Inside, Shepherd is observing Evangeline, their fair-haired four-year-old, as she sits at the counter of their open kitchen making a necklace. Carlile pulls into the driveway, hops down and lands light on the gravel.
It’s a misty midmorning in a scene out of Twin Peaks, with fog shrouding the evergreen trees around the log cabin she bought at 21, and now shares with her wife, Catherine Shepherd, and their two children.
“Sometimes, it says this one doesn’t even exist.” “Those things make up roads sometimes,” Carlile says. It’s not an easy house to find - even the GPS gets confused around here. Brandi Carlile is cruising down a steep road on her four-wheeler, her teal jacket flapping in the wind as she makes a sharp turn to her home in Maple Valley, Washington, a rural mountain town about 45 minutes outside of Seattle.