Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Stella’s arrival had taught him something he should have figured out decades ago—avoiding wasn’t making anything better, and it certainly wasn’t making anything go away. He had a teenage daughter now. Time to grow up. Time to stop avoiding anything. Not a single thing.
They hadn’t been together like this in twenty years—just the three of them with no fights, no agenda, no one storming out or coordinating logistics.
Tyler climbed out of his truck and walked toward the bench that faced the Pacific, where the old wood still had faint initials carved into the sides from middle school crushes and summer boredom.
He’d texted the night before.
Tomorrow. Just us. 7am. Bring coffee, not expectations.
Meg hadn’t responded to his text, but she showed up anyway with a thermos and that tight, tired look that meant she’d already been up for hours, probably overthinking everything.
Anna arrived late, naturally, with a paint-stained hoodie and a bag of still-warm croissants, like a peace offering she hadn’t realized she was making.
Tyler had brought donuts, because apparently everyone had decided food was required for this conversation.
They settled on the bench that faced the water. Tyler waited, letting the ocean do the talking—waves pulling in and out, gulls overhead.
He cracked first.
“Yesterday was kind of a disaster.”
Meg snorted into her coffee. “Define ‘kind of.’”
Anna broke off a piece of croissant. “I think the health inspector defined it pretty clearly for us.”
They laughed, and it wasn’t comfortable, exactly—but it was real.
“I was thinking last night,” Meg said, setting her cup down. “We’ve spent most of our adult lives in a cycle. One of us messes up. One disappears. One tries to hold everything together. And then we swap roles and call it growth.”
Anna made a noise of reluctant agreement. “I always figured you wanted to be the responsible one. Like you liked it.”
Meg shook her head. “No. I just figured someone had to be.”
“And I figured if I stayed out of the way, no one would notice I wasn’t doing anything.”
Anna frowned at him. “That was your plan?”
“Worked for a while,” he admitted.
The silence that followed felt deeper, heavier. Tyler watched Meg’s face, saw her processing, saw Anna picking at her croissant without really eating it.
Meg looked out at the water. “So what now? Do we just... try again? Pretend we’re not dysfunctional and take over the family business like some heartfelt ending to a Hallmark movie?”
Anna laughed, but Tyler heard something underneath it. “I don’t want to pretend. I want to stop needing to.”
Tyler ran a hand over his jaw. “We can’t rewrite the past. But we can stop defaulting to it.”
That landed. He could see it in both their faces. Even Meg didn’t deflect it.
“I don’t need everyone to be perfect,” Meg said. “But I need to know we’re not just going to revert back the minute something goes sideways.”
Anna nodded. “So we don’t ghost. Or martyr. Or self-destruct. We just... stay. Even when it’s hard.”
Tyler felt something shift in his chest. “I can work with that.” He paused, looking at both of them. “Actually, I need to say something. Stella’s the one who taught me this—that avoiding problems doesn’t make them disappear. She’s been handling more responsibility than I have, and she’s sixteen.”
“Stella’s pretty amazing,” Anna said quietly.
“She is. And I want her to choose to stay at the end of the summer. At this rate, I wouldn’t blame her for running back to Australia with her hair on fire.
” Tyler let that sit for a moment, watching both his sisters absorb it.
“She deserves better than a totally dysfunctional family. You both do too.”
They sat with that for a moment—a real, tentative agreement. Not a solution, not a ribbon tied around decades of dysfunction. But a start.
Anna looked down at her coffee, then back at them. “So we’re really doing this? All of us?”
Tyler studied his sisters’ faces. “Here’s the thing—we all have other lives. Real careers. Anna, you’re teaching, right?”
“Just summer break,” Anna said. “I go back in the fall.”
“And Meg, your marketing job isn’t exactly part-time.”
Meg sighed. “Sixty hours a week, minimum. And Tyler, your photography business is finally taking off.”
“Exactly.” Tyler leaned forward. “So how do we commit to Margo and the Shack without destroying everything else we’ve built?”
“We do it together,” Anna said slowly. “Actually together. Not taking turns being responsible.”
Meg looked thoughtful. “I could work remotely during the week, be here weekends. If we can figure out Wi-Fi and some control over the business systems.”
“And I could relocate part-time,” Anna added. “Teach some workshops here. Community art stuff. The Shack could be a base for that.”
Tyler felt the pieces clicking together. “I’m already here. I could handle the daily operations, the photography documentation. But I’d need backup for when I have shoots.”
“We’d need to actually coordinate,” Meg said. “Real schedules. Clear responsibilities.”
“A system that doesn’t depend on one person holding it all together,” Anna agreed.
Tyler watched his sisters processing it all, seeing the same realization dawn on both their faces. This could actually work—if they really committed to being a team.
“We need a system,” Meg said. “Not just hope. A schedule. Clear roles. A shared calendar.”
“Oh God,” Anna groaned. “You’re already project-managing us.”
Tyler held up a hand before they could spiral back into old patterns. “Wait, before we fall into our usual thing—can we come up with a code word? Like, when someone’s going Full Walsh?”
“Full Walsh?” Meg repeated, looking both offended and intrigued.
“You know,” Anna said, eyes lighting up. “Like when Meg starts laminating things or I start turning the dining room into an art installation without permission.”
“Or when Tyler pretends he has an urgent photo shoot to avoid conflict,” Meg added, giving him a pointed look.
Tyler grinned. “Guilty. But exactly. We need a signal for when we’re reverting to type.”
“Fine,” Meg said. “But it has to be something so ridiculous that we can’t ignore it.”
Tyler thought for a moment, then started laughing. “What about... ‘Gravy spatula’?”
Anna laughed out loud. “From the Thanksgiving Incident!”
Meg covered her face with her hands. “I cannot believe you’re bringing that up. I was thirteen.”
“You literally tried to serve gravy with a spatula,” Tyler said, grinning at the memory.
“It was the only clean utensil left!” Meg muttered into her palms.
“Gravy spatula it is,” Anna declared, still giggling. “When someone’s going off the rails, we say ‘gravy spatula’ and that’s the signal to pull back and regroup.”
Tyler looked at both his sisters, feeling something he hadn’t felt in years—like they were actually on the same team. “Agreed.” He stuck out his hand like they were fourth graders. “Shake on it.”
They all shook hands, slightly ridiculous but completely sincere.
Tyler leaned back against the bench, looking out at the horizon. “We’re really doing this, aren’t we?”
“Feels like it,” Anna said.
Meg was quiet for a moment, then asked, “And if we mess it up?”
“We call ‘gravy spatula’ and try again,” Tyler said. The words felt surprisingly solid.
Anna looked at the cliffs, at the horizon, then back at them. “Then we need to show her. Not just with words.”
Tyler stood, feeling more certain than he had in years. “Then let’s show up. Today. Tomorrow. Long enough to prove it’s not a fluke.”
His sisters stood too, all three of them a little awkward, a little unsure, but facing in the same direction for once.