I’m not sure how to answer that because I didn’t say no. But I didn’t say yes, either. And Hartley walked out without saying a word to me, and I don’t know whatthatmeans.
Marriage?
“I’m not asking you to fall in love. I’m not asking you to have a baby. I’m simply asking you to give this place that I love dearly a chance before you sell it or let it ruin you. That’s all. And marriage is the only way I can see it working.”
“That’s what I thought,” Markie says.
My gaze lifts to hers. “I’m just replaying it in my mind. I can’t believe this is real.” I shrug. “Why didn’t she offer it to you and let me cash out?”
“I think she has her reasons.”
“Well, I don’t understand them. You get off with a freaking check. How is that fair?”
“First of all,” she says, sounding like our mother, “we’re discussing a very large inheritance here. I think we need to keep some perspective. This is a very real first-world problem.”
I snort. “I feel more like the stepsister who has to marry?—”
“Who? A prince?”
I roll my eyes. Her insinuation isn’t lost on me, but the point isn’t that Hartley could easily play the role of the handsome white knight in a princess movie. It’s that I don’t want to be the princess.
“Listen, I have a house … well, a mortgage,” Markie says. “And when Lolly asked me what I thought about selling to thedeveloper, I said that I’d hate to see the house torn down, but I’m ready to write my own story elsewhere. She agreed. But if she just turned it over to you, you’d just sell it without a second thought.”
“Wouldn’t that be my decision to make?”
“Yeah.” She smiles sadly. “But you’ve never given Sugar Creek a chance, Mira. And I really think that Lolly worries that you’ll be this nomad your whole life and will never find a sense of community. You’ll never have people around to love you.”
“Maybe that’s by design,” I say matter-of-factly. But even as I say it, I begin to understand what Markie’s trying to say.Worse?It makes sense.
Lolly has always worried that Markie and I will have no one after she passes away, and that fear only got worse when Pop died a couple of years ago. It’s made her restless, and I know she spends more energy worrying about me than she does my sister. I hate that I cause her such grief.
“Do you think she’s dying or something?” I ask.
“No. I heard Dr. Isaacson tell her that she’s as healthy as a horse about a month ago.”
I nibble my bottom lip and let that thought go.
“Let me ask you a question,” Markie says. “Before we go any further with this, I think we need to establish one thing.” She searches my eyes. “Do you want Lolly’s house?”
A weight drops on my chest, and I struggle to inhale. It’s so complicated. That place is full of some of my bestand worstmoments. I know it’s been a long time, but I can feel my mom at Lolly’s. I can hear Pop’s laughter. It’s the closest thing that I have to a home, even if I can’t walk into a room and predict whether I’m going to smile or tear up.
But the thought of someone else with a tire swing in the hickory tree, remodeling Lolly’s kitchen, or painting Mom’s bedroom, which Lolly has left alone all of these years, makes mewant to puke. My life lives inside that house. Every version of myself, from the preteen waiting on her parents to come back, to the twentysomething woman still trying to outrun losing them, exists in those walls. And I don’t know if keeping the house would heal me or trap me there forever.
“Wanna know what I think?” Markie asks.
“Sure.”
“I think you should do it.”
My stomach wobbles. “Why?”
“Because if she sells it, the decision’s final. You can never go back. But if you agree to her terms, you’ll guarantee yourself a year to figure out what you want. And maybe when the year is up, you’ll know for sure that you do or don’t want to sell it.” She grins. “I think living for the next fifty years knowing that you had time to make the right decision will age better than panic-choosing to let it go.”
Oof.
Panic-choosing to let it go is exactly what I’d be doing.
I stretch my legs in front of me, and the adrenaline begins to subside. A chill touches my skin as I climb out of fight-or-flight mode, and as I exhale, it reminds me of a balloon deflating all the way.
