Chap­ter 4 opens with the close of sum­mer, as Tam­my sug­gests that my role in look­ing after Abi­gail is no longer nec­es­sary. Despite her insis­tence, I con­tin­ue to help with var­i­ous respon­si­bil­i­ties, such as mak­ing sure Abi­gail attends her math club meet­ings, gets her vac­ci­na­tions on sched­ule, and sees a den­tist for her many cav­i­ties. The den­tist, alarmed by the extent of her den­tal issues, referred us to an ortho­don­tist who expressed aston­ish­ment at the con­di­tion of her teeth, say­ing, “She’s going to need a lot of braces.” This remark led to an extend­ed bat­tle with Penn­syl­va­nia Med­ic­aid, which pre­ferred more cost-effec­tive options, while I stood firm in my deci­sion to pri­or­i­tize qual­i­ty care for Abi­gail. Ulti­mate­ly, I end­ed up cov­er­ing most of the den­tal costs myself, hop­ing that the invest­ment would pay off in the long run, even though it left me finan­cial­ly stretched.

By the time Octo­ber rolled around, our rou­tine had become com­fort­ably ingrained. One after­noon, Tam­my called to ask me to pick up Abi­gail from school due to a work com­mit­ment. I drove my Jeep to the school, and when we returned home, I made tacos for din­ner while Abi­gail spread out her home­work on the liv­ing room floor, dili­gent­ly work­ing through her assign­ments. After­ward, I cleaned up the kitchen and we set­tled down to watch a cook­ing show on Net­flix, which fea­tured a hilar­i­ous series of bak­ing fail­ures. It was a light­heart­ed end to the evening, and after some down­time, I sent Abi­gail to bed with a half-hour of read­ing from her favorite fan­ta­sy nov­el about War­rior Cats. The small rou­tine of shared moments like this had become a source of com­fort for me.

That night, as I was say­ing good­night to Abi­gail, my eyes were drawn to a pecu­liar sight in her room. Above her dress­er, amidst her usu­al play­ful room dec­o­ra­tions, hung a map. It was a topo­graph­i­cal map of Lake Wyn­d­ham, locat­ed near Osprey Cove, and marked with a bright red “X” at its deep­est point. I asked Abi­gail about the map, and she explained that it had been a gift from Aidan, who had giv­en it to her after their trip to New Hamp­shire. She eager­ly told me that it was a trea­sure map, her excite­ment fill­ing the room. “One day, I’m going back to Osprey Cove to look for the X. You should come,” she said, her eyes wide with antic­i­pa­tion. When I inquired whether she had shown the map to Tam­my, she replied no, men­tion­ing that Tam­my had warned her not to dis­cuss Osprey Cove because of poten­tial reper­cus­sions. This imme­di­ate­ly raised my con­cerns, so I sat down to explain my belief that Abi­gail had mis­un­der­stood the sig­nif­i­cance of the map, sug­gest­ing that Aidan may have meant to give her mon­ey instead of a map.

The con­ver­sa­tion turned to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the $1,000 I had hid­den in my suit­case being a more like­ly “trea­sure” in the equa­tion. This idea sparked an ani­mat­ed dis­cus­sion between Abi­gail and me, where we agreed that she could trade the map for cash. With enthu­si­asm, she took eighty-four dol­lars, over­joyed by the unex­pect­ed wind­fall. I, how­ev­er, was left stand­ing there, feel­ing con­flict­ed and uneasy. Hold­ing the map, I was filled with a sense of dis­qui­et, know­ing that its ori­gin and pur­pose were still unclear. I could­n’t shake the feel­ing that this sim­ple exchange might have pro­found impli­ca­tions, even if Abi­gail seemed bliss­ful­ly unaware of the larg­er pic­ture. The weight of the map, both phys­i­cal and metaphor­i­cal, hung in the air as I won­dered what role it would play in our lives in the future, and what secrets it might hold.