“I didn’t think that, no. But being with Candace is what your parents wanted. They said so in their will, and I want to respect their wishes. But I’m still here for you girls. Always.”
Julia swallowed hard. “But you don’t want us.”
“Oh, Jules. I need to come over there.”
“No, I’ll be fine,” Julia said, trying to stifle her own tears, which were starting. “I’m sorry I asked. It’s a big ask, I know.”
“Listen, you can call me any time, day or night. I’m on your side, even though I’m betting it doesn’t feel that way right now.” Eliza sighed audibly, and Julia could hear her struggle.
When Julia hung up, a fresh loneliness washed over her. She crossed Eliza’s name off the list in her journal with a permanent black marker. It seemed fitting. Chloe was next.
She answered on the first ring. “What’s up?”
“Can you come over? There’s something I need to talk to you about. Something big.”
Chloe was a terrible procrastinator and always late to everything; intrigue might get her moving.
“Is this about Sam?” She was chewing gum loudly. “You’ve been very secretive lately. I had a feeling something was up.”
“What? No. Not everything in my life is about Sam, you know,” Julia said.
“If you say so.” She cracked a bubble in Julia’s ear.
“Just come over, and I’ll tell you.”
“Whatever you say, mystery girl. This better be good.” But to her credit, she was there within fifteen minutes, a record.
Once they were upstairs in Julia’s bedroom with the door closed, Chloe flopped on her bed and stretched out against her decorative pillows. “So, you’ve got big news? Spill.” There was a hand-stitched embroidered pillow from her mother, and Julia’s heart did a pitter patter as Chloe propped herself up with it.
“I need to ask you something. And I need you to be totally honest with me. I’ll be okay if you say no.”
Chloe’s eyes widened as she listened, and for once she didn’t interrupt. Julia told her almost everything, leaving out the fact that she’d asked Eliza first. Chloe could be sensitive. Now was not the time to deal with drama. “So, what do you think?” Julia asked when she finished.
Chloe was not just open to the idea, she was obsessed. “Oh my God—we could be, like, sisters!” Her face lit up. “It makes total sense. We’re together all the time anyway. And my parents already know what it’s like to have two kids. What’s two more?”
Despite her nerves, Julia found herself laughing as her friend gushed. “Well, I’m not sure that’s the way we should introduce the idea to your mom and dad. But you’ve got the basics.”
“No, really! Think about it, Jules. You and Pippa would move into the guest room, which I know would kind of suck to share a room with your little sister, but we’d figure that out later. Wait—what if you and I shared?” She was off and running with the idea. “We already go to the same school. We’re both on the tennis team.I mean, it’d be two more mouths to feed, but you guys don’t eatthatmuch.”
Unlike Eliza, an adult who thought things through perhaps too deeply, Chloe wasn’t thinking seriously enough about it. Taking on two kids wasn’t the same as an extended sleepover, no matter how she tried to spin it. “So, there’s only one problem,” Julia said when Chloe finally stopped talking. “How do we ask your parents?”
Chloe was adamant. “Let me do it. I know my mother, and she’ll get all mushy and sad about your parents, and then she’ll get all happy that you guys want to live with us. There will be crying.”
“What about your dad?”
Chloe waved this away, as though Mr. Fitzpatrick were the least of their concerns. “He’ll be all practical and probably have questions. But Mom always gets final say.”
Julia wasn’t so sure that was true. The Fitzpatricks she knew were a lot of fun, but they were both levelheaded people. And Chloe’s dad wasn’t exactly a pushover. “I don’t know. I feel like I should be there, even though it’s awkward. I mean, I’m the one asking this of them.”
Chloe cocked her head as she mulled it over. “True. But let me break the news first. If it’s in front of you, they might be more worried about being polite than really hashing out the pros and cons. You need an answer soon, right?”
Chloe had a point. And she was incredibly persuasive, some might say bossy. “Okay,” Julia said finally, “but you have to ask them when they’re together, and only if they’re in a good mood. Otherwise table it.”
“Got it,” Chloe agreed. “My dad gets home at five. Give me until after dinner, okay?”
It was a long afternoon of waiting, but it gave Julia time to think things through more carefully. It would be okay to live with the Fitzpatricks, even though it would mean moving away from WhitePines. Staying in Saybrook was heaps better than the alternative; there was no way she was letting Candace drag them to London. No way in hell.
Just after six o’clock, she glanced longingly at her phone. She was trying to kill time, hunkered down on the couch with Pippa, watchingShaun the Sheep. What was taking so long? Maybe no news was good news. Maybe they were taking stock of the square footage of the guest room, trying to decide if they could fit two beds in there. Maybe they were making a pros-and-cons list, as Chloe had suggested they probably would. Whatever they were doing, the waiting was killing her.
