Olive’s face grows concerned. “Are you going to stay with her and leave us now?”
Fuck.
I kneel. “Kiddo.” I take her shoulders and turn her.
“Oh, Olive. No,” Iris reassures her. “No more goodbyes,” she says gently, knowing how monumental those words are for us.
“Only see you later?” Olive asks, and my heart breaks for my daughter, who shouldn’t know what grief is at this age.
Iris’s gentle, soothing smile eases the tension I felt a moment ago in my daughter’s shoulders. “Okay. I want to see your room now.”
Chuckling softly, she stands and takes Olive’s hand. “We’ll be right back. Ellis, mind waiting for me in the living room? Rav, can you put the kettle on?”
She doesn’t wait for confirmation, just takes Olive up the stairs. Her sister is stunned, her expression pinched.
“Right this way,” she says dryly, leading me to the living room.
Twenty minutes later, it’s like watching a ping-pong match of wits as Iris and Raven argue. I sip my tea on the couch, ready to support Iris if she needs me and hoping she left Olive with distractions.
“You’re twenty-two, Iris!”
“I’m well aware, Raven! And yet, you’re the older sister and ran off like some solemn teenager. Consequences be damned?”
“You were asking too much!” Raven cries out.
The room ices over as the echo of her statement lingers.
“Me?” Iris asks more calmly. “This was your idea, remember?”
Raven scoffs, slapping her hands at her sides, and paces the living space. “And I was supposed to get matched up with a rich businessman, Iris, not another struggling mountain man. It would be this,” she spreads her arms out, “all over again, and I can’t,” her voice breaks. “I can’t live this same life without him.”
Shit.
The dam breaks. Iris takes her sobbing sister into her arms.
“I don’t want to run a farm,” Raven hiccups between sobs. “Jeb wanted that. Not me.”
Deeply exhaling, Iris pulls her sister down on the adjacent couch. “Why didn’t you just tell me that?”
“Because I’m the big sister. I take care of you. I was supposed to figure out this mess,” she sniffles. “But?—”
Iris cups her sister’s wet cheeks. “Rav, I’m not seventeen anymore. I’ve been helping manage this place for years now.”
“God. And you’re so much better at it,” Raven grimaces.
A beat of silence, and Iris laughs. Raven’s tear-stained lips perk up.
“Yeah. This never came naturally to ya,” she laughs.
“No,” Raven exclaims, laughing before sobering her expression. “I wasn’t supposed to become this. This wasn’t the plan. The dream.”
Iris nods. “Becoming orphans shifted the trajectory.”
As if the sisters remember I’m in the same room, Raven eyes me.
“You seriously married him,” she states.
Iris stands and joins me on the couch. I take her hand, and we interlock fingers. “Raven, this is my husband, Ellis Michaels. That precocious little girl upstairs is Olive. Your new niece.”
