At five in the morning, my cabin security alarm shattered the silence and my phone started buzzing — the young guard at the gate whispered, “Ma’am, your daughter-in-law just arrived with a moving truck and three men. She’s saying she owns the place now. I didn’t run to the door. I didn’t beg or argue. I stared at the Colorado mountains outside my window and simply told him, “Let her in.”

He launched into descriptions. She was smart, he said, ambitious. She worked in finance, managing portfolios for private clients. She’d grown up on the East Coast, moved to Denver for work, and loved hiking just as much as he did. They’d met at a networking event, started talking about trail recommendations, and it had grown from there.

“She wants to meet you,” Daniel said. “I told her all about the cabin, about you. She’s really excited.”

I smiled, though something in my chest tightened just slightly. A mother’s instinct, perhaps. Or maybe just the fear that comes with knowing your child’s heart is now in someone else’s hands.

“I’d love to meet her,” I said. “Bring her up whenever you’d like. I’ll make dinner.”

“Really? That would be amazing. How about next weekend?”

“Next weekend is perfect.”

We talked for a few more minutes, and when we hung up, I stood there in the garden, phone still in hand, staring at the mountains in the distance.

I told myself I was being overprotective, that every mother worries when their child falls in love, that I should be happy for him.

But somewhere deep inside, in a place I couldn’t quite name, I felt the first stirring of unease.

Daniel had always seen the best in people.

And I had always been the one who saw what lay beneath.

I went back to planting my seeds, pressing them into the soil with steady hands, whispering a quiet hope that I was wrong, that Melissa would be everything my son believed she was. That I wouldn’t have to protect him from the person he was learning to love.

But hope, I’d learned over the years, was not the same as certainty.

And certainty was something I would need to find for myself.

The following Saturday arrived with clear skies and temperatures warm enough to eat outside. I spent the morning preparing, not out of nerves, but out of respect for the occasion. Meeting the woman my son loved deserved effort.

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