Chapter 25 #2
Ben doesn’t argue, and I can’t blame him. It’s true.
“I love you,” Zack says. “But I need someone who’ll choose me, and that’s never going to be you.”
“Like you’ve chosen me? Hiding me from your family? Your friends?”
“Don’t put that on me. You know how conservative they are. I’m not about to blow up my life when you don’t even want to be in it.”
“Of course I want to be in it,” Ben says. “And you know I want to go. I just…”
“Won’t.”
I glance over my shoulder at Holden. “I have to do something.”
“Don’t, Maggie,” he whispers. “Just let them do this.”
I know he’s right, but standing here, doing nothing…
“Dammit, Zack. I can’t believe you’re doing this. I still have to get my certification, and that’s not happening ’til fall.”
“If you’d asked me to wait, I would’ve,” Zack says slowly. “I would’ve waited for you, and then you could’ve moved to France for me. But you didn’t. It never even crossed your mind. And that’s what hurts.”
Ben sighs. “Can we just get through the final? Then we can talk about this.”
“Sorry, man, but I’m talked out.” Zack steps into our line of sight, pulling his keys from his pocket. “Take care of yourself.”
A moment later, the front door closes, and it’s eerily quiet.
“You okay?” Holden whispers.
I nod, but my throat burns. Part of me has always known that my decision to take over the B&B would hold my brother back, but I never let myself think about who it would hold him back from. All this time, I thought it was Zack putting on the brakes, but it was Ben.
It was me.
Holden’s thumb skims my knuckles. “If you don’t want to go out there…”
“It’s fine,” I say. “You’re going to miss your call time.”
We step into the kitchen, and Ben lifts his head, fingers laced behind his neck. His shirt’s rumpled, and he’s wearing an old Texas State baseball cap with a bobcat on the front.
My brother rarely wears hats.
“Hey,” I say gently.
He sits up, his gaze flicking to mine, then to Holden’s, then to our linked hands. His eyes are bloodshot, hollow, and I can’t tell if he studied all night or not at all.
“Maggie, I’m so sorry.”
I wave him off. “Are you okay?”
“Just peachy.” He sighs and slides off the stool. “There’s coffee.”
“Uh, thanks, but I gotta run.” Holden glances at me, then nods toward the door. “Walk me out?”
“Yeah.” I give Ben a thin smile, then follow Holden to the foyer.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asks, keeping his voice low. “That was…a lot.”
“I’m fine. Go. You’re going to be late.”
He sets his phone down to cup my face. “If you need me…”
“I promise I’m fine,” I say, aiming for confidence and missing by a mile. “Now shoo before you get us both in trouble.”
He gives me a slow, careful kiss that I wish I could live in.
“See you tonight, Maggie May.”
Then he’s gone, and the silence settles like dust.
Back in the kitchen, Ben’s leaning against the counter, nursing a cup of coffee. His head’s down, the bill of his hat hiding his face.
“Zack shouldn’t have come over here,” he says. “You shouldn’t have heard that.”
I grab my mug from the dishwasher, then give his wrist a squeeze. “He’s right, though. This was never your path. It was mine, and now you’re paying the price.”
“It was Mom’s.”
“Yeah, originally.” I set my cup under the coffee maker. “But I made the decision to follow it. You never had a choice.”
“You were eighteen. Did you have a choice?” He takes a sip, then dumps the rest in the sink. “Aunt Z—”
“Trusted me to run this place. Because I asked her to.”
What neither of them knows is that I’ve heard this argument before.
Different characters. Different stakes. Same plot.
Uncle Charlie asking Aunt Z to leave with him.
Aunt Z torn because of me.
I couldn’t sleep. I’d gotten up for a bowl of cereal when I heard their hushed voices coming from the kitchen.
“I’ll just have to sell it,” Aunt Z said.
I froze in the hallway, pulling my robe tighter. It was winter, our offseason, and Mama had always kept the house cold enough to hang meat.
The habit stuck.
“Maggie will be heartbroken,” she added. “But in time, she’ll understand.”
I had no idea what they were talking about. Selling the farmhouse had never occurred to me.
But when I heard her quiet crying, I knew that whatever it was, it was big.
“It’ll be okay. Ben will be able to go to school, and who knows? Maybe Maggie will go with him. She loves poetry, and she’s so talented. She could study creative writing or English lit…” She let out a faint laugh. “What if our Maggie became the next Maya Angelou?”
Little did she know, my poetry died with Mama. But I still loved to write, and the idea of studying it excited me.
Just not at the expense of our home.
The barstool made a loud squeal as Uncle Charlie stood. “Honey,” he said, and I could picture him folding her into his arms. “I don’t want you to sell it. You love this place. But I don’t want it to hold you here either.”
Aunt Z’s sniffle broke my heart. “There’s just no other way.”
But there was.
And the next morning, I asked her to show me the ropes. Reminded her that my eighteenth birthday was coming up and that maybe I’d like to run the B&B with her. Or without her, if she wanted to retire.
I expected her to laugh, to tell me I was being ridiculous, that she was much too young to retire.
But she didn’t.
She latched onto the idea like she was afraid it might float away. She could travel with Uncle Charlie and keep the farmhouse. Best of both worlds.
What I didn’t realize was that I’d need Ben to make it work.
I take my coffee to the island. “So, France?”
Ben huffs a humorless laugh. “Normandy, actually. Zack has this idea for a documentary about a relative in the resistance.”
“Normandy? That’s…wow. That would be a dream come true for you.” I blink hard. “Can’t say I’m thrilled about the distance, but jeez, Ben, you can’t pass that up. And Zack wants you to go with him. That’s huge.”
He drops onto a barstool. “Maggie, I’m not leaving you with all this.”
“Don’t act like you’re irreplaceable,” I say, keeping my face as neutral as possible. “I’ll just hire someone.” I smirk. “Maybe Wally.”
“You are not replacing me with a guy who answers to Toothless.”
I blow on the steam rising from my cup. “Will he be at the ceremony Thursday?”
“Wally?”
I smack his arm. “Zack.”
He grimaces. “No, uh, we decided not to walk.”
“What?” I swivel around to face him. “Ben, I’ve been looking forward to this forever. And what about Aunt Z and Uncle Charlie? They had to get flights.”
He adjusts his cap, tugging the brim low. “She knows. I asked her to let me tell you.”
“Well, you didn’t. I had to drag it out of you.”
“Can you blame me? Look at your face right now.” He grabs an apple out of the fruit bowl and takes a bite. The crunch grates on my nerves. “What about you?” he says, juice dripping down his chin. “What are you going to say when Holden asks you to go to LA with him?”
I shake my head way too fast, nearly toppling my mug. “That’s not happening. This”—I glance between us and the carriage house—“is just a thing. A temporary thing.”
Ben’s brow creases. “I don’t think you realize the way he looks at you, little sis.”
He takes another annoying bite, and I shove the napkin holder his way.
“You might want to start preparing yourself for that question,” he says as he wipes his mouth, “’cause it’s coming.”
I meet my brother’s eyes. “This is my home, Ben. I’m not leaving.”
I hear the bite in my voice and shrink a little on my barstool. The way he throws it out so casually makes me green with envy, because he can go to France. He will, if I have anything to say about it.
But I can’t. Not to France, not to LA, not anywhere.
This is the life I chose, and while sometimes I dream of bigger things—other things—the truth is, leaving it would kill me.
I grew up here. Learned to dance here. Fell in love with writing here.
Last night, I lost my virginity here.
But most importantly, Mama’s here: under the magnolia tree out back, but also in the floorboards, the limestone walls, the old wooden beams.
She’s the bones and the breath and the life of this place.
And I am not leaving.
Ben takes my cup before I knock it over. “I just don’t want you to wind up alone because you’re trying to do right by our dead mother.”
His blunt tone should rile me, but I know he means well.
“What makes you think I’ll end up alone? Uncle Charlie—”
“Showed up out of nowhere and fell head over heels for Aunt Z. I know, Mags.”
I shrug. “It could happen.”
We stare each other down, digging our proverbial heels in, until a knock comes at our door that makes us stop.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Holden calls from the foyer. “Forgot my phone.”
Ben smiles, slow and knowing. “I’m not saying it won’t happen. I’m saying it already has.”