Beth looked at her husband, her expression softening. “I know you have reservations. I guess we should have talked more about it before I invited her.”
“You didn't just invite her to visit,” Gabriel said, sitting down across from her. “You invited her to stay. To live here. To become part of our daily life.”
“I did. Because I think it could work. For her and for us.” Beth set down her coffee cup. “Gabriel, I know Emily is different. I know she doesn't always say the right thing or read the room the way other people do. But that's part of what I love about her. She doesn't play games. She doesn't pretend. What you see is what you get.”
“I'm not concerned about her being different. I'm thinking about the timing. We're about to have twins. Our lives are about to become chaos. Is this really the moment to bring someone new into the house?”
“Maybe it's exactly the right moment.” Beth leaned forward, her voice earnest. “Think about it. We need help. Real help, not just visitors who come for a week and then leave. My family will go back to Florida eventually. Your dad and James have the workshop to run. But Emily? Emily doesn't have anywhere else she needs to be. She's looking for a place to belong, and we have a place that needs her.”
“The orchard,” Gabriel said slowly.
“The orchard. The farm. All of it.” Beth's hand moved to her belly. “And the babies. Not as a nanny, not as hired help, but as family. An aunt who's present, who's part of their lives from the very beginning.”
Gabriel was quiet, his eyes on his wife's face. Maggie could see him thinking, weighing the possibilities.
“What if it doesn't work?” he asked. “What if we all get on each other's nerves, or Emily decides she doesn't like it here, or the arrangement falls apart?”
“Then we figure it out. We adjust. We find a new plan.” Beth reached across the table and took his hand. “Gabriel, nothing about our life is guaranteed. We're about to become parents to two babies at once. If that's not a leap of faith, I don't know what is. Emily staying here is just another leap. And I believe it's worth taking.”
“She's right,” Maggie said quietly. “Emily has spent her whole life feeling like she doesn't quite fit anywhere. Her mother's family never fully accepted her. Her father's family didn't know she existed for years. She's been floating, searching for a place where she belongs. If you open your home to her, if you give her real work to do and a real role to play, you might be giving her the first true home she's ever had.”
Gabriel glanced at Paolo, who gave a nod. “Family isn’t always about blood. Sometimes, it’s about the connections we make. Emily may not have chosen to join the Wheeler family, but she’s a part of it now. The real question is, will you choose her in return?”
The kitchen fell silent again. Outside, the rooster crowed once more, and somewhere in the distance a cow answered with a low, mournful sound. The noises of farm life, continuing on regardless of the human dramas unfolding within the farmhouse walls.
Finally, Gabriel answered Paolo. “I guess we take it one day at a time. We’ll do everything we can to make it work.”
Beth's eyes filled with tears. “That's all I'm asking.”
She pushed herself up from the chair, a process that required Gabriel's assistance, and wrapped her arms around him as best she could with her belly between them. Maggie watched them,these two people who had found each other against all odds and felt a familiar warmth spread through her chest.
This was what family looked like. Not perfection, but effort. Not certainty, but faith. The willingness to take a chance on someone, to make room in your life for one more person who needed a place to belong.
Paolo caught her eye and smiled. He understood. He always did.
“Well,” Chelsea's voice came from the doorway, startling all of them. “I step away for one morning shower and miss what sounds like a very important conversation.” She padded into the kitchen in her robe and slippers, her hair wrapped in a towel. “Someone catch me up while I make breakfast.”
The mood lightened as Chelsea bustled around the kitchen, pulling out eggs and bread and asking questions about Emily. Maggie watched her friend navigate the unfamiliar space, opening drawers and cabinets, searching for tools and ingredients. Chelsea was adapting to the farm the same way Maggie was, learning its rhythms and layouts, making herself at home in a place that was not her home.
By the time breakfast was on the table, the tension had dissolved into something that felt like excitement. Emily was coming. A new chapter was beginning. And the farmhouse, already full of love and anticipation, was about to welcome one more.
After the meal, Gabriel offered to show Maggie and Paolo the workshop. They walked across the yard in the crisp morning air, their breath forming small clouds that dissipated in the sunshine. The ground was soft beneath her feet, not the paved driveways and manicured lawns of Andover but actual earth, dark and rich and slightly muddy from recent rain.
Maggie looked around as they walked, taking in details she had missed in the darkness of her arrival. A chicken coop near the barn, its occupants clucking and scratching in their enclosure. A vegetable garden, dormant now but marked by neat rows of raised beds. A tractor parked beside a shed, its red paint faded by years of use.
This was a working property. A place where things grew and were tended and harvested. It was as foreign to Maggie as another country, and yet her daughter had made it her home.
The workshop doors were tall and wide, designed to accommodate the large pieces of furniture that Gabriel and his family created. He pulled one open and gestured for Maggie to enter, and she stepped into a space that immediately felt like a world unto itself.
The smell hit her first. Sawdust and wood stain and the particular warmth of air that had been heated by work. It was different from anything in her experience, not the salt air of Captiva or the suburban neutrality of Andover but something earthier, more elemental. The smell of creation, of raw materials being transformed into something new.
The light was golden, streaming through high windows, illuminating dust motes that danced in the beams. Workbenches lined the walls, covered with tools and drawings and pieces of projects in various stages of completion. Maggie recognized some of the tools from her father's basement workshop, where he had puttered on weekends, but the scale here was different. This was not a hobby. This was a livelihood.
And the furniture. Maggie's breath caught as she took it in. Tables and chairs and cabinets, each one crafted with a precision and artistry that spoke of years of practice. A dining table dominated the center of the room, its surface gleaming, its legs carved with a delicate pattern that looked like vines.
“Gabriel,” she breathed. “This is extraordinary.”
He ducked his head, pleased but embarrassed. “It's a teameffort. Dad does most of the carving work since he’s moved back here. James handles the finishing. I'm better at the structural pieces.”
