There was an image attached.

It showed Valerie sitting on a teak beach lounger, holding a tropical drink with a pineapple wedge.

She was wearing a large straw hat and a pair of oversized sunglasses that reflected the Hawaiian ocean.

I didn’t reply.

I deleted the text and turned the phone face down on the table.

The silence of the small apartment was comforting.

The kids were asleep.

I closed my eyes and pictured the land as my father had bought it forty years ago.

It had been nothing but cedar trees, limestone rock, and wild grass.

My father had loved the simplicity of the Texas hill country.

He had hated the massive plaster mansions that started creeping up the ridges in the nineties.

“They build boxes to hide from the sky, Alex,” he used to tell me.

Now, I was about to give him his sky back.

***

The sun had not yet risen on Tuesday morning when the first flatbed truck rumbled up the steep driveway.

The headlights cut through the thick Austin fog, illuminating the white limestone mailbox.