“No, but Mom was up with Aspen.”

“That’s good,” she murmured under her breath the way she did when we were teens and she had more she wanted to say. I couldn’t help but notice how her knuckles whitened as her fingers bit into her palms. I got along with all of my sisters, but Alexandra and Aspen fought like caged animals. They were truly like the summer and winter. Two polar opposites.

I wanted to ask more, but I noticed a crowd was growing across the way and I wondered what had captured everyone’s attention. The nosiness of small-town living was in our blood from birth and there was little any of us could do to fight it off.

“What do you think is going on over there?” I asked no one in particular as I grabbed another carrot to munch on.

“Oh! Coach Chisolm was talking to some of his players about his protégé coming into town to visit for a while. It’s the biggest thing to happen to Ashfield since we heard you were coming back.” The petite blonde standing across from me stared with wide eyes as if she would blink and I’d disappear. There was a look of both mystery and envy in her gaze, and it left me feeling. . .lacking.

“Well, that’s something,” I said, munching on the orange veggie.

The girl stared for a second longer, then leaned closer toward me over the display as if she was about to tell me all of the world’s secrets. Her eyes glistened with excitement and the corners of her mouth tipped up in suppressed joy.

“What’s it like? New York? Is it just as beautiful as all the movies make it out to be?”

This girl could be no more than fourteen, fifteen at most, and I didn’t have the desire to burst her bubble and tell her that New York was both beautiful and lonely. For every shining beacon, there was a shadowing hole ready to envelop you. But I remembered the excitement and thrill of imagining such a glamorous place and I would have sneered at anyone telling me differently.

I opted for the closest truth I could muster. “It is beautiful and when they say no one ever sleeps, they mean it. But you know what?” I told her, watching as her chest puffed out, holding in her exhale with bated breath. “I missed home. There is nothing quite like it.” While it was true, it was definitely a stretch. While Ashfield was my birthplace, I grew up thinking the place was holding me back. There was nothing besides family that ever made me want to stay.

“Wow,” she exhaled with a whoosh, the hair surrounding her shoulders moving with the air.

I responded with a simple smile, hoping that I placated her dreams while internally I felt shame from the lie.

“It sounds so amazing. I don’t know why anyone would ever come back. Nothing exciting ever happens in this town.”

Internally, I agreed with the teen and my inner self was nodding her head enthusiastically, but externally, I continued to smile politely with a tilted head. My dad always called it my “you’re not right, but I’ll let you think you are” look.

“Well, never say never,” Alex said with her signature sneer. For someone named after the birthstone of June, she had the cold temperament of the winter. Another reason she and Aspen rarely got along.

The teen trotted off, not nearly as affected by my sister’s proclamation as I was.

“You shouldn’t dismiss her hopes and dreams like that. Maybe she’ll actually get out and find her way.”

“Yeah, her way back home. Everyone always comes back - usually,” Alex said as she began placing the vegetable trays in the back of her vintage pickup.

I knew what she meant. Everyone came back except for Rory’s childhood friend and our neighbor. It was a sore subject with our sister and we rarely spoke about it, but I knew that was what Alex was implying.

They weren’t surprised when I called up last Sunday and said I had packed all my belongings and would be home the following weekend. It had offended me they weren’t bowled over to hear the news, but Mom asked at the end of every phone call when I was going to move back home. To them, I was living some childhood fantasy and needed to get my head on straight.

But until my ex had destroyed everything, I had been happy. I’d loved my life.

Right?

I remembered the perfect little apartment we’d leased on the Upper East Side. It had been in his family for years and was rent controlled. We would have never been able to afford it any other way. I’d adored the apartment and thought of how we could raise a family in the three-bedroom space. I’d even hoped that he was going to propose the exact night he dumped me.

It was the same tragic tale that I’d seen in movies countless times. I just never expected it to happen to me.

Fired and dumped in the middle of our living room, surrounded by hundreds of candles. I’d set up the room for our anniversary, expecting something else entirely.

Heaving a sigh, I lifted one of the trays and placed it in Alex’s truck.

“What’s the matter?” Rory questioned. She’d always been the most intuitive of the sisters. We could usually speak without saying a word.

“Nothing,” I said with a chipper edge I knew wasn’t going to fool anyone.

“Liar, but I’ll let it slide this time,” she added as she joined us to load the truck with the food left from the stand. If it wasn’t something we could use within the week or pickle, we donated it to the local church, which distributed them to families in need. It was a way for us to help the community.

Silently we loaded the rest of the empty trays into the truck and then broke down the items used at the stand. Rory and I both jumped when Alex slammed the tailgate of the cargo bed. She shrugged her shoulders in a silent apology as she made her way back to us.

“What are your plans today?” Rory asked us both as she counted the money in the metal box.

Alex replied as she opened her door. “I need to do inventory at the bar.”

“I need to hit up the grocery store. Mom and Dad are making my favorite since I’m home. You both will be there, right?”

“Of course. We never miss Saturday dinners if we can help it. Is that why you were here today? I loved having you, but it was a surprise for sure.”

My sisters stared at me with rapt attention, which made me feel like I was back in college public speaking, standing in front of an auditorium full of my peers giving a speech.

“Well, I felt antsy being at home, so I thought I’d go out for a drive and run some errands for Mom.”

“Oh, yeah?” Alex said with a smirk. “There was no pit stop or drive that you detoured?”

“Alex,” Rory scolded.

“It’s fine, Rory. Yes, I drove by the house. It looks so sad just sitting there on that hill. It needs so much love. I just wish there was something more I could do.”

The house sat on a plot of land in the middle of our family’s farm. It used to belong to our great-great-grandfather and was the original farmhouse, but when he passed away, he left it to his youngest son who had a penchant for gambling.

The story goes he lost the title to the house and the hundred acres of surrounding land in a bad poker hand. My great-grandmother had tried her hardest to get the property back into our name whenever it would go for sale, but she was always outbid. It had sat vacant for as long as my family could remember.

Last I’d heard, it was still in the name of the previous owner, but it was at the point I wouldn’t be stunned to find it condemned. Dad did his best to check on the property when he would inspect the adjacent land and would board up windows and holes. He’d even laid a tarp on the roof when a tree branch fell through ten years prior. But there was nothing more we could do but sit and wait.

It felt like it was what I’d been doing my whole life. The house was a fairytale to me, just like my previous job. All of it now out of reach and feeling more like a pipedream with every passing day.

“Have you thought about reaching out to the owners?” Rory questioned.

“Only every day. But all I have is my piddly savings and who would sell their home to someone without a job or any job prospects? It’s not like Ashfield has a need for an event planner or someone with a degree in hospitality. Hell, there isn’t even a hotel close by.

“And by the time I could probably afford the down payment, the developers that keep bugging Dad for some of his land will most likely have swooped in. I’m actually surprised they haven’t already,” I said exasperatedly. It was the same argument I had with myself whenever I drove by the two-story farmhouse.

I could close my eyes and see myself on the upper porch looking over the front yard where my kids would play on the wooden swing dangling from one of the centuries-old oak trees. My husband would stand behind them, pushing them with each passing. It was all so clear in my mind that sometimes I felt bereft realizing that it was all in my head.

It was also no secret in town how much I loved that house; which made it all the more upsetting that the owners didn’t even reside in our town. My nails bit into my palms at my sides and my gut churned just thinking about it.

My sisters must have noticed how I’d grown rigid and tense as they quickly apologized for bringing up the subject at all.

“It’s okay. It’s not like it’s a big secret. I just hate that the town can’t do anything about it.”