Joan sat on my parents’ front porch. She took a sip from a giant water bottle and eyed the car warily, like it held a troop of killer clowns instead of exactly one hundred percent of her immediate family.
But I was determined to make this go well, so I took a deep breath and opened the back passenger door, ensuring my smile was wide and genuine. “Hey, Joanie.”
My sister—the person I’d admired my whole life—stood and walked down the six porch stairs in her old work boots. “Hi, Candy. Welcome back.” Joan sounded like she always did, straightforward and a little gruff, but there was a chill in her demeanor that had my shoulders tensing.
It all devolved into painful awkwardness from there. I went in for a hug and Joan froze.
“I’m sweaty and gross,” she said, putting her hands up to ward me off. “Been out here all afternoon.” With a quick glance down my body, she added, “Wouldn’t want to get you all dirty.”
“Oh. Okay. Sure.” My black trousers and silk button-up felt suddenly tight and uncomfortable.
Joan had been twenty-seven when I’d left home. We were in a family group chat together—one she rarely participated in. And I’d seen her on three separate Christmases, when I’d met my family in Virginia to celebrate the holiday with my mother’s family. There hadn’t really been video calls or even phone calls in the intervening years.
Joan had mostly always been an adult. The adultiest adult in any room. Our dad liked to joke that she was born forty-five and just got progressively more middle-aged every year. The last time Joan and I had any meaningful sort of relationship, I’d been a dumb teenager, hell-bent on escaping from her favorite place in the whole world.
I knew she didn’t understand me, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted her to. The prospect of being found lacking was highly likely, and her criticism didn’t feel like the sort of thing I could handle right now.
My parents joined us and shifted our awkwardness face-off into a rectangle of unease.
With two hands full of luggage, Brady called helpfully from the trunk of the car, “I’ll take these up to the apartment.”
Frowning, I glanced between my parents. “I’m not staying in my old room?”
Mom smiled and squeezed my arm. “We thought you’d like your own space. I set you up in the apartment over the garage.”
“Yeah, the one they remodeled for Mamaw,” Joan added, something in her voice sounding like a challenge. I couldn’t imagine why she felt the need for that. There was never any competition between us, not one I could win, anyway.
Of course, I knew about the apartment. Mamaw Murray—my maternal grandmother—had suffered a stroke several years ago. My parents had made accommodations for her here so that she had family nearby that could help with her care. It was why we stopped meeting for Christmas in Virginia. Mamaw had relocated to Kirby Falls out of necessity.
Joan snapped her fingers like she’d just remembered something. “That’s right. You were too busy to come to your grandmother’s funeral.”
I could feel the blood leave my face. Guilt and shame fought for control as I shifted on my feet.
I hadn’t attended Mamaw Murray’s funeral. I’d been on deadline for my internship when she’d passed away last year. The bridge troll I’d worked for wouldn’t give me the time off, despite my red eyes and visible grief over the loss of my last remaining grandparent. He’d told me that if I left, he’d fire me and never provide a decent reference as long as I lived. I’d called home crying and so damn ashamed.
But I’d survived that internship and gotten the recommendation I needed to land a better position with Blakely Hammond Marketing this spring. Though that hadn’t worked out like I’d wanted either.
“Joan,” my mother hissed in admonishment.
“I wanted to be there,” I managed to say through my embarrassment, gaze straying toward the grass beneath my feet.
Before my mother could rush in to make things better—as was her way—Joan sighed. “I need to get back to it.”
“But—” Mom started.
“I’ll be back in time for dinner,” Joan assured her, and then stalked off into the rows of apple trees lining the property, her long, lean form eating up the space.
I watched her back disappear behind thick green leaves, and then I watched some more. Vaguely, I could hear my parents juggling the flowers and the balloons and beckoning me to come into the house when I was ready. But my mind snagged on all the things I’d missed.
Not just the big things, like holidays and birthdays and the funeral for my grandmother. But the small things too. Being back in Kirby Falls made me suddenly very aware of the years I’d been away. I’d never seen my brother’s apartment in town. I didn’t know where Joan lived. I couldn’t even imagine the spaces they occupied or who they spent their free time with. Did my sister have a dog? Did Brady still hang out with Floyd Ellerby and Jase Wilcox and Cole Abernathy, like he did in high school? Did my family still get together for pizza nights down at Apollo’s on Main Street?
I didn’t have answers to any of those very basic questions, and for what, because of the dream I’d been chasing? Doing whatever I could to live up to my parents’ expectations and trying to figure out a way to take a country girl with good grades and a bright future and make her special. My goals had always been lofty. I had wanted to make something of myself. Be someone that Nick and Amy Judd could truly be proud of...in a different way than my siblings.
In the process, I’d done my level best to distance myself from my hometown and my Southern accent and my nickname and the way people saw me.
I sighed as seven years of regret and self-doubt worked to tighten every muscle in my body with unease.
In the distance, I could hear the rumble of a truck. It was coming from the direction of the farm. The Apple House, the main building that both acted as the storefront and housed the machinery for sorting, washing, and pressing apples for Judd’s Orchard, was deeper on the property, a short quarter of a mile behindmy parents’ house. There was a separate entrance farther down the highway for farm visitors, but there’d always been a dirt path between our home and the public-facing structures for easy access.
