Page 5 of Five Summer Wishes

JUNE

S ome mornings, it hit me all at once.

The fatigue. The overwhelm. The weight of being needed before I even left the bed.

This was one of those mornings.

Lily had crept in at dawn, her body warm and familiar against mine, whispering something about butterflies and pancakes. I nodded, mumbled something vaguely maternal, and let her pad off to the kitchen.

Now I stood in the bathroom, toothbrush dangling from my mouth, staring at myself in the mirror like I might get answers.

My eyes were puffy. My hair was up in a knot that had been recycled from yesterday. My favorite sleep shirt had a smear of strawberry jam near the hem, and I didn’t even remember how it got there.

I looked like a woman who needed help.

I was also the woman most likely to refuse it.

By the time I got downstairs, Lily was halfway through arranging blueberries into a heart shape on a plate of Eggo waffles.

“I made breakfast,” she announced proudly.

I kissed the top of her head. “Looks perfect.”

Harper sat at the table with her laptop and a legal pad, eyes half-glazed.

Willa wandered in wearing a loose tank top and sipping coffee like it was a fine art.

“I need to walk,” I said, pulling on a hoodie. “Just for a bit.”

No one objected.

Lily didn’t even look up. “Bring back more treasure if you find some.”

I stepped out onto the porch and inhaled the kind of air you can’t find in cities—salty and soft, with that back-of-your-throat coolness that made you want to keep breathing just to taste it again.

I didn’t have a destination. I just needed to move.

The town was already stretching awake—awnings creaking open, chalkboard signs being wiped clean, the sleepy kind of bustle that felt like life on a slower setting.

I stopped in front of the bakery, half-considering a second breakfast I didn’t need, when someone stepped out of the hardware store across the street.

Grant.

Of course.

He was in a navy T-shirt that looked like it had weathered a hundred summer storms, paint flecks on one sleeve. His hair was damp like he’d just showered, pushed back in a way that made my heart do that irritating flutter thing.

He spotted me before I could pretend I hadn’t seen him. “Hey,” he said, crossing the street like it was no big deal. “You out wandering, too?”

“Escaping,” I admitted.

“Fair.”

He paused beside me, hands in his pockets, eyes scanning the street like he lived in its rhythm.

“Need company?” he asked after a second.

I hesitated. Then nodded.

We walked. Not far. Just around the corner and down to the little overlook near the water. The tide was high. The boats bobbed lazily in the harbor like they weren’t in a hurry to go anywhere.

We leaned against the railing in silence.

“You always this quiet?” he asked gently.

“Only when I’m thinking.”

“What about?”

I picked at the sleeve of my hoodie. “How hard it is to be someone people rely on. How it’s sometimes easier to disappoint strangers than the people who know you.”

He didn’t react like most people did. Didn’t try to reassure or correct me.

He just nodded, like he got it.

“You seem like someone who shows up,” he said. “Even when you’re empty.”

I swallowed. “Yeah.”

“That’s brave.”

I looked at him then. Really looked.

“Most people call it exhausting.”

He smiled. “That too.”

I sat on the bench. He sat beside me. We didn’t talk much more. Just watched the water, the slow tug of it against the rocks. A gull screamed overhead. Someone’s wind chime clattered in the breeze.

Grant stood after a few minutes. “I’ve got to open up the shop,” he said. “But thanks for letting me steal a few minutes.”

“You didn’t steal them.”

He smiled. “That’s good to know.”

And then he walked off, easy and unhurried, like he didn’t need to say anything else.

I sat there a moment longer, feeling the stillness where he’d just been.

Not a hole. Not a loss.

Just space.

Like maybe I didn’t have to fill it.

I walked back slower than I meant to.

The house stood quiet when I reached it, the porch swing swaying just enough to look like someone had recently left it.

Inside, the smell of coffee had gone stale, and someone had left the back door open. Willa’s music was drifting in from the hallway. Something jazzy and inappropriate for midmorning.

Lily sat cross-legged on the living room floor, completely absorbed in a glittery sticker book and humming to herself.

She didn’t look up as I walked in. Just said, “Did you bring me anything?”

“Just a hug.”

“Hmm. That’s good too.”

I crouched down and wrapped my arms around her, breathing her in—shampoo and lemon sugar and eight years of having no idea what I was doing but doing it anyway.

“You know you’re my favorite person, right?” I whispered.

She leaned back, gave me a skeptical look. “Even when I won’t eat broccoli?”

“Even then.”

She went back to her stickers. I sat beside her for a few minutes, grounding myself in the sound of paper peeling and soft humming and the knowledge that, right here, I was enough.

That didn’t happen often.

The peace didn’t last.

I heard it before I saw it; Harper’s voice, tight and clipped, bouncing against the walls like an alarm bell. Willa’s laughter, a little too sharp to be casual.

I stood slowly, brushing glitter off my jeans, and followed the noise to the kitchen.

“You can’t just repurpose Grandma’s antique linens for your candle altar,” Harper was saying.

Willa was sitting on the counter, peeling an orange with a paring knife and looking entirely unfazed. “It was one napkin. And I cleansed it after.”

“That’s not the point.”

I cleared my throat. “Is this a private performance or should I pop popcorn?”

They both turned.

“She’s mad because I’m resourceful,” Willa said.

“I’m mad because you keep treating this house like your personal Pinterest board,” Harper snapped. “Some of us actually respect what it meant to Iris.”

“Some of us are trying not to drown in grief soup every time we walk into a room.”

“Okay,” I said, louder this time. “Stop.”

They both froze.

I never did that. Not with them.

I took a breath. “I know we’re all dealing with this in our own way. But Lily’s ten feet away. She doesn’t need to hear you scream about ghosts and napkins.”

Harper opened her mouth. I raised a hand.

“I’m serious. I’m tired. And I can’t be the glue and the buffer and the mom and the emotional airbag. Not all the time.”

The silence that followed was immediate.

Willa slid off the counter.

Harper looked away.

I hadn’t planned to say any of that. It just… cracked out of me.

“I’m going to take a shower,” I said, my voice lower now. “And I’d really appreciate it if no one burned anything down while I’m gone.”

No one argued.

In the bathroom, I let the water run too hot. I stood under it until my skin prickled and my breathing finally slowed.

I hadn’t meant to snap.

I wasn’t mad, not really. I was tired.

Of performing calm. Of deferring. Of swallowing down the constant ache that I didn’t have the luxury of falling apart because someone always needed me not to.

I wrapped myself in a towel and caught my reflection in the mirror—hair wet, eyes sharper than usual.

There was a version of me I barely recognized anymore. A version that used to want things. That used to take up space without apologizing for it.

Maybe she wasn’t gone.

Maybe she was just buried.

By the time I finished my shower and pulled on real clothes, the house was quieter.

Less charged. I found Lily in the backyard, building a “fairy kingdom” out of sticks and stones.

Harper’s car was gone; probably an errand she couldn’t delegate.

The kitchen was empty, except for Willa, who was sweeping up glitter in slow, distracted circles.

She didn’t notice me at first. Or pretended not to.

I leaned against the doorway. “You missed a spot.”

She kept sweeping. “You missed the entire meltdown.”

I gave her a look. “I was there.”

She stopped, braced the broom against the counter, and finally turned to face me. There was a softness in her eyes that didn’t show up often.

“Sorry,” she said. It was quiet but clear. “For the altar. And for making it all about me.”

I shrugged. “We’re all grieving different ghosts.”

She set the broom aside, hopped up on the counter, and let her feet swing. “You don’t have to keep us from burning down. I know you think you do, but we’re grown. You get to be tired, too.”

It settled between us, that truth. The honesty of it.

I sat on a stool and let my shoulders drop. “I don’t know who I am when I’m not holding everything together.”

Willa nudged my knee with her foot. “You’re still you. Just... with better boundaries.”

I almost laughed. “Is that a thing?”

“It could be.”

I let it hang there, the warmth of that possibility. It was more comforting than any apology.

A few hours later, Lily was inside, sprawled on the rug with her fairy kingdom project, and I was finally alone on the porch with my coffee. I noticed something tucked behind the mailbox. At first, I thought it was for Harper: a manila envelope, maybe some legal paperwork from Boston.

But when I picked it up, it was a small jar with a sprig of wildflowers—daisies and clover, a few purple wild vetch—and a folded note tucked inside. The handwriting was careful, all lowercase letters.

for june,

you said you missed the wildflowers by the old overlook. figured you’d want some on days you can’t get away.

grant

I stared at it for a minute, heart skittering in my chest. Not a grand gesture. Not romance with a capital R.

Just someone paying attention.

Just kindness.

I brought the jar inside and set it on the kitchen windowsill, where the light hit it just so. For a minute, I let myself feel it; the simple sweetness, the fact that someone saw what I needed before I could ask.

Maybe that was the real wish Iris had for us. To let ourselves be seen. Not just needed.

Later, after Lily had gone to bed and the house was heavy with the hush of late summer, I found myself in the library. The box of Iris’s wishes was still there, tucked beneath the window seat, exactly where we’d left it.

I pulled it out, hands shaking slightly, and picked up the next card, this one tied with a blue ribbon.

I sat on the window seat, legs folded beneath me, and read.

Wish Two:

fix the porch swing—and sit on it together, every day.

even if you don’t want to.

especially if you don’t want to.

I let out a slow breath. Leave it to Iris to know exactly which walls we’d try to rebuild the moment she was gone.

The porch swing was fixed. That part was easy. The hard part would be making ourselves sit in it together, every day. To share the same air, the same view, the same tangled ache of wanting to belong and not knowing how.

I pressed the card against my chest, let my eyes close, and promised myself: I’d try.

Even if it hurt.

Especially if it hurt.