Sheridan tried to obey the remembered request, but her voice broke and her eyes flooded with tears. With the heels of her hands, she rubbed the tears away only to discover that her father's shirt was now floating downstream, already out of her reach, and then Sheridan lost the battle to be brave and grown-up. Drawing her knees against her chest, she buried her face in her mama's apron and sobbed with grief and terror. Surrounded by summer wildflowers and the scent of fresh grass, she rocked back and forth, crying until her throat ached and her words were only a croaking whispered chant. "Mama," she wept, "I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. I miss Jamie. Please come back to Papa and me. Please come back, please come back. Oh, please. I can't do it alone, Mama. I can't do it. I can't, I can't-"

Her litany of grief was suddenly interrupted by her father's voice-not the dull, lifeless, terrifyingly unfamiliar voice he'd had for months, but his old voice-hoarse now with concern and love. Crouching beside her, he'd pulled her into his arms. "I can't do it alone either," he'd said, cradling her tightly against him. "But I'll wager we can do it together, sweeting."

Later, after he'd mopped her tears, he'd said, "How would you like to leave here and go travelling, just you and me? We'll make every day an adventure. I used to have great adventures. That's how I met your mama-I was having an adventure in England, in Sherwyn's Glen. Someday, we'll go back to Sherwyn's Glen, you and me. Only not the way your mama and I left. This time, we'll go back in grand style."

Before Sheridan's mama died, she'd talked nostalgically about the picturesque village in England where she'd been born, about its beautiful countryside, its treelined lanes, and the dances she'd attended at the assembly rooms there. She'd even named Sheridan after a particular kind of rose that bloomed at the parsonage, a special species of red rose that she said bloomed in gay profusion along the white fence surrounding the parsonage.