Dayana shot her a “have you lost your damn mind?” look. “Did you ask for space?”
Maggie shook her head. “He saw me looking at property listings and an offer from a network.”
“You’re leaving?” Dayana asked, dark eyebrows skyrocketing.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I always leave. I always move on to the next thing. This is the first time I’ve even thought about a ‘what if I stay.’ But I don’t make decisions like he does. He jumps. I weigh options, outcomes, consequences.” She paced the tile she’d spent hours researching.
“Because you want it to be right.”
“Yes! Exactly! He can’t just demand that I commit to him on the spot. He can’t possibly understand the consequences of a decision like that,” she complained. “He acts like it’s easy to just go for it. But he’s not even considering how resentful he might get if he comes with me or how resentful I might get if I decide to stay.”
“Hold it. This sounds vaguely familiar,” Dean mused, joining them near the fountain. Cody followed him.
“It should. You resent choosing me over Will. I shouldn’t have made you feel like it was your job to keep me happy or make things up to me. And you,” she said, pointing at Cody. “You say you want to come on the road with me. But you’re eighteen years old. Do you even know what that entails? How do you know you really want to or that you won’t change your mind six months into it? What if you get homesick for Kinship?”
“Uh, then I come back?” Cody said, looking at her like the answer was obvious.
“Most decisions can be undone. Minds can change,” Dayana pointed out.
“Are you going to change your mind and go back to Donald? You came here to get away from it all. What will you do if I put up a FOR SALE sign and decide I’m going to rehab a house in Arizona or Kansas?”
“I came here because it was time we got to know each other as sisters,” Dayana told her. “And no, I’m not changing my mind about Donald.”
“We’re all responsible for our own choices,” Dean told her. “I’m responsible for choosing not to settle down with Will, and thank God I did. Because look who I’m joining for a night of good wine around a firepit tonight? I could have missed out on Michael if I’d settled. But I chose. I made the decision. You didn’t force me into it or cast some spell shackling me to you.”
“Should we be offended that Maggie thinks we’re all incapable of making our own decisions?” Cody asked everyone.
“Yes,” Dean and Dayana agreed.
“Maybe you should think about what’s best for you instead of worrying about what you think is good for everyone else,” Cody suggested.
“He’s wise beyond his years,” Dayana observed.
“He gets that from me,” Dean announced proudly.
They grinned at each other.
“Part of Maggie’s problem is she’s constantly searching for stability in an unstable world,” Dayana posited.
“That makes sense,” Dean agreed. “She lost her mom so young and without warning. It makes her feel like everything can change in a heartbeat, so she clings to things like plans and goals and timelines to feel like she has control.”
“Life can change in a heartbeat,” Maggie said firmly. It had.
“And this relentless pursuit of financial security,” Dayana added. “Can you imagine what it was like for her, driving up to our father’s megamansion once a month? Being forced to spend time with ‘family’ who looked at her as some kind of interloper? Again I apologize for being an asshole. So she’s built a fortune on her own and substituted a million subscribers—strangers—as stand-ins for the family she deserves.”
“It’s a wonder she’s not more screwed up,” Cody said.
“I’m sitting right here,” Maggie said dryly.
“Good. Then you’ll hear us when we tell you you’ve built a life around clinging to the memory of one parent while rejecting another. Neither of which is necessarily wrong or even weird, given the situation,” Dean added when she opened her mouth to argue. “But at some point, don’t you need to put down the expectations of your parents and figure out what you want for yourself?”
“I’m going for a walk,” Maggie announced.
Maggie walked the property, following the trails Silas had blazed through the years of neglect. And when she still didn’t have the clarity she craved, she drove into town.