Page 8 of Five Summer Wishes

JUNE

T he morning of the potluck was chaos with a smile on its face.

Lily was running barefoot through the house yelling about glitter tape and macaroni salad.

Willa had commandeered the backyard with a half-assembled balloon arch and a playlist titled vibes only .

Harper was printing out name tags in three different fonts, just to see which one gave off “organized but approachable.”

I was trying to make a pasta salad that wouldn’t offend anyone’s dietary restrictions.

“Are the tomatoes supposed to be this squishy?” Lily asked, poking one with a suspicious finger.

“They’re not that squishy, sweetie. They’re just a little soft.”

She squinted at me. “Like Grandma’s hands?”

I blinked. “Sort of.”

“Cool.”

She skipped away like she’d just solved a mystery.

I stirred the salad, heart too tight in my chest. I hated how grief showed up in weird, sideways places. How something as small as a tomato could send you reeling.

Grant texted midmorning.

if you need anything before go-time, i’m around. even if it’s just an excuse to escape for five minutes.

I stared at it longer than I should have.

Typed something. Deleted it.

Typed again.

maybe i’ll cash in that five-minute escape later.

He replied in less than a minute.

i’ll bring snacks. and plausible deniability.

I smiled before I could stop myself.

The thing about attraction— real attraction—is that it doesn’t ask for permission. It doesn’t wait until you’ve fixed yourself or cleared your schedule or figured out how not to flinch when someone is kind to you. It just… shows up. Quietly. Persistently. Like light creeping through closed drapes.

That’s how it felt with Grant.

Not loud. Not flashy.

Just steady.

And that scared me more than anything else.

By noon, the backyard had transformed into something that looked almost deliberately chaotic.

Mismatched tables with thrifted linens. A buffet station made from two sawhorses and an old door. A cooler full of sodas and a big pitcher of homemade lemonade sat on a small table next to it. Fairy lights strung across the hedges like a constellation we’d invented just for the day.

Willa was in her element. She directed foot traffic like a cruise ship host. Harper stood at the welcome table with a clipboard and a donation jar, dressed like a preppy fundraiser goddess.

Lily had taken charge of the dessert table and was enforcing a strict two-cookie-per-person limit. No exceptions.

I stood at the edge of it all, spatula in hand, trying to look like I belonged in the middle of this kind of joy.

Grant showed up with a pan of baked ziti and a small wooden sign that said Be Nice or Leave.

“I thought it felt on-brand,” he said, setting it next to the lemonade.

“Accurate,” I said, smiling before I could stop myself.

He stayed close after that. Not in a hovering way. Just… nearby. Stepping in when I needed something, answering questions before I had to ask, refilling plates, redirecting a kid who almost tripped over the cooler cord.

At one point, Lily leaned in and whispered, “He likes you.”

I gave her a look. “How do you know?”

She rolled her eyes. “Because he looks at you like you have a secret he wants to know.”

That was the moment I had to excuse myself and stand by the herb garden for five full minutes pretending to examine the rosemary.

By the time the last folding chair was stashed in the garage and the last batch of half-eaten brownies covered in foil, the backyard looked like it had just survived a small, happy hurricane.

Willa was dancing barefoot through the grass with a bottle of sparkling water and a flower crown made of dandelions.

Harper was sitting at the table with a legal pad, writing down donation totals like it would keep her from feeling anything else.

Lily had crashed on the porch swing with a paper plate of cookie crumbs still on her lap.

And Grant was at the sink beside me, sleeves rolled up, washing dishes like he lived here.

I passed him a casserole dish without speaking. He rinsed it and set it on a dish towel. We worked like that for a while—no words, just rhythm.

Finally, he glanced over. “You did good today.”

“I didn’t do anything special.”

“You kept everyone fed, calm, and mostly uninjured. That counts.”

I leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “It’s not hard to hold things together when you’ve had a lifetime of practice.”

He looked at me patiently. “You ever think about what it would feel like not to?”

I let out a breath. “All the time. But it’s not an option.”

“Sure it is.”

“Not for me.”

He dried his hands, turned toward me. “Can I tell you something?”

I nodded.

“You don’t look tired when you let someone help.”

That landed somewhere too deep. I didn’t respond. Just turned back to the sink and grabbed another plate.

Grant didn’t push.

He just stayed beside me. Quiet and steady.

Later, after Lily was asleep and the house was dark except for the porch light and the faint glow of Willa’s phone from the couch, I sat on the edge of the bed with Iris’s old journal in my lap.

It was full of little things—lists, clippings, short notes to herself in tight cursive. Nothing profound. But it had the feeling of a life being sorted through. Like she’d needed to write it down just to believe it happened.

I didn’t write anything. Just held the pen and listened to the house breathe.

If I had written something, it might’ve been this:

Dear Iris,

You were right. About all of it.

The swing. The dinner. The things we don’t say until someone builds a place safe enough to say them in.

I’m still scared. But I’m starting to understand that scared doesn’t have to mean stuck.

He sees me. I don’t know what to do with that. But I think I want to find out.

I didn’t write it. But the pen stayed in my hand.