“Yeah?” she asks, her perfect eyebrows—far more perfect than mine have ever looked in my life—lifting up in surprise. And then she smiles, and it is the most real smile I’ve ever seen on her face. “I like sitting here, too.”
My heart is so full and whole in this moment, I can almost forget how badly it was just broken. The pieces are finding their way back together, even if they’re forming a new and different shape. “After all, I could learn a lot from you. Like how to pluck my eyebrows for one. Your arch is pretty impressive.”
She laughs. “Hey, wait a minute. Aren’t you supposed to be the one teaching me things?”
“We can teach each other, I guess. You teach me to pluck and contour, and I’ll teach you how to light a fire and make lemon bars.”
“Hm. Less interested in starting a fire like a Girl Scout, more interested in making myself baked goods.” She puts her finger to her chin, like she is solemnly deliberating. “I’m desperate for food,” she says, “so you have a deal.”
“Deal.” I grin at her.
“It’s weird, but I think your smile kind of looks a little like mine,” she says, studying me with squinted eyes.
“That is weird, isn’t it? But maybe a good weird.”
“Good weird,” she repeats, trying it out. “Yeah. Maybe this whole thing is good weird.”
“Maybe it is.”
I don’t sleep much that night.
I’m too busy thinking, plotting, planning.
The idea came on fast—it struck me like a lightning bolt as I’d sat on the porch, watching Marlow walk back to her side of the woods. Thinking about how I wanted more time. I wanted to have that eyebrow tutorial, bake those lemon bars together.
What if we could actually make that old house feel like a home?
I don’t know the first thing about fixing up a building. But we start small: make one room better. The living room. Peel off the ancient wallpaper, paint the walls fresh, some bright, airy color. Order a new windowpane. Polish the carved mantel. Refinish the floors. Make the living room feel like a room where people actually want to live.
The sun is only starting to rise, dapples of pink smudging the sky above my bed, but I’m already wide awake. I dress in my ripped overalls I reserve for gardening and a pair of old scuffed boots and head down to the kitchen for coffee.
“What are you doing up so early?” Mama asks, eyes half closed as she sits at the table sipping her coffee. “And looking remarkably perky, too.”
“I have a plan,” I say, pouring a generous amount of coffee into an oversized Hot Mama Flow mug. More bowl than cup. “A terrible plan, maybe—I’m not sure yet. But a plan.”
“Oh? Care to enlighten me?”
“I want to help fix up the Jackson house. And I want Marlow—and Max—to stay in Green Woods. I think Marlow wants to stay, too.” And then there’s Max. Who’s told me he doesn’t want to talk to me again. Multiple times. But this isn’t all about him. And deep down, I’m hoping that the Max I knew finds his way back—that some time and space has given him more perspective. More acceptance. Either way, I can’t worry about it until I try, or I’ll lose all nerve. If he chooses to reject this last olive branch, it’ll be his loss. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have my chance to know Marlow.
“Calliope—” Mama starts, her voice sounding annoyingly uncertain, and I wave her off.
“Mama. She wants to know me. And I want to know her. Why would life bring them back to that sad house if we weren’t supposed to be in each other’s lives?”
She sighs. Swigs more coffee. Sighs again. “I don’t know, honey, but I think that’s for them to figure out, don’t you? As a family. It’s already complicated enough for them, I’m sure. And I don’t want to see you get hurt. You’ve been through enough.”
“All I’m trying to do is help them make that depressing house feel a little more like an actual home. Maybe they’ll still leave. That’s up to them. Or maybe they’ll decide to stick it out. At least for Max’s senior year. I don’t know, but I want to do something.”
“Are you doing this for yourself? Or for them?”
I gulp a steady stream of coffee, considering. “Both. Is that so terrible?”
Mama shakes her head, but she’s smiling. “I want you to listen to your heart, my baby girl. And if that’s leading you to this? Well, then, you go over there and try. And you let me and Mimmy know if you need any help. We are here for you. Always.”
“I will,” I say, putting my empty mug in the sink. “For now, though, wish me luck.”
The clerk at the local hardware store is friendly to me, in a curious, amused kind of way. Like a grandfather telling his granddaughter how to tie her shoes for the first time. I’m his morning entertainment.
I end up spending a few weeks’ worth of my summer earnings at the studio to leave fully stocked with supplies he says I’ll need: plastic sheets and tape, a spatula and knife, sanding paper and sponges, primer, brushes, paint. Picking the paint was the hardest part of the process. I ended up making a decision based solely on the name: Hope Springs Eternal, a light, crystal blue, like water fresh from a winding forest stream.
The anxiety hits as I turn onto our road. I take deep breaths, look up at the bright, cloudless sky. I think about Marlow’s smile. Deal.
I pull down their driveway, park the car.
He’s there, sitting on the bottom porch step, the most secure one.
Max.
There’s no turning back now. He’s seen me.
I grab the bags from the passenger seat, heavy with supplies, and get out of the car.
His hand is shielding his eyes, like he’s not sure if
