2. Teddy #2
To Teddy's raw ears, the suggestion carried no comfort, registering instead as another form of family management.
Since she'd shared her secret in Portland, her sisters had kept their group text thread thrumming with constant updates, a steady stream of supportive messages that had served as a lifeline before they unexpectedly showed up at her door in Maine.
But now, standing under the farmhouse rafters, that concern seemed to transform into an encroaching flood.
The gentle care proved suffocating, a constant pressure that threatened to wash away the hard-won independence she had spent her entire adult life constructing.
She looked down at the steaming tea, her mind instantly flashing to the structured apartment in Portland where she had spent the months since her mother’s death hiding her failed life.
Whenever she'd been upset during her marriage's slow collapse, Ian had used that exact professional tone, treating her emotional reactions as a problem to be solved with restraint.
Now, seeing the soft pity in her sisters' eyes, her defenses locked into place. They had rescued her from her empty loft, but they had also witnessed her absolute breaking point. She was terrified that they were treating her as a broken project, a fragile child who needed to be handled and sheltered because her marriage had failed. They didn’t see her as strong, self-sufficient Teddy anymore.
"I don't need to rest," Teddy said, her voice sounding cold even to her own ears. She kept her hands inside her pockets, refusing to touch the clay mug. "And I don't need a system to manage my hours."
Dahlia took a breath, tapping the edge of her tablet.
"Nobody's trying to manage you. We spent the last two seasons learning from our mistakes and organizing these files so the operations would run smoothly. We wanted to make sure you didn't have to carry the physical strain alone. We’ll do the same thing next year for Prue so that every season goes more smoothly than the last. We’re just trying to spread the workload. "
"I've been carrying heavy timber frames and restoring historic foundations for twenty years," Teddy replied, her chin rising as her jaw tensed. "I know how to manage a physical workload. I don't need a colored chart to tell me when to open the farm stand or how to stack the crates."
"We're just trying to help," Junie added, her hand reaching out toward the laminated schedule on the table. "The opening days are incredibly demanding, and we thought sharing the templates would give you some breathing room."
"I don't need breathing room," Teddy insisted, her chest tightening as the old feeling of being the overlooked child flared in her chest.
She remembered a hot summer afternoon during her teenage years, standing on a wooden ladder under the eaves of the farmhouse, scraping peeling paint while her mother had spent hours on the porch counseling a local woman.
Teddy had worked until her shoulders ached, never complaining, believing that her silent competence was the only way to deserve her mother's affection.
But her mother's focus had always been locked on the broken lives of strangers, leaving Teddy to manage her own storms in silence.
Now, her sisters' sudden care seemed too much like an overbearing attempt to balance an old ledger. They seemed determined to make up for decades of silence by over-managing her life, and she refused to let them treat her as a charity case.
"I'm here to fulfill the terms of the will," Teddy announced, her gaze sweeping over the three faces. "I'll manage the cider barn, and I'll complete my required season. But I'm doing it my own way. I'm not using the digital registers, and I'm not following a color-coded schedule."
She paused, the quiet in the kitchen deepening until the hum of the old refrigerator grew uncommonly loud. She looked at Dahlia, then at Junie, her resolve hardening behind her high defenses.
"And when the harvest closes, I'm returning to the coast," Teddy added, her voice steady and absolute. "The second the four-year restriction expires, I'm voting to sell my share of the farm."
The declaration stood as an indictment. Dahlia's froze and Junie's hand dropped from the schedule, her expression turning from concern to deep hurt. Prue remained by the stove, her gaze fixed on the steam rising from the untouched clay mug, her shoulders slightly tensed.
"You don't mean that," Dahlia whispered, her tone carrying a sudden vulnerability. "We just brought you home."
"This isn't my home," Teddy replied, the lie tasting like ash in her mouth, but her pride refused to let her back down. "It's just a property we're legally bound to manage."
She turned from the table, leaving the lavender tea untouched on the oak counter.
She crossed the room with deliberate movements, her fingers tightening around the strap of her satchel as she headed toward the narrow hallway.
She climbed the wooden stairs to her childhood bedroom, her hand tensing on the oak railing with every wooden riser she climbed.
When she entered her old room, she closed the heavy door behind her, the latch settling into its frame with a solid click.
She leaned her back against the dark wood of the door, her chest tensing as she stared at the floral wallpaper and the wooden desk in the corner.
The silence of her room rushed to meet her, a familiar sanctuary where she could finally drop her guard, even if the price was the heavy loneliness she had carried across the country.
The evening light faded and painted the floral wallpaper of her childhood bedroom in muted shades of lavender and gray and cast long shadows across the pine floor.
Teddy sat on the edge of the twin bed, her fingers tracing the carved scrollwork of the headboard she'd polished as a teenager.
The cool wood felt familiar, a physical link to a past when her world was defined by simple chores and dutiful obedience.
Downstairs, the heavy silence of the farmhouse seemed to rise through the floorboards, carrying the weight of the harsh declaration she'd left behind in the kitchen.
Her defensive anger, which had flared so hot and sudden under the rafters, was already beginning to cool, leaving a hollow ache in her chest. She closed her eyes, her mind replaying the look of deep hurt on Junie's face and the rigid stillness of Dahlia's shoulders.
She hadn't wanted to wound them. The harsh words had slipped out because her pride was tightly coiled, a desperate reaction to her fear of being handled like a broken structure.
Since the Portland rescue, she'd been waiting for the final blow to land, expecting her sisters to treat her with the soft condescension Ian had used to undermine her.
She'd built her high walls to protect herself from that exact vulnerability, but in her rush to guard her heart, she'd struck the very people who'd carried her boxes.
A soft knock at the heavy wooden door broke the stillness.
Teddy opened her eyes, her hand tightening around the wooden post of her bed as she turned her head.
She braced herself for another confrontation, expecting Dahlia to enter with her tablet to demand an apology, or Prue to offer another cup of unwanted tea.
The door swung slowly inward, and Junie crossed the threshold, holding a small square of faded paper in her hand.
She didn't carry her flour-dusted apron, nor did her face hold the defensive tightness from their kitchen encounter.
She approached the dresser in the corner of the room, keeping her movements deliberate as she placed the paper near the copper mirror frame.
"I wanted to leave this with you.” Junie’s voice softened. "We found it when we cleared the rubble last year. I think it belongs in the records. We’ve been putting off going through them properly for so long. We really should do it this season."