Page 163 of The Right Kind of Wrong

“That’s right,” Grace told him. “So if you need to go to the bathroom, you let Mama know. Remember?”

He nodded. “Yessum.”

“Everyone’s out back,” Blake said, leading them through the living room.

Grace put her hand on Blake’s arm, stopping her. “Before we head out, I just wanted to say, again, that I’m sorry. I thought so much this weekend about everything that’s happened.” She took a deep breath. “About how poorly I handled things. I’m just really glad that you’re open to giving me another chance.”

Blake’s lips shifted back and forth. She hadn’t expected an apology the first time, so hearing it again was absolutely wild.

But she wasn’t going to continue making Grace feel badly.

Today was a good first step, and more than that, she wanted Grace to get to know Monroe and Maisie.

Her people, she thought again, smiling. “I’m glad that you’ll get to spend some time with Monroe and Maisie. They’re really great.”

“Trust me, Chance has not stopped talking about Maisie. He thinks—because Maisie thinks—that it’s so cool that Monroe is an artist. He’s even talked about wanting to start at dance classes, too.”

They started walking toward the back door again, and Blake glanced over at her sister. “I can’t imagine Bill will be okay with that.”

She wasn’t trying to poke the hornets’ nest, but she didn’t want to encourage Chance if he mentioned it, especially if it was going to cause problems in their house.

Before, she’d accepted so many things as normal. Walking on eggshells around Noah. Bill’s uninformed comments about, well, everything. She’d just thought that, more than anything, keeping the peace had been the most important thing.

God, how funny that seemed now.

Blake opened the screen door so that Axel could run outside. Helped down the steps by Monroe, who gave them a wave, he quickly joined the group already playing on the jungle gym.

Grace looked at her sister, emotion in her voice when she told Blake, “I don’t want to raise my kids in a home like the one we grew up in. Where there’s only one way to do things and you’re made to feel like anything else is the kind of wrong that makes you feel so fucking small.”

Grace rarely swore, but Blake tried not to react to this new departure from her sister’s normal behavior.

Maybe change really had come to Cypress Falls.

But Blake knew exactly what her sister was saying, and Grace had nailed it perfectly. Blake had spent her whole life feeling small. Like she shouldn’t take up space. Like her value was in being told by other people that she was worthy because she followed their rules instead of feeling any sense of self-worth herself.

She’d never realized how much Grace had internalized it, too.

“Well, I think it would be great for him. Exercise. Community. Get him out of his shell a little bit. Those are all good things.” Blake looped her arm over her sister’s shoulder, pulling her closer. “Are you ready to head out there?”

“Does your girlfriend hate me?” Grace asked quietly. “I can’t imagine she’s heard very flattering things since the two of you got together.”

“The bad news for you is that Monroe’s always going to be on my side. The good news for you is also that Monroe’s always going to be on my side. Which means that if she sees that we’re working to get to a good place, then she’ll be the best person you’ve ever met.”

Grace’s eyebrows drew upward. “Should I ask what happens if we don’t get to a good place?”

Blake looked out toward the yard. Monroe was trying valiantly to wrangle the four kids, taking special care with Axel, whom she was currently holding while he climbed the rock wall.

Her heart was so full, watching Monroe. Getting to be a part of her life. The fact that she got to know Monroe in all the ways that Monroe had let her in made Blake feel like the luckiest person in the world.

She looked at her sister, serious as a heart attack when she said, “I love that woman to death, but it’s probably best that neither of us find out.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Monroe couldn’t wait for these paintings to be out of her house.

The delivery service would arrive tomorrow morning, and they’d spend the rest of the day wrapping and then packing the pieces before they’d be loaded into a truck and taken directly to the shipping company’s private hangar to be flown out to New York.

There was always a part of her process where she looked at her own brushstrokes and wondered who had made them.