Alana poked her. “Where are you staying?”
“We’re staying out at that huge house on the prairie. Brookhaven. Chloe had space, and my God, it’s gorgeous. The sunset through those windows . . . unbelievable. You know the former owner, right? She renovated the house herself? I want to talk to her. We’ve got our eye on a town house in Chelsea but it will need to be gutted to the rafters. Coming, Mother?”
“I’ll be right behind you,” her mother said. “I want to look at those roses.”
Freddie brought her up to speed on the gossip from home as they strolled toward the street fair. “Nate’s divorce will be final in a few weeks,” she said confidentially. “They just never recovered from him being gone for so long. His wife—what’s her name—”
“Miranda,” Alana supplied.
“—says he isn’t the same since he came back.”
“Nate seemed the same to me, but she sees him more than I do, obviously. Post-traumatic stress disorder?”
Freddie shrugged. “If that’s the case, no one’s talking about it, not even Miranda.”
Alana peeked over her shoulder and found her mother studying the houses, the gardens beginning to bloom, the sky. “What does Mother think about all of this?”
“Ask her yourself,” Freddie said with a smile.
The sound of laughter and music reached them well before they crossed Main Street. Alana gave them the tour, mildly amused at the way her sister switched off Freddie and turned on Frederica Wentworth to ask questions about the architecture, the renovation project, the number of people served, the budget, and the mural. “That’s quite good,” she said absently. “I love the lines. It’s surprisingly sophisticated and unsentimental, given his age.”
“He’s got so much talent,” Alana agreed. “He just needed a way to express it.”
Freddie wandered off to examine the framed pictures from the historical society. Her mother joined her in front of Cody’s mural. “Very nice,” she said.
“Nice.” Wounded, Alana turned to look at her. “I know it’s not what you imagined for me,” she said quietly. “But I love it here. I’m happy. For the first time in my life, I’ve found where I belong.”
“That makes me a little sad, dear,” her mother said.
Her heart sank. “I won’t apologize.”
“Nor should you.” Her mother’s eyes followed the subtle swirling motion of the mural, spiraling from the edge of the prairie to the library at the center of the painting. Alana stood there, with Lucas at her side. “I’m disappointed in myself. A mother shouldn’t fit her children into a mold. I wanted the wrong things for you. I wanted my dreams and Freddie’s dreams for you. I should have been thinking about what you wanted. I kept you on the periphery of Frederica’s life, rather than helping you find your own center. I’m glad you found this, despite me.”
Alana blinked. “It wasn’t despite you,” she said valiantly.
Her mother’s lips curved in a smile. “It certainly was, Alana. I promise not to make the same mistakes going forward. Where will the wedding be?”
No hesitating. No waiting for someone else to weigh in. “In the backyard,” Alana said. “Next June when the roses are blooming. Family and close friends only. If she’s got time, a local seamstress will make the dress. I’ll have to ask Lucas about all of this, but I can’t imagine he’ll mind.”
“Perfect,” her mother said without batting an eyelash. “That’s absolutely perfect. It will be exactly right for you.”
“Why don’t I have a corn dog in my hand?” Freddie asked from the foyer, where she was looking at pictures of the town circa 1908. “I smell fried food in every variation, and yet I have none. No corn dogs, no funnel cakes, no cheese curds. It’s tragic.”
Alana laughed.
“What? I live for cheese curds,” Freddie said.
“I desperately want a beer,” her mother added fervently, which made Alana laugh even harder.
“Let’s eat,” she said.
They stopped to load up on fair food, then found seats in the beer garden, where Freddie picked up three cups brimming with a local microbrewery’s spring ale.
“Oh, that’s good,” her mother said, then took another sip. “That’s very good. Hand me a corn dog, Freddie.”
The band was on a break when Lucas, dressed in jeans, boots, and a long-sleeve policeman’s polo shirt, slid onto the picnic bench beside Alana and snitched a cheese curd. Tanya sat down next to him, still wearing her Bureau of Land Management uniform. Her eyes were clear, her skin tanned, her grandmother’s engagement ring on her right hand. She’d been out of rehab and drug-free for almost a year, and she’d quickly become one of Alana’s close friends. Before long, Cody and his starstruck girlfriend joined them, but Freddie’s status rose from celebrity to goddess with every question she asked Cody about the mural and his art.