“It was great. Nell and Brian have done an amazing job with the place. Sales are up and they’re running the real estate office so well, I think the idea of expansion might be something to talk about. They’re going to work with us to make sure everything runs smoothly for the sale. Michael has Nell’s number.”
“That’s sounds great. Listen, we’re getting hungry, so let’s think about getting take-out. Michael, what about you, do you want to stay and eat with us?”
He shook his head, “Thanks, Mom but no, I’ve got to get back.”
He hugged his mother, then his sisters, then Grandma Sarah and Chelsea. “Drive safe,” he said. “All of you. And Mom, call me from the road.”
“I will.”
“I mean it. Don't make me worry.”
“You're the third child to say that to me today.”
“There's probably a reason for that.”
Maggie touched his cheek. “I love you”
“I love you too.”
Michael climbed into his SUV and backed out of the driveway, leaving the five women standing in front of the empty house.
Maggie watched him drive away as the others went inside. It took her several minutes before she joined them.
Tomorrow, she would say her final goodbye to this house. She would walk through each room one last time, would visit the woodchuck's hole in the backyard, would close the door on twenty-three years of memories.
But tonight, she was surrounded by the women who loved her. Her mother, fierce and opinionated and more alive than most people half her age. Her daughters, grown and capable and ready to carry her forward. Her best friend, loyal through everything, willing to endure three days in a beige whale on wheels because that's what family did.
“Mom?” Sarah's voice came from the living room. “We're ordering pizza. What do you want?”
“Anything but anchovies.”
“That's very helpful.”
“I'm a very helpful person.”
Maggie took one last look at the height marks, then turned off the kitchen light and went to join her family.
Tomorrow would come soon enough.
Tonight, there was pizza and laughter and the comfort of not being alone.
CHAPTER 29
The morning was cold and gray, the kind of early spring day that couldn't decide if it wanted to be winter or not.
She remembered each marking, the birthday rituals, the children standing straight against the wood, the arguments about whether someone was standing on their tiptoes. She remembered Michael's pride when he finally passed her height, Christopher's frustration that his older brother was always a few inches ahead, the year Lauren and Sarah were exactly the same height and declared themselves twins despite being two years apart.
Beth's marks stopped lower than the others, her final measurement taken the summer before she left for college. She had been so eager to leave, so ready to start her own life. Maggie had stood in this same spot after Beth drove away, touching the yellow lines and crying into the empty house.
Now Beth had twins of her own. Someday, she would mark their heights on a doorframe in the farmhouse, would watch them grow inch by inch, would feel the same bittersweet ache of time passing too quickly.
The cycle continuing. The story going on.
“Mom?” Lauren's voice came from the front of the house. “The RV's packed. We're ready when you are.”
“One minute.”
Maggie traced the highest mark, Michael's final measurement, taken when he was seventeen, and then let her hand drop. The new owners would probably paint over these lines, would never know they were there. But that was okay. The marks weren't the memories. They were just evidence that the memories had happened.
