Was it too late for me to accept that? Too late to believe I was still worthy of someone showing up?
“Can I think about it?” I asked, lifting a mint green sweater from the top of one box. It was soft and hand-knit, with tiny booties to match. I rested it on my stomach. “I think this might be just your size, kid,” I whispered.
Daddy reached out and patted my back. “No rush. Take your time.” He started down the hallway, then paused. “Was your momma’s idea, by the way.”
I recoiled like the sweater had grown fangs. “Ew, no. Never mind then.”
He grinned. “Thought that might ruin it for you.”
Before he disappeared around the corner, he looked back. “You know... I don’t know much. But I figure if someone shows up—” he gestured toward the boxes, ”—trying to be better, trying to do right... maybe you meet them where they are. Maybe you get to know the version of them they’re trying to be.”
I stared at him, unsure if we were still talking about him or me or even Momma anymore.
Then he added, with a smile so dry it could start a fire, “And I’m guessing you haven’t driven a John Deere into a gazebo lately, bottle of whiskey in one hand, Spice Girls blasting full volume?”
I coughed out a laugh. “Can’t say that I have.”
“Right,” he said. “Well, then. Goodnight, Tallulah.”
Chapter Forty
CHARLIE
Thepencilscratchedacrossthe page in uneven lines, the graphite smudging under my palm. I blinked at what I’d created—if you could call it that. A few misshapen circles. A half-hearted horizon line. The beginnings of an installation I’d been dreaming of, misplaced, discarded items brought together to create something meaningful. But it wasn’t anything.
I crumpled the page and tossed it to the corner, where a mountain of other false starts had already claimed squatters’ rights—another failure, right on schedule.
The studio felt less like home these days and more like a prison. Maybe that was because I had nowhere to go. The bar was gone. Magnolia barely spoke. And Dane—Jesus. Hours before the fire, she’d walked in on him tangled up with Kasey, one of Magnolia’s bartenders, in the O’Malley’s office. The one person she trusted to help her keep the place running had been screwing the man who was supposed to love her.
She ended it right there, ring off, voice shaking, Kasey slinking out like the world’s worst scarlet letter. And then the fire started. Hours later, O’Malley’s was nothing but smoke and ash.
Nobody’d caught Dane yet. He and Kasey were on the run—some pathetic knockoff of Bonnie and Clyde, if Bonnie had a fake tan and Clyde wore boat shoes.
I didn’t even have the energy to be surprised. Of course, Dane would leave wreckage in his wake and walk away clean. That was his talent—the mess burned, and he kept moving.
I stood, stretching my back, and walked the few steps into the small bedroom tucked off to the side. It wasn’t anything fancy—just a full-sized bed, an overloaded bookshelf, and a lamp that flickered like it was in mourning too. But on the far wall, I’d hung the unfinished sketch.
Her.
The Waving Girl statue in the distance. The curve of the river. And her—silhouetted against it all, her hand resting gently on her bump, eyes fixed on the horizon beyond the frame. A replica of the one I’d given to Tally, or it was supposed to be.
It should’ve been beautiful. Itwasbeautiful. But I couldn’t finish it.
Not because I didn’t know how. But because we didn’t.
We didn’t finish.
I ran a hand over my jaw, letting my eyes trace the outline I’d drawn so many times I could still see it when I closed them. Shewas right there and completely out of reach, like every goddamn thing in my life.
The only person who ever made me feel like a part ofsomething realleft without a word in the middle of the night. And I couldn’t even blame her.
I didn’t bother brushing the charcoal off my hands. I changed my shirt, shoved on a clean pair of jeans, and grabbed my keys off the hook by the door—anything to get out of that damn studio.
Jones Street was quiet in that old-money way—dignified, expensive, and a little smug about it. I used to hate walking past those houses as a kid, with their gas lanterns flickering and their manicured window boxes that never seemed to wilt. The Wilder place sat halfway down the block—a wide wraparound porch, two perfect rocking chairs, and a front door painted a red that was definitely chosen by someone with generational wealth and a flair for design. It was the kind of house that saidwe’ve been here for a long time, and we’ll be here long after you’re gone.
Back then, it made me feel like I didn’t belong.
Now… it felt like another kind of home. Not because I’d earned it, exactly, but because Eunice Wilder never once made me feel like I had to.
