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“Maybe you should listen to them,” Miriam suggested.

Hannah sniffed. “Maybe we should both go to therapy.”

“I will if you will,” Miriam said.

“Deal.”

They sat there, holding hands in front of the fire like they had when they were little, sharing the tissue box.

“I think you should be manager of Carrigan’s All Year operations,” Hannah said, after a few minutes.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I always thought so, from the beginning. I just get weird when things are outside of my immediate control. I shouldn’t have put you in the middle of that.”

“It’s not like I’ve never put you in the middle of me getting weird.”

“I have all this anger, since Blue left,” Hannah admitted. “Waves of rage that overtake me, and I don’t know what to do with all of it. If I have everything locked down, in order, it feels like it won’t pull me under.”

Miriam knew exactly how it felt to try to lock everything down so it wouldn’t pull her under.

“Is it working?” she asked her cousin.

“Nope.” Hannah shook her head, emphatically.

“We’re gonna save this farm,” Miriam said, patting their joined hands, “and then we’re going to get some therapy.”

“In the meantime, I’m going to work really hard on giving up some control,” Hannah promised. “Because Noelle’s right. Why is she always right? It’s annoying.”

“Speaking of Noelle…” Miriam began, and Hannah raised her eyebrows. “When she advocated for me earlier, it made me want Things.”

Hannah laughed. “I think you already wanted Things.”

“Okay, true, but I want them NOW. I don’t want to wait anymore. What do you think?”

“Do you need my blessing?” Hannah joked.

Miriam shrugged. “Kind of! And I need your advice about how to get her on board.”

“Well, you have my blessing, if you can convince her. She’s a little gun-shy,” Hannah said, standing up and gathering their crying tissues. “As to how, my best bet would be an ambush. Catch her off guard, so she doesn’t have time to let her brain talk her out of a good thing.”

Miriam thought about it. She could do an ambush. It had Shenanigan potential.

“Don’t hurt her, or I’ll have to kill you,” Hannah added, as she headed for the door.

That was fair.

Chapter 15

Noelle

The week before Christmas, Noelle found Miriam helping a guest’s ten-year-old daughter with her entry for the cookie ornament contest. The ten-year-old’s surly older brother was complaining about his sister getting help from a professional artist, while painstakingly reproducing the Ramones Presidential Seal logo. Miriam was laughing and singing “Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight).” Both kids were watching her like she was a mythical creature. Noelle knew she was adorable, but she had not been prepared for her to also be good with kids and know all the words to Ramones songs.

When Miriam looked up and saw Noelle, Noelle made an excuse about needing to check in on everyone. She went to find Hannah, so that Hannah would tell her it was a bad idea to kiss Miriam.

“What if we break up?” she said, bursting into the office without preamble and slamming the door behind her. “What happens then? I’ll tell you what. Miriam gets to keep Carrigan’s. She gets to keep you, and the Matthewses, and my trees, and I get what? I get out on my ass, where I started.”

Hannah stared at her, aghast. “Isthatwhat you’re worried about? That’s fucking absurd. Also hi, please come in.”