Page 19 of Five Summer Wishes
HARPER
T he morning after Willa told us she was staying, I stood in the backyard with a mug of coffee and a feeling I couldn’t name.
Not joy, exactly. Not relief. Something closer to stillness. The kind that only comes when you stop trying to outrun the question and start listening for the answer.
June was already up, reading on the porch swing with a blanket around her shoulders. Willa was barefoot in the kitchen, humming to herself while she made scones like a woman who’d decided she deserved the sweetness too.
And I opened my laptop and deleted the last spreadsheet I’d made before I left Boston.
It didn’t feel like letting go.
It felt like letting in.
Later, I met Nate by the dock.
He had paint on his shirt, a smudge across his jaw, and the kind of look that made me think maybe permanence wasn’t a trap. It was a promise.
“You’re glowing,” he said.
“I’m sweating.”
He grinned. “That too.”
We walked in step along the edge of the harbor, not speaking at first. Just breathing the same air. Sharing the same view.
Then, softly: “I turned down the offer for good.”
He stopped walking. Looked at me.
“And you feel okay about that?”
“I feel here. ”
That was all I needed to say.
He nodded. “So… what now?”
I smiled. “I have no idea.”
He reached for my hand.
“Good,” he said. “Let’s build from there.”
That night, I stood in the attic—the one we’d spent weeks slowly reclaiming—and pulled out the last of Iris’s envelopes.
It wasn’t fancy. No ribbon. No flourish.
Just her handwriting, faded and familiar.
I opened it slowly.
Last Wish:
stay.
even when it’s messy.
even when it’s hard.
even when you think you can’t.
stay long enough to become someone new.
i’ll be with you every step of the way.
The words didn’t undo me. They remade me.
Right there, barefoot and blinking against the dust and the memory, I whispered, “I’m staying.”
The next morning, I woke up before the sun. I pulled on a hoodie, grabbed my notebook and a pen, and walked to the rooftop over the garage—one of the many secret nooks Iris had carved into this house like she knew one day we’d need places to catch our breath.
The sky was still gray. The air cool. The town below hushed and holding.
I sat cross-legged on the blanket Willa had left up here two weeks ago and opened my notebook. Just to write.
No plan. No outline. Just what was true.
I want this life.
I want mornings without rush.
I want conversations that don’t need fixing.
I want softness. And partnership. And belly-deep laughter that doesn’t require a mask.
I want to love someone without having to prove I’m worthy of being chosen.
I want to stay.
And I’m done apologizing for that.
The sun pushed up over the edge of the horizon.
And for the first time in years, I didn’t brace for the day.
I welcomed it.
Nate found me later.
He didn’t ask why I was up here. Just climbed the ladder and joined me on the blanket like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
He handed me a coffee. Sat beside me. Let his shoulder rest against mine.
“I had a dream once,” I said, voice low. “About a life that didn’t revolve around proving I was enough.”
He looked over at me. “And?”
“I think I’m finally living it.”
And we just sat there, side by side, while the day opened itself to us like a gift we’d stopped expecting to be allowed.
Later that night, we had dinner as a family again. Just the four of us. No plans. No themes. Just mismatched chairs and laughter and Lily’s latest drawing of all of us beneath a sky full of stars.
Willa had paint on her forearm. June had glitter in her hair. I felt whole.
We passed plates and stories and forks and memories across the table like we’d done it this way our whole lives.
And when the candles burned low and the air grew still, I looked around and said the words I didn’t know I’d been holding:
“I’m not going back.”
Willa smiled, warm and sure. “Good.”
June reached for my hand. “We wouldn’t let you.”
Lily raised her juice glass. “To us.”
And we all raised ours too.
Because us —this tangled, imperfect, chosen us—was the best thing we’d ever made.