Page 173 of Just One Little Bargain

“That’s enough. Daisy, you pushed too hard.” Mom appears beside the table, carrying the roasting pan. “And Evie, your sister is nosy enough to qualify for government surveillance, but she loves you.”

A miserable little laugh escapes me.

“You’re both going to hug each other and apologize.” She looks at each of us. “Then we’re going to have a nice dinner and be slightly less dysfunctional for two hours.”

Daisy moves first, approaching cautiously and leaving me room to refuse. I let her wrap her arms around me. Her cheek presses against my shoulder, familiar and warm, and whatever fight was keeping my spine straight gives out.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I shouldn’t have pushed.”

My eyes close. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

When we pull apart, her mascara is smudged and mine’s probably worse. Mom takes a single look at both of us, nods as though the matter has been settled to her satisfaction, and shoves the bowl of potatoes into Daisy’s hands.

“Excellent. Now dig in before it gets cold.”

Mom launches into a story about the bookstore’s new inventory software that Jerry installed last week and that has since made everyone’s life objectively worse.

“It crashed three times yesterday,” she says, spooning salad onto her plate. “And every time it crashes, it logs you out, so you have to re-enter your password. I don’t remember mine because Jerry made me create it on the spot, and it has to be twelve characters, with two numbers and a special symbol.”

“Write it down,” I suggest.

“I did. I lost the paper.”

“Mom.”

“I’m doing my best! My brain’s full of other things. Like whether I’m out of milk, and if I paid the electric bill.”

Conversation moves on around me. Daisy leans forward whenever she gets excited, while Mom gestures with her wine glass and nearly takes out the centerpiece. Somehow, they still manage to finish each other’s sentences without trying.

Milo would’ve loved this.

He would’ve asked Mom twenty questions about different books. Would’ve noticed her throwing salt over her shoulder and asked whether it had a historical precedent, a cultural origin, or any statistical evidence of effectiveness.

He would’ve belonged here.

I’m staring at the empty chair next to me. I force my attention back to my plate.

After dinner, Daisy gets up to make coffee. Mom waits until the grinder starts before reaching across the table and laying her hand over mine.

“You know, when your father left, you were so young that I don’t think any of us understood what you made of it.”

“What?” I look up, caught completely off guard.

“Everyone kept explaining it to you in adult language. That we weren’t happy together. That sometimes marriages ended. That you were loved. None of it had anything to do with you.”

I shift in my chair. “Mom, I know this.”

“You do now.” Her fingers tighten around mine. “But younger you didn’t. Children don’t sit down and analyze the emotional failures of adults, Evie. Your dad lived with you, and then he was gone. He promised weekends and missed all of them. He built another life somewhere else while yours carried on here. After that, you got very good at making sure you never had to depend too much on anything outside your control.”

I look down at our joined hands because looking at her will make it harder to keep my eyes dry.

“And you were already you. Organized. Stubborn. Determined to make sense of everything. You found a solution—if relying on people meant they could disappear and leave a hole behind, then you wouldn’t rely on them.”

The explanation should sound too neat for something that happened so long ago. Instead, my brain starts supplying evidence. The years of telling Mom I could walk home myself. Refusing Daisy’s help because explaining the task took longer than doing it. Staying up until two in the morning fixing booking errors rather than admitting I was drowning. None of those moments had ever seemed connected. They’d simply seemed sensible.

“I wasn’t consciously doing that.”

“Of course you weren’t.” Mom gives me a small, sad smile. “Being prepared became second nature. You started making sure nobody could ever accuse you of needing too much or falling apart at the wrong time. And those qualities built you a beautiful life, Evie. But taken too far, they make it easy to forget there’s a difference between being capable and being alone.” She leans back in her chair. “You know what I’ve noticed lately?”