“Are you nesting or unraveling?” she asked.
“Can’t it be both?”
She came in, sat across from me, and grabbed a jar of cumin. “I used to think achievement was about skyscrapers and titles. But lately I think it might just be about building a life you want to wake up in.”
I blinked. “Is that a quote?”
“No, but feel free to embroider it on a pillow.”
We sat for a minute, the air between us full of the kind of silence only sisters earn.
Then I said, “They offered me the job. The big one.”
June appeared with a basket of laundry, froze in the doorway. “You got it?”
I nodded.
“And?”
“I said no.”
The words landed in the room like a bell.
Clear. Final.
Willa’s eyes widened. “You sure?”
“I am.”
“Because—”
“I’m sure.”
June set down the laundry and sat beside me.
Willa leaned back against the wall.
“Why?” she asked, not pushing… just curious.
I looked around the room. At the mismatched jars. The half-folded dish towels. The photo on the fridge of the three of us at the potluck, grinning like we hadn’t broken in a thousand different ways before that moment.
“Because I don’t want to spend the rest of my life trying to earn something I’ve already proven I can survive without.”
June’s eyes filled. Willa’s smile softened.
And something in my chest eased for the first time in years.
That night,I pulled out a blank page from Iris’s old stationery drawer.
And I wrote.
Dear Iris,
You probably knew before I did. You always did.
This place, this house, these people… they’re not detours. They’re not delays. They’re not what’s left when everything else didn’t work out.
They’re home.
