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Now I just have to figure out if there’s any way I can get it back.
Mom leans over and stretches to reach my ear. “Are you okay?”
My mother never speaks during service—especially not Christmas Mass—unless it’s to hiss at us to be quiet. But she would rather cut off her own arm than let her kids struggle through something alone.
“Just thinking,” I whisper back. “I want you to be proud of me. I want to be proud of myself.”
“I am always proud of you.” She wraps her hand around mine. “I trust you. The only person whose expectations you have to live up to is yourself.” She lifts my hand to her mouth and kisses it. “I want you to find what makes you happy.”
She sits back up, staring straight ahead, oblivious to the way her words just delivered a glowing ember into my heart. This is real. I have so many things to work on, but it’s like my boulder moment all over again, like watching a puzzle slot into place.
The only person whose expectations you have to live up to is yourself.
When I thought it didn’t matter and no one would remember, I finally started living authentically. I quit my job. I was honest about my feelings. I went after what I wanted without fear.
My feet feel the floor; my back feels the pew.
I am aware of the fresh, clear air inside, of the hum and vibration of hundreds of bodies all around me. With Mom echoing my wish back to me, I have an idea.
• • •
Miles shoulders up to me as we crunch our way back up the driveway toward the cabin. “You good?”
It’s the first time we’ve talked, really, since that morning on the porch, and there’s no doubt in my mind that my seventeen-year-old brother is super confused about what the hell has happened to his boring, levelheaded sister.
“I’m okay.” I blow out a controlled breath. “Had a weird week.”
“Sounds like it.”
I stop a few feet from the base of the porch steps, looking up at the cabin. With a conspiratorial little nod to me, Mom follows Lisa up the steps, stomping her boots on the porch and disappearing into the warm indoors. But even though I know that part of my fix-it plan for the day is set in motion, dismay slides coolly from my throat into my gut. Today is our last full day here.
Miles drags his shiny shoes across the wet path to the house. Mom won’t be happy about the slush and salt that’s soaking into the hems of his best church pants, but I’m not ready to go in yet, either. If my brother wants to dawdle, so be it.
“Theo said he wishes he didn’t lose it with you the other day,” he says.
Oh.
His words pull my attention away from the cabin and back to him. Miles is already taller than Dad. It’s so easy to see him as an eternal kid, but in only a few months he’s going to leave home for college. He’ll launch, and he will be just fine.
I squint from the sun reflecting off the snow-covered yard. “Theo said that?”
He nods. “Last night. Sort of out of the blue. What happened between you guys?”
“That’s between me and Theo.”
He blinks past me, shifting on his feet.
“What else is bugging you, cutie?” I ask.
“Is it true Ricky and Lisa are selling the cabin?”
I chew on this, unsure how much to say before they can tell us all themselves. “I think so. That’s the rumor, at least. Who’d you hear it from?”
“Dad said something.” He stares up at the cabin, frowning. “Sucks. I wish Mom or Dad would buy it.”
There’s a creak in my mind, the slow opening of a treasure chest. I kiss my brother again and jog up the stairs, chasing after my second good idea in a single morning.
• • •
“Benito Mussolini,” I say, sweeping into the blessedly quiet living room. “Fancy meeting you here.”
The Christmas tree glimmers like a display of jewels in the corner; the fireplace cracks and pops nearby. Upstairs I can hear the twins racing around, probably still in their pajamas and high on all of the sugar they found in their stockings.
“Well.” Benny looks up from his book and tucks his thumb in to hold his spot. “What an unexpectedly chipper greeting.”
“I am in an unexpectedly chipper mood. It is Christmas, after all.” I point to the hallway. “Come talk to me?”
He stands, following me, and we make our way upstairs, and then upstairs again into the attic. I don’t see Theo anywhere along the way, and Andrew is probably out in the Boathouse with his guitar and regret. But it’s for the best: I can’t have this conversation if he’s around.
It’s cold up here relative to the crackling heat of the living room, and Benny pulls a blanket from the bed for me to wrap around my shoulders, and then grabs his green cashmere sweater. This is a Peak Benny moment—having enough money to buy cashmere but using it to buy a sweater that looks identical to the one he’s always worn.
