“Probably,” June said, placing a tote bag on the coffee table. “She read everything she could get her hands on. Remember the summer she tried to teach us Greek mythology?”
“And Willa kept making up her own versions?” I let a small laugh escape. “Pretty sure Icarus survived and opened a kite shop.”
June smiled, but then her eyes flicked away. It hit me, again, how little I really knew about her life these days. She’d become… compact. Like someone who kept everything folded inside.
I led her upstairs, my hand grazing the old wooden banister. It had always been loose near the top. Another thing Iris had planned to fix and never did.
“The front room’s yours,” I said, pushing the door open. Sunlight spilled in through lace curtains, casting soft patterns over the antique bedspread. “It still gets the best light.”
June stood in the doorway, arms crossed. “I haven’t slept in this room since I was seventeen.”
“You haven’t been here since you were seventeen.”
She didn’t respond, just set her bag down and walked to the window.
I stepped back into the hallway. My old room across the hall was smaller than I remembered. I dropped my overnight bag by the foot of the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress. The springs creaked in a familiar way, like they remembered me. Like the house was holding its breath.
I reached for my phone and hovered over Daniel’s name.
We made it. The house is still standing.
I didn’t hit send. I deleted the message, tossed the phone aside, and lay back, staring at the water-stained ceiling. I’d told myself I didn’t need to explain everything to my sisters—not yet. But if Willa and June found out from anyone else first…
A small voice called up the stairs.
“Aunt Harper!”
I pushed up onto my elbows. “Yeah, sweetie?”
“I found a treasure!”
That could mean anything from a dead moth to a rock with sparkles in it, but I went downstairs anyway. Lily stood by the baseboard heater near the kitchen, holding something in both hands like it might flutter away.
It was a butterfly pin. Gold and enamel, with tiny blue stones set in the wings. Old, but beautiful.
“Where did you find this?”
“In the floor!” she said. “It was hiding, but I found it. I think it’s from Grandma Iris. I think she left it for me.”
I looked down at her, that pin gleaming in her little hands like a secret. I hadn’t seen it in years, but I remembered it. Iris used to wear it every Sunday, pinned to the neckline of her cardigans.
“I think you might be right,” I said softly. “It’s perfect for you.”
She beamed.
June came into the kitchen just as Lily darted outside, pin in hand. “She’s already turning this into a fairy tale.”
“She has Iris’s imagination,” I said.
June gave a tired smile, then gestured to the table. “There’s an envelope here. SaysTo My Girls.Legal stationery. I think it’s from her attorney.”
Of course. Iris wouldn’t have been able to resist one last surprise.
I picked it up. The flap had already been sliced open, probably mailed weeks ago. Inside was a single typed page on the letterhead of a local law firm. Iris’s attorney, Henry Boyd, had been her neighbor for years and probably knew her better than any of us.
To my beloved granddaughters,
You’re standing in the house where you became sisters. Where you learned to fight, to dream, to belong to one another.
