Luce has no idea what she’s stepping into when she knocks on Big Rose Begay’s front door on Mother’s Day weekend, her own mom on the other side of the continent, ever staring off the beach access stairway to the sea—mourning. Whatever Mountain Meadows had meant to her father, it had ended with his ashes back at the family cemetery in Solgahatchia on the Trail of Tears. She’d brought the Martin, made good on the promise. What Edgar and Rose, who was expecting, did with it was their own business. In BC1, the dazed travelers—like so many before them—make one last run for California and its hope for renewal. They escape for the time being whatever it is that has dogged them all the way. Then, as in all great quests, Luce must turn back toward home, with little but prayer and the newly won knowledge of what matters most in this world as guide.