Chapter 30
Fable
Oaks Folks
Mom: Fabes, I know you’re off on an overnight adventure with Theo but just wanted you to know that Knocks is doing great.
Tessa: OVERNIGHT??!!
Tessa: Answer your phone, right this instant.
Millie: Leave her alone, Tess. They’re probably sleeping!
Millie: Or other things!
Dad: Things we should keep out of these texts . . .
Millie: Like eating breakfast?
Tessa: Or eating someONE! Amiright?!
Dad: I’m still wondering how I get out of this group chat.
“Here you are, sweetie.” Mom hands me a blueberry muffin before sitting on the porch swing beside me and tipping us into motion.
“Thank you.” I peel off the wrapper and take a big bite, watching Theo and Dad in the goat pen as they try to drain a particularly muddy spot. Layla is at the fence, mud coating her torso, trying to convince them to let her help.
It has been a week since we woke up tangled in each other in Oregon, and the No Sleepovers rule has officially dissolved into nothing.
We’ve spent every night together since, splitting our time between his house and the A-frame.
When we stay here, he gets up every morning to come work with Dad.
I can’t help but tease him about it—leaving me in bed to hang out with my dad is objectively hilarious—but I also love it. Seeing them together warms my heart.
“Your dad doesn’t even care if I come out to help with the morning chores anymore,” Mom says, following my gaze.
“Aw, are you feeling replaced?” I laugh. “Want me to tell Theo he can’t come over to play anymore?”
Early morning sunshine dances over her cheekbones, accentuating her soft wrinkles as she grins. “Absolutely not. I love it. So does your dad.” She picks off a piece of her muffin. “And I think it’s good for Theo.”
“Me too.”
“You should’ve seen Eva’s face light up when I told her he’d been coming over. She had tears in her eyes.” Wrapping her arm around my shoulders, she pulls me closer and asks, “How’s my baby?”
There’s something about Mom holding me, my cheek to her thin sweater, her head tipped to mine, that brings everything to the surface instantly. Maybe it’s her years as a school counselor or maybe it’s just who she is, but she’s adept at pulling the truth out of me.
“I’m okay,” I try, but my voice cracks.
“Want to talk about it?” Her fingers rub gently on my upper arm. She waits patiently while I think, chewing through a bite of muffin.
“I just don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing with my life,” I finally admit.
A soft, thoughtful hum. “I don’t know if any of us really do.”
“It seems like everyone else does. Like you all figured it out way quicker than me, and I’m behind.”
“Are you in a hurry?”
Truthfully, everything feels so heavy right now, like if I don’t make a decision, I might crumble under the weight.
I kick my feet to swing us again. “Seems like it’s now or never.”
“I promise it’s not. You have plenty of time to find out what makes you happy.” She pulls me closer and kisses the top of my head. “You can’t be behind in your own life. It’s easy to get caught up in where you think you should be, but this is your timeline. You make the rules.”
A groan rumbles through me. I lean over and rearrange myself to lay my head in her lap. “Then I might not be grown-up enough for this. It would be much easier if someone else made the rules for me.”
She laughs. “Well, I’ve actually retired from making the rules. That’s all on you now.”
Mom drifts her fingers through my hair, just like she always did when I was younger. Everything from soccer to school to boys—all of it could get sorted out while I was curled up next to my mom, letting her play with my hair.
“Be kind to yourself,” she insists. “You’re getting there. One day you’ll know it’s right, and you’ll leap for it.”
“I think that’s part of the problem. I don’t know that I’m brave enough to leap. Everything is so risky, and I’ve fallen so many times at this point—ideas and jobs and decisions that I thought were going to work out and didn’t. And I have no way of knowing if this will end the same.”
She sighs. “Life is risky. All our decisions risk something, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t the right one.
It also doesn’t mean the path is easy. You might want to give up a thousand times in the process, but that doesn’t make it the wrong path.
” Her nails drag gently over my scalp. “You remember the story of how I met your dad, right?”
I grin. “Yeah.” My sisters and I used to beg for this story, never tiring of hearing about the moment they met on a train in Seattle.
Mom had her nose in a book, one hand wrapped around a post. When the train stopped abruptly, she fell forward, right into Dad’s arms. He invited her to dinner, and the rest is history.
“But did I ever tell you why I was on that train?”
Rolling onto my back, I look up at her. “Not that I remember.”
She smiles, her gaze drifting out to where Dad is working.
“I’d moved to Seattle for this one job—left my family in Colorado, packed up my car with all my belongings, and driven all the way up there—just to find out I hated the job.
I despised it, so I quit. I was in tears on a daily basis as the reality set in that I’d taken this huge risk and failed.
A few weeks later, I hadn’t found another job yet and I was running out of money, so I sold my car.
As I drove to meet the buyer, I was sobbing into the steering wheel, heartbroken over getting rid of the last valuable thing I had.
But I left it with the buyer and took the train home.
” She shrugs a shoulder. “Lo and behold, the man I was going to marry was on the very same train. I’d taken a lot of risks and failed at a few things to get to that day, but if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met your dad. ”
My lips twist with emotion. Tears prick behind my eyes. “Sounds like fate.”
“That’s exactly how it felt that night. Like everything had actually gone perfectly to plan.”
It’s easy to put myself in her shoes because I’ve done it so many times—made a big decision and regretted it—but I’ve never thought about what I gained through those perceived failures.
If I hadn’t quit those other jobs, I wouldn’t have ended up at Hawkins, where my employee discount has made it much easier to renovate the A-frame.
If I hadn’t messed up the leaky pipe, I never would’ve unpacked Gramps’s boxes.
If I hadn’t needed Theo’s help with the drywall, I wouldn’t have found the photos from the bookshops.
Everything has woven together to bring me to this very moment.
She pulls back and scans my expression. “Is there a certain risk you’re thinking about taking?”
Nerves bubble in my stomach. “I don’t know if I’m quite ready to share it yet.”
“Well, let me know when you’re ready.” The porch swing squeaks as we go back and forth a few times.
“But no matter what, your dad and I will be cheering for you the entire way.” Her hand curves around my cheek.
“And you never know what’s waiting on the other side—whether things work out the way you planned them or not.
Everything will be all right in the end.
And if it’s not all right, it’s not the end. ”