The drive took nearly eight hours.

As the sun began to rise, the flat, wealthy landscape of Connecticut gave way to the rolling, mist-covered mountains of my childhood.

The air felt different here—heavy with the smell of wet earth and coal dust.

It was a world away from the manicured lawns of Greenwich.

We drove past dilapidated barns and rusting pickup trucks parked in gravel driveways.

My chest tightened as we neared my hometown of Beckley.

“Do you remember the way?” Nathan asked, his eyes scanning the narrow, winding road.

“I could find it in my sleep,” I said.

We turned onto a dirt road that wound up the side of a steep hill.

The trees here grew thick and wild, their branches reaching out like fingers over the car.

At the end of the road stood the small, wooden house where I had raised my siblings.

The porch was sagging, and the paint was peeling away in gray strips.

It looked small and fragile against the massive backdrop of the mountains.

Nathan parked the car under a weeping willow tree.

“Is this it?” he asked gently.