Page 155 of These Summer Storms

Perfect.

“You talked to her? Again?” Sam asked.

“Yes, it’s fine,” Emily said, looking to Greta. “For me. For tonight.”

Greta nodded. “I don’t think it’s fine for me.”

They would walk their own paths.

“I’ll call Charlie in the morning,” Sam said, and everyone looked to him, suddenly shocked. “And I’ll make sure it gets fixed.”

“Samuel,” Alice replied, voicing everyone’s thoughts. “Are you…being responsible?”

Did he blush at that? “You know I’m a grown man with actual living children, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but look at us, alive and well,” Alice said. “How hard can it be to raise children?”

Sam shot her a look. “I have looked at us, Alice. That’s why I’m concerned.”

“Speaking of concerned…” Emily interjected, raising her Peace candle (defective, at this point) toward the fireplace. “Alice! Your painting!”

Jack was in motion before the words were out—of course, he was always watching and listening and ready, and he and Emily reachedIn Progress,face down on the now-wet carpet, simultaneously. He set his lantern down to lift the massive watercolor, but Emily stayed his movement with a hand to his elbow.

“Alice,” Emily breathed. “Oh my god.”

She stepped forward as Emily pulled something off the back of the painting. A manila envelope, the kind that artists often filled with provenance and too many patrons just left there, stuck to the art.

The envelope wasn’t provenance, though. Emily turned it to face theroom, angling it just enough that the lantern on the floor revealed the dark slash of ink across it. In their father’s handwriting.

Alice.

He’d left her a letter after all.

“Oh my god,” Emily repeated, something close to wonder in her tone. “He sent the tree. On purpose.”

“Sure he did,” Greta teased, but even she stepped closer, surprised by the find.

Alice looked to Jack. “Did you know?”

He shook his head, lowering the painting to his side but not letting it go. “No.”

Alice traced her name in that familiar handwriting, slanting across the paper as though Franklin’s thoughts were coming too fast and he was afraid he might not catch them if he didn’t rush to get them down.

“Open it.”

Alice—

By now you’ve probably heard it all—and you’re probably pretty pissed. I never should have told you to leave. I should have told you to come the hell back. Another in a long line of things I should have told you.

I was proud of you, kid. Even when I was pissed at you. And I should have told you. I know I broke it. I hate that I left you to fix it by yourself.

Maybe you could use a fixer to help.

—Dad

Alice read it twice, unable to hear the rain on the broken glass or the wind in the leaves of the giant oak, as it was all drowned out by the sound of her blood rushing in her ears.

She looked up to discover her siblings, all curiosity. Her siblings who had spent the week—longer—buffeted by Franklin Storm. Emily, keeping a secret that should never have been hers to begin with; Greta,forced into choices she never should have made; Sam, bearing the impossible weight of their father’s unreasonable expectations. She smiled, sad and aching, wondering what would come next for them. How they’d all survive now, without Franklin to control them.

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