounded particularly legal, but I was in agreement with the Sheriff that the safety deposit box probably held nothing of any financial value – and even if it did, that it wouldn't quite hit the two million dollar mark – so I just shrugged and nodded. "Sure. When should we go?"

"Well I got to go down to the Rankin's place just now, old lady Rankin says some drunken kids have been chasing their ducks around the pond out back. And then I got lunch with the boys. Probably an hour or so of paperwork to do in the office. Hmmm. How about this afternoon, say around 4 o'clock? I'll meet you outside the bank."

"Sounds good to me."

* * *

At 5:20 p.m. that afternoon I found myself being led into a small backroom at the Little Falls Bank by a jumpy young man with red hair. It had already taken him a good half an hour to locate a key for the safety deposit box in question.

"I'll leave you here, then?" He said, handing the key to me. "You can, uh, you can just holler when you're done. OK?"

I nodded at him. "OK."

One of the room's walls was lined with safety deposit boxes and to be honest, it didn't look like the Little Falls Bank was in any danger of being robbed by high-end criminals. Everything was coated with a thin layer of grime, and the room didn't look like it saw much traffic. I followed the numbers until I got to 260, which matched the key.

It took a couple of minutes to open the damn thing, so clogged with dust was the lock, but it eventually slid out and I peeked inside. Papers, mostly. A dark green pamphlet of some kind that appeared, on closer inspection, to be my Grandma Dottie's old Irish passport. It had a circular design on the front with a language I didn't recognize over the top half of the circle, and 'Irish Free State' under the bottom half. Underneath that was the faded signature of Dorothy O'Reilly.

There was no time to get sentimental – the bank manager had been very nervous about letting me look at the contents of the safety deposit box without some kind of legal paperwork, and Sheriff Randall had only just managed to persuade him. I set the old passport aside and then picked it back up and put it in my pocket. It was of no value to anyone, and I knew Grandma Dottie would have wanted me, more than anyone else, to have what was probably the last remaining material vestige of her Irish girlhood.

There were a couple of yellowed tickets from a show – the 'Billy Barnes Revue' – dated 1959. And underneath some of the sentimental items were birth certificates – the originals, presumed lost for years, for my father and his siblings. At the very bottom was another pamphlet, one I assumed was another passport. Upon closer inspection, though, it appeared to be some kind of banking record. It had 'Bank of Ireland Savings Account' embossed on the front cover and my grandmother's maiden name – Dorothy O'Reilly – and her date of birth – July 25, 1939 – handwritten underneath it. I opened it up to the first page and a thin slip of paper fell out. The words written on the paper were faded but not totally impossible to read. The handwriting was spidery and uncertain.

"For Jack McMurtry III"

That's what they said. The 'III' had been heavily underlined three times, as if for emphasis. To emphasize that it was meant for me – not for my father and not for my grandfather. I flipped through the little booklet with some degree of curiosity, more for its connection to my Grandma Dottie than anything else, and saw that it was a simple deposit book, probably for an account opened by one of my great-grandparents on Dottie's side, on the occasion of her birth. The initial deposit amount was two thousand Irish pounds, and almost every month after that smaller amounts had been added. The last page was dated August, 1942.

I slipped the deposit book into my pocket along with the passport and double-checked that there weren't any enormous uncut diamonds hiding in the corners. There weren't.

Outside, Sheriff Randall asked if I found anything interesting.

"Not financially interesting, if that's what you're asking," I told him. My Grandma Dottie's old passport, an old savings account deposit book – both from Ireland – and some tickets from a Broadway production in 1959. I guess Blackjack took her to the city to see a show when they were first married. Oh, and some birth certificates for Dottie and Blackjack's kids.

"Ah well," the Sheriff said. "It was worth a look – and I'm sure Dottie would have wanted you to have those things – you always were her favorite. Now you can pass them on to your own children some day, little pieces of family history."

I nodded even as the thought of having my own children seemed so far away as to be almost impossible. I was 28 years old and I had nothing. I had quite a lot less than nothing, if we're being accurate. What kind of woman was going to take on a man like that? Sure, quite a few of them wanted to get into my bed – but marriage? Kids? They'd have to be crazy.

* * *

I found myself, that night, sitting in the formal front room of the house. It looked out over the front yard and the tree with the tire swing – and it didn't get much use. When Grandma Dottie was alive she would use that room in particular for entertaining, because it had elegant high ceilings and enough space to comfortably seat a large number of people. I couldn't remember the last time I'd actually been in it. Actually, I could. It was with Blaze Wilson, that night after the flood when I brushed her hair and told her about my grandmother.

On the antique coffee table in front of me sat a full bottle of whiskey. The temptation to spend my last few days at Sweetgrass Ranch in the comforting embrace of alcohol was strong. I wasn't sure I could make it through those final goodbyes without it. But I knew I shouldn't. I knew starting out the next chapter of my life with the hangover from hell wasn't a particularly auspicious idea.

I looked out the window at the tire swing, moving slightly in the breeze. The rope was stiff and frayed now, it would probably snap if anyone put any serious weight on it. Emily and I, and sometimes Jake, had spent so much time on that swing as children. Just hanging out, seeing who could go the highest without getting scared, keeping watch on who was coming and going from the house. My childhood wasn't some nightmare of constant abuse and unhappiness. There was abuse and unhappiness, especially amongst the adults, but it meant my siblings and I were often left to our own devices when we were young. And it is the nature of youth that the young person never understands the import of those endless summer hours doing nothing much at all until they're gone forever. My memories were tinted now with the golden light of nostalgia, and even as I raised my head to look at the swing one more time I could hear my sister's voice echoing in my mind:

"Bet you get scared before I do, Jack! Bet you do!"

She was right, too, that little daredevil. I always got scared before she did – but that was only because Emily was never scared of anything. In a child, a trait like that is impressive, charming. In an adult – and depending on the choices that adult makes – it can be a lot darker. My fearless sister, it turned out, may have done much better for herself if some fairy godmother had dusted her newborn head with just a sprinkling of caution.

I turned back to the bottle of whiskey, seized with memories. DeeDee said there was a rumor going around that the house might be deemed a liability and knocked down. What would happen then? Where would all the ghosts go? My own head, maybe. It didn't feel viable. Ghosts need dwellings. They need a foundation built on solid ground, rooms and corridors and dusty attics. Not human heads.

Jesus, I really wanted that whiskey. I also wanted to talk to Blaze Wilson. I reckoned both of those things were stupid ideas. Blaze had been so upset. I remembered her breath coming in big, shaky gulps – not for her the pretty, tinkling tears of a woman trying to elicit sympathy.

No. Fuck that. Stop thinking about that woman. You're just trying to avoid thinking about Sweetgrass Ranch.

I grabbed the bottle of whiskey and twisted off the cap, pouring a shot's worth into one of Blackjack's heavy crystal tumblers and swallowing it in one gulp.

I didn't pour another one right away. Instead, I sat quietly in the sitting room as the evening light faded and the warmth spread down to my belly and then out, slowly, into my limbs. Blaze Wilson. Why couldn't I stop thinking about her? Was it that self-destructive streak that seemed to haunt the lives of at least a good fifty percent of the McMurtrys? Was I destined to only feel attraction to women who secretly – or not so secretly, in Blaze's case – wanted to destroy me? She was so... what? So... something. Many things. If I closed my eyes I could just about imagine what it would feel like to hold her in my arms. How warm and tangible her body would be, how wet her tears on my neck when she buried her face there as I held her.

I poured another shot of whiskey and sipped it that time. Then I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my contacts list until I came to her name. My thumb only hovered over the call button for a couple of seconds before it fell, as if pushed by some invisible hand, and I heard ringing.

"Hello?"

Shit. Shit! I called her!

"Um, hey. Blaze. This is Jack McMur –"

"I know who it is." She sounded nervous.

"Yeah," I said, "I'm just calling to –"

Why the hell was I calling Blaze Wilson? Because I'm a damned fool with no sense of self-control, probably. "I'm just calling to apologize for being so rough on you. I don't think you're a bad person. I mean, I don't know you well enough to say whether or not you're a bad person. But you didn't deserve how I treated you."

Blaze laughed. "Yes I did. That's what happens when you act like a crazy person. People get angry. I understand. You don't have anything to apologize for."

I could hear it again, that impervious tone in her voice. Whatever version of Blaze Wilson had called me and dared to reveal her vulnerability, she was back under lock and key.

"No, you didn't."

"Well," she said breezily, "thanks for calling, Jack. You didn't have to do that."

"Oh I know I didn't," I said, shaking my head. "If you want the honest truth I don't even know why I called you – I've had some whiskey and I'm feeling sentimental and, goddamnit, I seem to be having difficulty not thinking about you."

Silence. I heard her sharp intake of breath, as if she was about to say something, but no words followed. Why did I just tell her I couldn't stop thinking about her? Why did I do that? Oh yeah, because I'm an idiot.

"That was a stupid thing to say," I started, "I don't even know why –"

"No. It's, uh, I – Jack, I feel the same way. I know you already know it, because you called me on it when we spoke. I didn't call you to discuss the case. I miss you. It doesn't even make sense! How can you miss someone you don't even know?"

A sudden rush of warmth, not entirely the result of the alcohol, filled my body. I wanted Blaze Wilson to be there with me. I didn't want to be talking to her on the phone, I wanted her in my arms. I wanted the sound of her soft sighs in my ear.

"I don't know," I mused. "But I feel it, too."

"Maybe it's because of the flood?" She asked. "Maybe we went through an extreme experience together and now we feel like there's a bond there? My therapist said something like that, but I don't know if it's true. It could be, couldn't it?"

28 years old, in debt, about to lose my house and land and how did I feel? Totally exhilarated. Like I just got an A on my test, a check for a million bucks (OK, two million) and a blowjob from the head cheerleader on the last day of school before summer vacation.

"It could be," I replied, trying to keep the fact that I was grinning out of my voice. "Were you talking to your therapist about what happened here?"

"Oh, yeah. I started to have panic attacks a few weeks ago – after I came back from Montana – and I, well, my doctor thought I should talk to someone about it."

"Panic attacks? You mean from being caught in that flood?"

I'd never had a panic attack myself, but I'd seen it happen to other people before. My Grandma Dottie used to have what she called 'episodes.' Her face would go a kind of grayish-white color and her breath would come quick and shallow and she would cling to me, muttering prayers under her breath until it passed. Sometimes it took hours to pass. Blaze was having panic attacks? And I'd been such a jerk to her when she called me. Fuck.

"Yeah," she replied, quietly. "I've actually been having kind of a tough time. And it's starting to seem like I'm not so great at having tough times." Her voice was sad, almost resigned.

"You should come out here." I didn't blurt it out. The words didn't come out of my mouth without my thinking about them. I said what I said because the whiskey had loosened me up a little – and because I meant it. There was a strange certainty in my heart that no matter what was happening with Blaze, no matter what was wrong, that I could fix it. Not her therapist, not the drugs he probably had her on. Me. It was one of those things that simultaneously make absolutely no sense and still manage to be true. Or to feel true, anyway – and sometimes a thing feeling true is just as important as it being true.

"I – what?" She asked, hesitating. "What did you say?"

I said it again. "You should come out here."

"Should I?"

She wanted to. I could hear it in her voice. But she needed a reason the way women – by far the more level-headed sex – often do.

I chuckled. "You know what, Blaze? I don't even know. All I know is that you sounded so upset when you called and now you've just told me about the panic attacks and I don't know if I can give you a logical reason but I just feel like you should come out here. Not forever, I mean. Just for –"

"Just for a couple of days?" She asked.

"Yeah. Just for a couple of days."

"OK."

We both went quiet for a moment, not quite believing what we'd just done. It was as if speaking again would break the spell, force us to face the fact that it was a ridiculous plan – because it was ridiculous, and we were both smart enough to know it.

"I have a dog now," Blaze said eventually. "I need to check if he she can stay with my friend's parents. It'll probably be fine.

"I love dogs," I replied. "When I get my life sorted out I'll probably get one myself. What's her name?"

"Lulu. I found her on the side of the road on the day I flew back from Montana. She cost me a small fortune in vet bills but she was worth it. If you think I'm crazy now I don't know how much worse I'd be without Lulu."

"I don't think you're crazy. Well, I didn't until about two minutes ago when you agreed to this."

Blaze laughed. I loved the sound of her laughing.

"So I'm going to take a couple of days off work," she said. "I'll be there – well, soon. Is that OK?"

She was giving me – and herself – one more chance to back out of our spontaneous, insane plan. I wasn't going to be the one to take it.

"That's OK," I told her. "That's more than OK, Blaze."

"Good. So I'll, um – see you soon?"

"Yeah. See you soon."

We hung up and I sat there in the dark for a little while, shaking my head at myself and wondering what I'd just gone and done.