“And then what happens to the house?” Sarah asked.
“I’ve given this some thought and I think you should let me handle the sale,” Lauren said. “It makes sense. I’m not looking for any money here, but I’ve got all the resources you need with my real estate business up here. I’m going to talk to Nell and Brian and make sure they can be available to help. I’ll talk to Michael today to have him involved as well. He’ll most likely be the one present at closing since I’ll be in Sarasota.”
Maggie’s face lit up. “I was hoping you’d say that. Thank you, honey. I’ll rest easier knowing you have everything under control.”
“You're quiet,” Chelsea observed.
“Just thinking about the house. About the family that's buying it.”
“Are you sad?”
Maggie considered the question. “Not sad, exactly. More like...aware. Aware that a chapter is ending. Aware that I'll most likely never walk through that door again after this week. Aware that the most important years of my life happened in that house.”
“It'll still be part of you,” Grandma Sarah said from the driver's seat. “Houses don't disappear just because you don't live in them anymore. Every meal you cooked there, every birthday you celebrated, every argument you had and made up from—all of that lives inside you now. The house was just the container. You're what mattered.”
Maggie felt tears prick at her eyes. “You’re very wise, Mother.”
“I've always been wise. You children just never listened.”
From the back, Lauren's voice drifted forward. “Remember when we used to fight about who got the front seat on car trips? Sarah used to fake carsickness so Mom would let her sit up front.”
“I did not fake it,” Sarah protested.
“You had a miraculous recovery every single time you got the front seat.”
“I have a sensitive constitution.”
“You have a manipulative constitution.”
“Says the woman who convinced Mom she was allergic to chores.”
“I was allergic to chores. It was a documented medical condition.”
“It was documented nowhere.”
“It was documented in my heart.”
Grandma Sarah glanced in the rearview mirror. “You two do realize you're adults now, right?”
“Age is just a number,” Lauren said.
“And maturity is just a suggestion,” Sarah added.
“I don't know where I went wrong with you people,” Maggie said laughing
“You went wrong by raising us to have strong opinions,” Lauren said. “Now you have to live with the consequences.”
“The consequences are exhausting, but the truth is, I raised you to be strong women, and you are. I don’t regret a thing.”
They were on Route 114 now, winding through the landscape that Maggie knew as well as her own reflection. Stone walls lined the road, built by farmers centuries ago and still standing, still marking boundaries that no longer meant anything. Old farmhouses sat back on rolling lawns, their windows catching the morning light. The occasional white church steeple rose above the trees, a reminder of the New England that existed before strip malls and subdivisions.
“I forgot how pretty it is here,” Chelsea said quietly. “I mean, Captiva is beautiful, but this is different.”
“I must admit, I loved living in Andover,” Maggie said.
“Do you miss it? Massachusetts, I mean. Not just the house.”
Maggie thought about the question. Did she miss it? She missed the seasons, the way fall set the trees on fire and winterblanketed everything in white. She missed the history, the sense of walking on ground that had been walked on for hundreds of years. She missed the way the light slanted through the windows in late afternoon, the way the air smelled after a summer rain.
