“Come back to the house,” Fiona said. “Now.”
“I’m with Bea. We had plans.”
“I don’t care about your plans. Come back. We need to talk.”
“Mum—”
“Now, Stella.”
The line went dead.
Bea was watching her with wide eyes. “Thatsounded bad.”
“It was bad.”
“What are you going to do?”
Stella looked at her coffee, still warm in her hands. At the sunshine on the sidewalk. At this morning that had been so perfect five minutes ago.
“Go back, I guess.” She stood. “Rain check on the vintage store?”
“Obviously. Text me later?”
“Yeah.”
She drove back to Margo’s cottage with her stomach in knots, the coffee turning sour in her gut. The route was familiar now—she’d driven it a dozen times, maybe more. Left on Coast Highway, right on Cliff Drive, past the house with the ugly fence, down the narrow street to Margo’s garden gate.
Fiona was waiting on the porch.
She looked smaller than usual, somehow. Arms wrapped around herself, shoulders tight, face pale. Not angry, Stella realized as she parked. Scared.
That was almost worse.
“Inside,” Fiona said as Stella approached. “Please.”
The cottage was quiet, though Stella could hear the faint, rhythmic scratching of a brush from Margo’s painting shed at the back of the house.
Stella had seen Tyler’s text about Rick’s visit, about Bernie’s observations, about everyone figuring things out. Everyone was dealing with their own crisis today.
Fiona was already pacing the living room by thetime Stella closed the door. Back and forth in front of the window, arms still wrapped around herself.
“Sit down,” Fiona said without looking at her.
Stella sat on the couch. Watched her mother pace.
“You should have told me,” Fiona said. “About the driving.”
“I know.”
“You should have asked me.”
“Would you have said yes?”
Fiona’s jaw tightened. “That’s not the point.”
“It’s exactly the point. You would have said no. You would have said I wasn’t ready, or it wasn’t safe, or I should wait until I was back in Sydney. So I didn’t ask.”
“Because I knew you’d say no to anything that made my life here more real.”
