“And then,” Gabriel said, pausing his pacing to look at his wife, “maybe for the last night, the final dinner, I could drive you up. Just for a few hours. You and the twins. So you can see the house one more time before it's gone. I just think right now, you need a bit more time resting. It’s only a couple of days more.”
“Would that be okay?” Beth looked at Maggie. “Is that too much?”
“It's perfect,” Maggie said. “It's absolutely perfect. The whole family, together, one last time in that house. That's exactly how it should be.”
Maggie looked across the table to where Emily sat quietly, slightly apart from the others as she always was during intense family moments. She had been listening, her face attentive but unreadable.
“Emily,” Maggie said gently, “you're welcome to come with us tomorrow. To the house. If you'd like to.”
Emily was quiet for a moment, and Maggie could see her processing, considering her words with the careful deliberation that characterized so much of what she did.
“Thank you,” Emily said. “I appreciate that. But I think I should stay here.”
“You don't have to.”
“I want to.” Emily's voice was calm, matter-of-fact. “That house belongs to all of you. Your memories are there. Your childhood is there. I wasn't part of that. I didn't grow up in that house. I didn't learn to ride a bike in that driveway or mark my height on the kitchen doorframe. I don't have any claim to those memories, and I don't think I should pretend that I do.”
The table went quiet. Lauren and Sarah exchanged glances. Beth shifted Charlotte in her arms.
Emily continued, undeterred by the silence. “But I would like to watch. With Beth. On FaceTime.” A small smile crossed her face. “I've spent my whole life not knowing any of you. Not knowing where you came from or what your childhood was like. This is a chance to learn. To see where my siblings grew up, what shaped them. I can observe from here, and I can help Beth with the twins while I do it. That feels right to me. That feels like where I belong.”
Maggie felt her throat tighten. There was something so pure about Emily's honesty, so refreshing about her willingness to name what others might dance around.
“That's very self-aware,” Chelsea said softly.
“I've had a lot of practice,” Emily replied. “When you spend your whole life feeling like you don't quite fit, you learn to figure out where you do fit. And right now, I fit here. With Beth and the babies.” She paused.
Beth reached across the table and touched Emily's hand. “I'd like that. Having you here with me. We can watch together and you can ask me questions about everything. I'll tell you all the embarrassing stories about Lauren and Sarah, and they won’t be here to defend themselves. This is sounding better by the minute.”
“Hey,” Lauren protested.
“There are so many to choose from,” Beth continued, ignoring her. “Like the time Lauren got her head stuck in the porch railing.”
“I was seven!”
“Or the time Sarah tried to convince Mom she was adopted so she wouldn't have to share a room with Lauren anymore.”
“That was a reasonable strategy,” Sarah said. “Lauren snored.”
“I did not snore.”
“You snored like a freight train.”
Emily smiled, a real smile that reached her eyes. “I think I'm going to enjoy this.”
“You will,” Beth promised. “You definitely will.”
Maggie looked around the table at her family, the daughters she had raised, Daniel’s daughter, who she was still getting to know, the mother who had driven days to be here, the friend who had been by her side through everything. Tomorrow they would go back to the house where so much had happened, where so much had fallen apart and somehow been rebuilt. But tonight, they were all here, together, planning for the future instead of drowning in the past.
It felt like progress. It felt like healing.
“Okay,” she said. “So that's the plan. FaceTime for Beth and Emily, everyone else in the RV, and we'll take it one room at a time.”
“One room at a time,” Grandma Sarah agreed. “That's how you eat an elephant.”
“We're not eating an elephant, Mother.”
“It's a metaphor, Maggie. Honestly, I thought I raised you better than this.”
