Page 1

1

Michelle

Iturned my phone sideways, admiring the perfectly framed photo of the baking apple—leaf still prettily attached to its stem. “That is one fine-looking apple.”

My sister Reese peered over my shoulder. “Gorgeous,” she agreed. “You could have been a photographer.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said, though I still felt rather pleased with myself given how terrible the earlier photographs on my foodie blogBella Eatswere. “The filters are doing most of the heavy lifting,”

I stuck my phone in my pocket. “Anyway I like talking about eating things more than taking pictures of them.”

Reese laughed, tossing her sandy blonde hair over her shoulder. My older sister couldn’t look more different than me—she’d inherited Mom’s Irish coloring while Dad’s full-blooded Italian olive skin and dark curls went to me. “So? How’s the post doing?”

“So far so good,” I said, this close to actually crossing all my fingers and toes. I pulled my phone out again to show here the likes and shares.

“Above average, right?”

“Barely. But I still call that a win.”

The apple photo was a part of my latest blog post I’d titled APPLE PIE IN THE SKY. It had all the hallmarks of a successful entry: a fall recipe just in time for the change in weather, a food everyone loves, and a lovely little anecdote about how my two girls and I went through approximately 83927 different pastry patterns over the past week to find a winner.

But Reese knew this post was about more than just apple pie. It was the first post I’d made in ten years of running the blog that was strictly about food, for once leaving out the personal details my readers knew me for.

The details I no longer wanted to be known for. I scrolled once more to see if I’d missed any new notifications in the last five seconds. Which of course I hadn’t.

“Mom! Push!”

I looked up from my phone. My six-year-old, Macy, had slowed to nearly a stop on her swing a few feet away. I was supposed to have been pushing her. Shit.

“Sorry, sweetie,” I said, but Reese was already striding over.

“I got it,” she said.

Gratitude ran through me at the sight of my sister giving Macy another underdog. I was so lucky she’d moved to Jewel Lakes County this summer. We’d been close as kids, but our lives had diverged after high school when I met my husband Joe and we started a family. There were several years where we only saw each other on birthdays and holidays. But when Joe, a firefighter, died in a blaze six years ago, she’d come right back to my side as if nothing had changed.

“That high enough?” Reese asked.

Macy squealed in approval.

I’d kept Macy home from school this morning along with her big sister Emma, whose appointment we were waiting for here at the park. It was in the pediatric neurologist’s office in the building next to us. Knowing they were getting time at this park—and with Aunty Reese—neither of the girls could get out the door fast enough.

I scanned the park for Emma, who was eight and a half and as independent as a teenager, spotting her over by the little ankle-deep canal.

My sister gave Macy one last push and headed back in my direction.

“You’re making me look bad,” I said. “I run out of energy way faster than you.”

“You’re a busy single mom running her own business.”

“Is it that?” I said. “Or am I getting old?”

“Oh yeah, it’s definitely that.” Reese gave me the side-eye—she was 34 to my 32. “But seriously, you have a lot more going on than me.”

Despite us being sisters and close in age, our lives couldn’t be more different. Although Reese was the older of us, she was single and carefree—except for the pain of her long-term relationship recently ending. Meanwhile I’d settled down fast. I’d married at 22. Had my first baby at 24.

Became a widow at 27, while pregnant with my second.

Now I ran a marginally successful blog that paid the rent on my little rental cottage, and most of the bills. Barely.