She ruffled my hair, then went inside to gather her pickleball gear. Or perhaps to cry, because that’s what I felt like I wanted to do.
After a few beats, I hurried after her, bypassing Tiff, who was pouring herself a coffee in the kitchen. Ignoring her offer to make me a cup, I raced to my bedroom and dove under the covers, trying to hide every little part of me from the world.
The soft duvet blocked out most of the day’s light, but not the four lead weights that promptly landed on my belly.
‘Oof,’ I said, before realizing that the lead weights belonged to my favourite resident feline. Cleo always knew when someone was feeling poorly, and had an excellent home remedy: the squish leap, followed by a solid round of biscuit-making on your stomach.
I let Cleo under the covers, stroking her soft fur as she settled in to begin her biscuit-kneading.
‘Hey, sweet girl,’ I said. ‘I guess you heard about Rosie’s plans, huh.’
Cleo meowed softly, as though to say,Yes, I have, and I’m as distraught as you.
I tried to think how old Cleo was. She’d celebrated so many Summerweens with us, which meant she’d been there for so many of our best – and worst – moments. She’d woken us meowing on the many, many mornings we’d desperately tried to sleep in after spending the night drinking on the beach. She’d sunbathed with us out on the comfortable lawn furniture,relaxing under the gentle Summerween sun as the days passed and we had nothing but full bellies and delightful conversation to show for it. She’d definitely looked on judgementally as we’d climbed through windows late at night after sneaking out for midnight swimming sessions under the full moon.
Things had been so much easier then. Yes, we’d had school stress and job stress and romance stress. But we’d all existed together in a balance where things justworked. And now look at how things were going. Noah spent most of his days hiding in the studio. Finn was becoming increasingly erratic. Mom was stressed about her new client. Tiff was struggling with Damien. And I, well … I was a disaster.
No wonder Rosie was thinking about selling.
We couldn’t lose the Pink House.Icouldn’t lose the Pink House. But it wasn’t up to me. The only thing I could do was help Rosie see that life at the Pink House could be good again. Not the same, of course – it could never be the same without Charlie – but stillgood. Perhaps, if we could make the house a place of love and positivity once more, she’d change her mind about wanting to sell, about this Summerween being our last one. Because the thought of that made my heart ache even more than the thought of having to choose between Noah and Finn.
Josephine’s ring smarted on my finger, and I realized that I didn’t have much time. Because just one moonstone remained undamaged – and given all the wayward magic we’d been experiencing, I didn’t want to find out what happened when they all went dark.
Chapter 29
TREE OF HEARTS
It was Tiff who eventually found me: I’d sloughed off my bedsheets after a solid cry and had jogged my way down the boardwalk to the clearing with the Heart Tree. I’d been there for an hour before hurrying up to Lorraine’s for some snacks and a bathroom break, then returned for some additionalpoor mes.
‘I thought I’d find you here,’ Tiff said gently. ‘Rosie told me what she said to you. About selling the Pink House.’
‘I can’t believe she’s even thinking about it,’ I said, scuffing my toe through the sand. I sighed. ‘I understand why, of course.Iwant to run away from everything, and what I’m dealing with is a fraction of Rosie’s stress and hurt. I just can’t believe that this might be our last Summerween.’
Tiff dropped down beside me, nibbling the rest of my chocolate croissant as she gazed out at the calm ocean.
She took a deep breath, as though she were about to say something, but didn’t.
Perhaps she needed a moment. I certainly did.
As I had at least a dozen times since I’d camped out here earlier this afternoon, I shuffled over to the Heart Tree, running a finger over all the proclamations of love carved into it, shivering as tiny memories burst up in front of me: two college kids promising to stick together despite going to school in different states, two girls with eighties perms embracing passionately; an elderly couple returning to re-carvetheir missive from decades before. And then Josephine’s carving, which fizzled into nothingness at my touch. There was something about the hollowness of it that broke my heart.
‘I can’t believe she chose neither of them,’ I said.
But then I thought of Josephine’s evasiveness when I’d directly asked her about her love life:We’re not here to talk about me. We’re here to talk about you.
I thought of what Keiko had said. Sure, there was something to choosing yourself, but only when that was therightchoice, and not a choice made out of fear.
‘She didn’t,’ said Tiff gently. She pressed her fingertips to the tree, and a set of initials appeared there in searing purple – just for an instant.E. M.
‘She chose Emmett? The rich guy?’
I frowned. So shehadmade a decision? If that was the case, then why …
‘She chose wrong,’ said Tiff. ‘She took so long to make her choice that there wasn’t really a choice left. She married Emmett in the end, but she couldn’t live with it. So she—’
‘Wait, she didn’tkillhim, did she?’
Tiff shot me a sad smile. ‘No, nothing like that. They just lived unhappily for a few years. Then they separated. She tried to erase the whole experience using magic. The ring, the tree, the town records. I asked the whisperwinds. And Betty at the library,’ she explained. ‘Betty knowsallthe gossip. She’s like the embodiment of lore.’
