“No you weren’t.”
“I swear. Burning hot.”
“But I’m so much older than twenty-three.”
“Okay, so when I was your age? We were one year into owning adairy farm! I was covered inmanuremost days. No social life, no friends, a barn that needed rebuilding, a mud season that wouldn’t quit, a baby and a toddler. No idea what I was doing. Do you think I didn’t have days when I woke up and wondered what the hell had happened, what path I was on? Nobody teaches you how to be a grown-up, Mae. It’s trial and error. Lots of error.”
Mae closes her eyes. “That makes me feel so much better,” she says softly. “To know that you were once a hot mess.”
“Many days,” says Natalie, “when the cameras are off, I still am. Now, let’s get some sleep. In the morning, we’ll figure all of this out.”
When she opens the door she sees Jordan standing there, taking in every word.
They tiptoe back down the stairs, and in the kitchen, they consider each other.
“You did a good job,” Jordan says. “You were great in there.”
Natalie shakes her head. “We’ve done a terrible job as big sisters,”she says. “It’s not just the recent money thing. She’s been struggling for a long time.”
“Terrible,” agrees Jordan. “Mom would be crushed.”
“Absolutely crushed,” Natalie says. “I get so caught up in my own life—”
“Me too,” says Jordan. “Definitely me too.”
“I told her to join aclub!”
“At least you told her something.”
“We should have known something was going on when we saw all the tattoos. That’s nothing against tattoos in general, but such an abundance is very un-Mae-like.”
“Yeah.” Jordan shakes her head. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know.”
“One of us has to take her home with us, right?”
“Like a rescue dog?”
“Very similar to a rescue dog. But a little better on the leash.”
“I would have scanned that code too,” Natalie confesses. “Especially if it was a really nice speaker.”
“I don’t think I would have,” says Jordan. Then, reconsidering, “I don’t know. Maybe I would have. I definitely would have reported it immediately when all my money was gone, though.”
“Wait,” says Natalie. “That’s your bed that I just put Mae into. Should I have tucked you in with her?”
Jordan shakes her head. “I’ll find somewhere else to sleep. It’s not just the snoring. I think I’m going to sleep outside. On the patio.”
“Ooooh,” says Natalie. “Under the stars.”
“Want to come?”
“I do,” says Natalie. “But I’d better go back to the kids.”
“We used to sleep on the patio once a summer, remember?”
Natalie nods. “Always in August. But we had to wait until Mom andDad went to bed because Mom thought we’d get kidnapped.” There’snothinglike falling asleep to the sound of the waves. “Kidnapped from a patio! In Rye! You can’t even see the patio from the street.”
