Chapter 1
Kaia
Somewomencleantheirhouses with ruthless efficiency. I require music, snacks, and a complete disregard for sequence.
I am dancing barefoot through my living room while folding laundry and singing into a wooden spoon.
This still counts as cleaning.
The basket sits open on the couch, full of warm clothes I pulled from the dryer twenty minutes ago and have so far managed to fold at a rate of approximately one shirt per song. I toss a pair of shorts onto the neat pile beside me, spin toward the coffee table, and point my wooden spoon at the fern spilling over the edge of the bookcase.
“You are the only one here who appreciates my talent, Ivy.”
Yes, I talk to my plants.
I started doing it during my first few weeks in Whispering Pines, when moving to a town where I knew exactly one personfelt brave during the day and a little lonely after dark. Joyce, my college best friend and the person responsible for convincing me to move here in the first place, had a life of her own. My new job at the community center had not started yet, and the old blue house made enough mysterious noises at night to turn silence into something I noticed.
So I talked to the plants.
They never complained.
Ivy’s leaves remain still, which I choose to interpret as support.
“Thank you.”
I turn the music louder.
My little rental house creaks around me while I dance back toward the couch. I have learned its quirks over time: one kitchen drawer only opens if I lift it first, and the upstairs hallway has a floorboard that announces every trip to the bathroom.
I love all of it.
Four months ago, everything I owned fit into my car and a tiny rental trailer hitched behind it. Joyce had been waiting on the front steps when I arrived, holding a pizza in one hand and a bottle of cheap sparkling wine in the other. By midnight, we had unpacked three boxes, touched none of the kitchen stuff, and eaten dinner directly from the carton on the floor.
Now my mugs fill the cupboards. My paintings lean against the dining room walls. My clothes are currently making a determined attempt to take over the couch.
No one chose any of it for me.
That matters more than I usually admit.
My mother would hate the orange cushions. She would hate the mismatched frames above the fireplace and the tiny paint smears near the back windows. She would probably take onelook at my oversized yellow T-shirt and remind me that women with my figure should be more careful about what they wear.
Kaia, sweetheart, people notice these things.
People had noticed everything in my family.
My weight. My clothes. My laugh. The way I spoke too loudly when I got excited. The art degree my parents treated as if I had announced a long-term commitment to financial ruin.
By the time I left home at eighteen, I knew exactly how to enter a room and imagine myself through everyone else’s eyes.
I also knew I was tired of doing it.
I reach into the laundry basket and pull out a soft white bra, then pause when my gaze catches on the easel near the dining room window.
The canvas should be covered.
It is not.
“Oh, dear.”
