The weird part was, Grandma Clare had those letters, but Jo didn’t know anything about them. That had to mean it was a new find. A recent estate sale. Something Jo hadn’t seen yet.
While all that was swirling around in her head, the books from Arthur’s bookstore became the perfect distraction. Some pages had sticky notes, and now that Ocean knew Jo had marked them, she was even more obsessed. She started a list of every place she had flagged, planning to visit them all.
Her mom had promised they’d do a sightseeing day. Just the two of them. Ocean was still totally counting on it.
Some time after the moving guys left, Ocean’s mom called upstairs to say she had to run a few errands. She asked what she wanted for dinner.
Ocean didn’t answer.
A few minutes later, she heard footsteps on the stairs. Then a soft knock on her door, and she poked her head in.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Ocean said.
Her mom looked exhausted. And sad.
“I’m not selling the house tomorrow. The agent’s just giving me some numbers.”
“Whatever,” Ocean muttered, shrugging.
“Grandma’s funeral is next Wednesday.”
Ocean stared down at the open pages of the book in her lap, her throat tightening. Would that be it? The final step? Pack up and leave right after?
“We should go shopping for a dress before then.”
She shrugged again. Didn’t really care. Even though shopping used to be her thing.
“The bank closes at five. I have to get there before then. We’ll talk tonight.” She started to pull away, then paused and poked her head back in. “Take a look downstairs. It looks pretty cool. The way it used to be.”
She left the door open and went down the stairs. The second Ocean heard the front door click shut, she grabbed her dirty plate and headed downstairs.
What she saw made her feel like she’d come home.
The front room looked just like it had when Grandma was alive. The bookcases, her desk—everything was back in place. Ocean could almost see her sitting there, glasses low on her nose, while Ocean sprawled on the floor with her books.
Grandma used to smile and say that one day, this place would be Ocean’s if she wanted it. What do you think?
“What do I think?” Ocean repeated, her voice catching. “I want it. I’ll do it. I want to keep your memory alive.”
The words felt too big for her. Too grown-up. Too final. But she meant every single one. Saying them out loud made her chest ache, but it also felt…right. Like a promise. To Grandma. To herself.
She stabbed at a tear before it could fall and wandered into the sitting room. That room was back to normal too. Warm and familiar, like Grandma Clare had just stepped out for a minute and might come back in at any moment.
Then her eyes landed on the shelf of photo albums. She used to pull them down every time she visited. She’d sit and flip through them for hours, amazed that they had real printed pictures of her growing up. Not just some blurry screenshot on a phone.
Grandma Clare kept them. All of them.
Ocean put her plate in the kitchen sink and went back to the sitting room. She pulled half a dozen albums off the shelf, dropped to the floor, and sat right in the middle of them. It was memory time. Emotion time. The kind of time that sneaks up on you and makes your throat hurt for no reason.
She was flipping through her baby pictures. One of her wearing a sunhat way too big for her head. Another of her smearing cake all over her face at her first birthday.
It felt kind of strange, seeing herself frozen in time like that. Back when life was easy. Before things got messy. Before Grandma died. Before her mom stopped smiling so much.
Then she caught a whiff of lavender. Soft and sudden. A second later, Jo appeared, kneeling beside her like she’d been there the whole time, just waiting for the right moment to make herself seen.
Ocean didn’t bring up that morning. She figured Jo already knew about the real estate agent, about Skye’s plan to sell the house. Jo had a way of knowing things. She was nowhere and everywhere at once.
