5. Staying #2
“Just breakfast,” Marilyn said quickly.
“No, before that.” Emmie’s voice was sharp. “You said you’re staying.”
Jenna hesitated, “Yeah, for a while.”
“How long is a while?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Emmie crossed her arms. “So one sibling died, and you left, and now the other one died, and you came back? That makes sense.”
“Emmie—”
“Mom needed you, Aunt Jenna! She didn’t have enough help at the bakery, Troy was running around on her, and she still showed up every single day. Why didn’t you sell everything and come back when she was alive? Nobody needs you now! She’s gone! Go back to your life that was so important before!”
Her words hit like a slap, sharp and clean.
Jenna didn’t move. She just stood there, the kitchen between them, the sunlight spilling across the counter as if nothing terrible had ever happened in that house.
Marilyn opened her mouth, then closed it again.
Emmie’s breath came quick and uneven. When she realized no one was arguing back, her eyes filled with tears. She turned and stormed down the hallway, the sound of her door slamming echoing through the house.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Finally, Marilyn touched Jenna’s shoulder. “She’s hurting.”
“I know,” Jenna said quietly. “So am I.”
* * *
The house stayed quiet long after Emmie’s door slammed.
Jenna stood there, the echo still vibrating in her chest, and then turned toward the sink. It was full again, two coffee mugs, a plate, a half-empty glass. Nothing that couldn’t wait, but cleaning felt like the only thing she could still fix.
She filled the sink with hot water and soap, letting the steam rise. The hum of the faucet drowned out everything else, the silence, the anger, the part of her that wanted to run after Emmie and explain something she couldn’t even name.
As she scrubbed, she replayed the words that had cut the deepest: “Mom needed you.” It was true. Grace had needed her, and she hadn’t been there.
But Grace had never seemed like someone who needed saving.
She was the kind of woman who made exhaustion look elegant, baking from scratch at five in the morning, showing up to every school event with perfect hair and a pie in her hands, stitching Emmie’s pageant dresses by lamplight, running on caffeine and grit and whatever scraps of peace she could steal.
She drank her water, did her yoga, read her books, and clipped her coupons. She made it all look easy.
Jenna had thought she was fine. Strong. Unbreakable.
But people like Grace, the ones who carried everything, were usually the ones falling apart in silence.
Jenna shut off the faucet and leaned against the counter, her hands trembling slightly from the heat and the weight of it all.
She looked around the kitchen, at the worn wooden table, the bowl of fruit that was starting to fade, the faint chalk smudge on the pantry door where Grace used to write grocery lists.
If Grace had been a storm, this house was the stillness that followed, the hollow calm after something powerful finally burned itself out.
Before she could talk herself out of it, Jenna picked up her phone and called her mother.
The call connected on the second ring.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
The endearment nearly undid her.
“Hey, Mom.”
“You okay?”
Jenna looked around the kitchen. The stack of mail. The fading fruit bowl. The chalk-smudged pantry door.
“No,” she admitted.
Her mother was quiet for a moment. “Me neither.”
She swallowed. “I think I’m staying.”
The words hung between them.
Then, softly, “Okay.”
Jenna frowned. “Okay?”
“If that’s what you need to do.”
“I don’t know if it’s what I need to do.” She stared at the worn grain of the kitchen table. “I just know I can’t leave yet.”
“Then don’t.”
The answer came so easily that Jenna almost laughed.
“That’s it?”
“What else would you like me to say?” Her mother’s voice held a hint of amusement.
“I don’t know. Something parental.”
Her mother chuckled.
“Honey, you’re thirty-four years old. I think we’re past the point where I can tell you what to do.”
Jenna smiled despite herself.
“I haven’t called Dad.”
“I know.”
Jenna traced a water ring on the table with her fingertip.
“I don’t know what to say to him.”
“Then tell him the truth.”
A humorless laugh escaped her. “The truth is kind of messy right now.”
“Your father has survived messes before.”
That was true. Her dad had never been much for careful conversations. If she called, he’d ask direct questions. He wouldn’t dance around any of it. And somehow that felt harder than talking to her mother.
“You should call him.”
“I will,” she promised her mom.
Her mother was quiet for a moment. “He’s going to be happy you’re here, Jenna. We both are.”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
After they hung up, Jenna sat at the kitchen table for a long moment, staring at the dark screen in her hand.
Then she pulled a notepad from the counter drawer and flattened it against the table. She clicked a pen and wrote across the top in small, steady letters:
Next Steps.
Call realtor in Atlanta.
Contact accountant about taxes.
Insurance through end of month.
Sell trucks and tools.
Find buyer for office furniture.
Pay severance to Hannah and Mark.
Dissolve LLC.
Call Dad.
She stared at the last one for a long time, pen hovering. Her parents hadn’t called much in the days following the funeral. Her mom’s voice had been thin, her dad’s quieter than usual. Losing two children had aged them a decade overnight.
Jenna drew a small box next to each item, hesitated over the first one—Call realtor in Atlanta—then set the pen down. She’d start tomorrow.
She set the list down and looked toward the hallway. The house was still except for the muffled sound of Emmie’s music playing low behind a closed door—a hushed heartbeat in the background.
She thought about the company trucks parked outside all those job sites, the ones with her logo fading on the sides. She wondered what name would replace hers, what logo they’d wear next. She wondered who would be next to live in her condo, park in her spot, and hang pictures on her walls.
The condo would sit empty for a while, her furniture still there, the plants Hannah watered when she forgot, the stack of invoices on the kitchen counter. It had been a life built on rhythm with early mornings, late returns, and coffee cups lining the counter.
Now that the cadence was broken, she didn’t know what to replace it with.
She thought about the conversation she and Grace had after Manny died. Grace had practically begged her, “Promise me you’ll take care of her if anything ever happens.”
At the time, Jenna couldn’t think of any reason why she wouldn’t. Now she had plenty of reasons: a business, employees, trucks, and a high-rise condo overlooking the Atlanta skyline. None of it mattered anymore.
Jenna had said yes without thinking, the way you always said yes to a person asking you to take care of their kid when they died.
Despite the years and the distance, that promise sat heavier than anything she’d ever built.
The silence that followed her return to Florida was worse than the noise she’d left behind. At least the noise had meant purpose. This . . . this was waiting.
She looked around the kitchen of Grace’s house, at the stack of unopened mail, the half- empty sugar jar, the muffled hum of a life paused mid-motion.
She didn’t blame Emmie. How could she? They were practically strangers now.
Without Grace, the link between them had broken.
Emmie probably barely remembered the school drop-offs or the Disney movie nights they’d shared before Jenna left.
She was a teenager now, sharper around the edges, shaped by years Jenna hadn’t witnessed.
The truth was, Jenna didn’t know who Emmie had become, and Emmie didn’t know her either.
She’d built her business like armor, five hundred miles away. But no amount of distance could dull the grief. And now, standing in her sister’s kitchen, Jenna realized all that armor had ever really done was harden into guilt.
Jenna reached for a dish towel, folded it neatly, and placed it by the sink. Her chest hurt in that way that wasn’t quite physical, wasn’t quite emotional, just human.
Grace had done this for everyone else. Now Jenna would do it for her.