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Moving truck. Right. Thelma was driving them there, and Sage would drive the truck back here. She didn’t need keys. Just her purse.
She picked it up only to have Thelma pluck it away from her. “You’ve given me advice my whole life,” she said. “It’s time for you to take some from me.” She folded Sage’s purse into her arms, and Sage frowned at her.
“You’ve told me I can choose happiness, but you don’t. You’ve told me that I can’t hold onto the past and move into the future, but you won’t let go.”
“Ihavelet go,” Sage said. But now she wondered. She’d wanted a bigger piece of property so she could…recreate what she’d had and then been forced to abandon in Texas. The hobby farm. Her chest couldn’t hold a full breath as tight as it was, and her breathing turned shallow. “I’m happy…enough.”
“No, you’re not,” Thelma said. “You might be able to fool your friends, and even your dog, and maybe even Ty for a while, but you don’t fool me, Sage. I know what you’ve given up for me and Owen, and we both love you for it. But you wear everything on your face where I can see it, and you’re not happy. You haven’t let go.”
Sage’s strong façade started to crumble. “I don’t know how,” she admitted, her voice pinched and pitching up. “I like being outside. I like chickens, and I want to be right on the water. It…soothes me.”
“Then maybe the house will help you heal,” Thelma said. “I don’t know, but I think it’s dangerous for you to think that when you move in there, everything in your life will magically align. That’s not how real life works.”
Sage nodded, her walls all down now. Tears pricked her eyes. “You’re right,” she whispered.
Thelma gathered her into her arms this time, and Sage bowed her head and curled into her sister’s shoulder. “How’d you get to be so smart?” Sage asked.
“I have a great older sister,” Thelma whispered back. “Who’s going to be late for her moving crew if we don’t get over to the truck rental office.”
Sage half-laughed and half-cried, and then she stepped back and took her purse from Thelma’s outstretched hand. “Let’s go.”
Yes. It was moving day.
* * *
“Lunch is here,”Bea called as she walked through the front door of Sage’s new house. “It’s so open. Look—” She sucked in a breath. “Cass. This view is better than yours.”
Cass came to stand beside Bea, both of them carrying items that were too heavy to be standing around staring for very long. “Look at that,” she murmured.
“You found it,” Sage said as she came around the corner that obviously led into the kitchen. She wore the biggest, brightest smile Bea had ever seen on her face, and she hadn’t realized how…dull Sage had been before. “Thank you for stopping to pick this up.”
She arrived and took one of the heavy bags from Bea. “Come on. Come see what we’ve done this morning.”
It looked like someone had moved into today, that was for sure, with some boxes already unpacked and broken down and some still sitting there taped closed.
“Did the furniture come with this place?” Bea asked as she trailed her hand along the back of a sectional she had never seen at Sage’s apartment.
“Yes,” Sage said. “Most of it, at least. The couches stayed. The dining room table. I put my two-seater one on the deck out back until I can save up for some real patio furniture.”
“There’s a deck out back,” Bea said, exchanging a glance with Cass. They both stepped outside, and if anything, the view only got better.
“It’s so gold,” Cass said from Bea’s side. “It doesn’t look this gold from the east coast of Hilton Head.”
“Maybe it’s lower,” Bea said. “She has way more greenery here too. Maybe that’s influencing our cones and rods.” No matter what, this place felt absolutely amazing and perfectly right for Sage. No wonder she’d held a massive party when her offer had been accepted and she’d officially bought this house.
“We’re eating,” Sage said. She ducked back inside, and Bea looked at the wooden dining room table-for-two before she returned to the kitchen too.
“Maybe we could put our money together and help her with a patio table,” she murmured to Cass. “As a housewarming gift.” She nodded over to Lauren, who stood in the kitchen, pulling white Chinese containers out of the bags she and Cass had brought. “We’ll ask everyone in the Supper Club.”
“And Ty,” Cass whispered back.
“What are you two talking about?” Bessie asked with a wary look in her eye as she threw a pile of napkins onto the much bigger and much more impressive dining room table. This one sat eight without a leaf in it, and Bea could see the grandeur Supper Club would be here in this home.
“Nothing,” Cass said. “We were lucky to get that sweet and sour shrimp, so whoever eats it should really love every bite.”
Bessie grinned at her and stepped in to hug Cass. “Is that your way of saying ‘no one touch that shrimp, because I want it all’?”
Cass laughed, said, “Maybe,” and they moved over to the island too. Bea took in the fireplace and the big screen TV above it. Sage didn’t watch much TV, and when she did, she claimed to like to lay in bed to do it.
