Chapter 13
The mountains stood sharp and undeniable from Ty’s front porch, sunlight catching on the snow still clinging to the highest peaks. I wrapped both hands around my coffee mug and let my gaze slide down the hill to the farmhouse I hadn’t let myself look at last night.
In the dark, it had been easy to ignore. Just a shape swallowed by shadow as we drove past, something I could deal with later.
In the morning light, there was nowhere for it to disappear to.
The house sat where it always had, quiet and waiting.
Summers here as kids had been a pause from real life—wide open space, too much freedom, imagination allowed to run wild, all of it shadowed by the knowledge that it wouldn’t last. The farmhouse was a refuge from a father who never hid how much of a burden we were after our mom’s accident.
Without fail, on the last day of school, Aunt Maggie waited on our front steps to take us with her. She loved us loudly. Made us feel wanted. Held us accountable. Taught us how to rise above the things life threw at us.
I’d spent years wondering why she hadn’t fought harder for full custody—why she’d sent us back when school started. Standing here now with a stack of CPS paperwork in my hand, I understood it probably wasn’t that simple.
Her death had crept up on us. Not sudden like Mom’s, but inevitable all the same.
I’d been here briefly with Violet afterward, but everything had blurred together—boxes, grief, half-made decisions.
Neither of us had been cataloging the state of the house.
We’d just been trying to absorb yet another loss.
Once I moved to Chicago, the house didn’t come up. Violet and I talked about Junie. About work. About the small, manageable details of life. The rest stayed untouched—something I realized now we’d both done on purpose, careful not to weigh the other down when life was already heavy enough.
I should have come back.
The thought landed hard and sudden—and just as fast, my reality followed.
Not now.
From a distance, the house didn’t look so bad. Wildflowers bloomed around the yard, and the painted siding still held some of its color. If the caseworker hadn’t called the inside uninhabitable, I might’ve believed this place was still as magical as I remembered.
“Now or never, Daisy,” I muttered as I took another sip of my coffee.
With one last sigh, I stepped off the porch, papers tucked under my arm. I still needed to read through Violet’s Will, review the rest of the CPS paperwork, and figure out if I was going to have a funeral, even though she’d been cremated.
Tears burned at my eyes, and I blinked rapidly, shoving the thought aside.
Today’s goal was the house. I needed to solve something—or at least make a plan to solve it. I had six weeks to prove I was responsible enough to take care of Junie on my own, and that was my next priority.
The chickens clustered in the driveway like a feathery little barricade, pecking at the gravel as if I were the one trespassing.
“Hey, girls,” I said, inching forward on cautious feet. “I just need to get by you. Big emotional day ahead. You get worms, I get existential dread. Everybody loses.”
The hens didn’t care.
I waved the papers in my hand like a sad little flag. “Shoo. Please. I’ve got trauma to process, and I’m not afraid to admit you scare me.”
A few of the hens shuffled aside. The rooster, however—oh, he was locked in. Chest puffed. Feathers ruffled. Murder in his beady little eyes.
“Okay, buddy.” I held up my coffee like we were in a hostage negotiation. “Let’s make a deal. You let me pass, and I’ll become a vegetarian. Pinky swear.”
He took a step toward me.
“I mean it, Cluck Norris,” I added, remembering his name. “Kale smoothies. Tofu. So many beans. We can be friends. I’m very nice, I promise.”
Apparently, he called bullshit.
The rooster let out a crow so loud it startled me back a step, then charged.
I shrieked, spinning around, papers flapping like white flags as I bolted down the drive. “You’re right! I’m a liar! I’d betray you for a twelve-piece and a crispy Diet Coke in a heartbeat!”
Coffee sloshed out of my mug as I ran, gravel crunching under my sneakers. The rooster thundered after me on his tiny velociraptor legs, wings flapping like the world’s angriest parade float. I threw what was left of my coffee behind me and sprinted faster.
Uno watched from the fence line, his expression deeply judgmental, like this was premium llama entertainment.
“Don’t look at me like that, Cyclops!” I yelled as I flew past him. “I’m grieving!”
By the time I reached the bend in the drive, Cluck Norris gave one last triumphant crow before strutting off.
“What the fuck,” I muttered, then bent forward, hands braced on my knees as laughter ripped out of me in sharp, breathless bursts.
It wasn’t even that funny. My heart was still hammering, and the sound that came out of me shook—unsteady, like if I let it go on too long, it might turn into something else entirely.
The papers were crumpled in my fist, their edges biting into my palm. Coffee dripped down my arm. I squeezed my eyes shut and let the cool air hit my flushed face, pulling myself back together.
When I finally straightened up, the farmhouse was right there. Silent. Waiting.
No matter how badly I wanted to put a hit out on that damn rooster, he’d done it.
He’d gotten me here.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to look at the house—not the way I remembered it, but the way it actually was. Now that I knew there was a laundry list of problems hiding behind those rainbow flowerpots, they were harder to ignore.
The porch didn’t just lean in a charming, old farmhouse way anymore. It slouched, as if it was contemplating the benefits of giving up and sitting down on the lawn.
The siding looked like it had lost a fight with too many winters.
A couple of boards looked warped, and a suspicious patch near the steps sagged in a way I was pretty sure wood wasn’t supposed to.
One section of gutter hung at a strange angle, dripping onto what might’ve once been a flowerbed but was now a weed jungle.
I pressed my lips together and blew out a shaky breath.
“I have no idea what I’m looking at,” I told the porch. “But I’m pretty sure it’s bad.”
The house stayed quiet, just as judgy as the damn llama.
“Cool. Love this for me.” I glanced at the sagging gutter again. “Definitely gonna need a miracle.”
With a sigh, I climbed the porch steps, testing each one before trusting it with my full weight. They creaked in protest, but none of them gave way, which felt like a win.
I reached for the doorknob and twisted it. Nothing.
“Dammit,” I muttered, resting my forehead against the cool wood. “The key is in my car, but that’s on the other side of the chickens, and no fucking way am I going back through the gauntlet again.”
I stepped back and scanned the porch. “Tell me you hid a spare key for me, Vi.”
The doormat? Too obvious.
Under the frog? I crouched, tipped it forward, and found nothing but a spider the size of a dime. I yelped and dropped it.
“Nope. Nope. Absolutely not.”
Standing again, I surveyed the yard, trying to channel my sister’s brand of practical chaos. “Okay… where would you have hidden a key…”
My gaze landed on a faded metal mailbox still clinging to its post, the lid askew. “Old-school. I respect it.” I opened it—junk mail and another spiderweb that had me batting at imaginary bugs I was sure were crawling up my arms. No key.
I kept moving along the porch, talking to no one and everyone. “Remember when you hid a spare key in a sock inside Dad’s shed? You thought you were such a genius. ‘Who’s going to look for a key in a sock?’ you said. Yeah—because a random sock in a shed wasn’t suspicious at all.”
My laugh came out watery, half a giggle and half a sniff. “Come on, Violet. Help me out here. I was the sneaky one, so your choice would’ve been pretty—”
Something cracked and familiar caught my eye near the porch—a ceramic planter with purple flowers painted all over it, half-buried in weeds and half-forgotten. I dropped to my knees and brushed away the dirt, revealing a glint of metal.
“Ha!” I held it up to the empty yard. “A flowerpot. What a rookie move.”
The chickens clucked somewhere behind me, unimpressed.
“Don’t start,” I warned as I fitted the key into the lock. “You’ve already inflicted enough emotional damage for one morning.”
The key turned with a solid click. I swallowed, hand trembling just a little, then pushed the door open—ready or not.
The hinges creaked, and the faint scent of sawdust hit me first.
The front room was… not what I remembered.
Paint cans sat stacked in the corner, lids splattered with evidence of good intentions and bad follow-through.
One wall was missing drywall, exposing a mess of wires I was ninety percent sure wasn’t supposed to look like that.
Studs framed the space like the skeleton of my childhood memories, and it was obvious Violet had been in the middle of making this place something bigger.
Something hers.
The living room hovered between construction zone and cozy nest. Maggie’s soft, overstuffed couch was draped with a blanket that matched nothing except Violet’s chaos, sitting in front of an old TV. Fun throw pillows in every color imaginable were shoved into the corners.
On the coffee table sat the cheap CD player Maggie had given me for my twelfth birthday.
And on top of it—a letter, with a daisy drawn in thick black marker.
My throat tightened the instant I saw it.
Even in this half-finished house with its exposed bones, Violet was everywhere. In the colors. The mess. The stubborn joy bleeding out of every corner.
My chest constricted, sharp and hot. For a second, I just stood there in the middle of the room, surrounded by studs and sawdust, fighting back the wave that threatened to pull me under.
“Damn it, Vi,” I whispered, not sure what else to say.