to join her.
Once we make it inside, we follow her path and walk straight into the most beautiful garden we’ve ever seen. Rose bushes of every color, taller than we are, line a stone pathway that winds through a rainbow of brilliant, fragrant flowers. They go on and on, as far as the eye can see. In the center is a bone-dry stone fountain with three carved cherub angels embracing and laughing.
We take off running through the flower beds, and Elle picks a handful of blooms.
“This place is like the Land of Oz,” Sonia muses.
“We need jobs,” I declare.
“Jobs? What for?” Elle asks.
“Yes, jobs. If we all get one and start saving our money now, we will have enough saved up to buy this house together when we are, like, twenty years old. We can get married in a three-way ceremony in this garden,” I explain.
“Oh, we should marry brothers. That way, we could be real sisters, and our babies will be cousins,” Sonia adds.
“Yep, they can be best friends forever, just like us, and we will all live here together, happily ever after!” I agree.
“Let’s do it! I bet Gram has chores I can do,” Elle exclaims.
“Bellamy!” My brother, Myer’s voice comes booming from off in the distance.
We hurry back to the fence and climb over as quickly as we can. Then, we run back toward the gate just as he and his friend Payne Henderson appear.
“Thank goodness,” Myer says as he catches sight of us. “Momma got worried about you girls when the storm hit, and she sent us to look for you. We’ve been searching everywhere. Come on. We already loaded your bikes on the truck. Let’s get you girls home,” he says as he leads us back to the road.
I look back at the house one more time. What a treasure. I hope no one else finds it and we save enough money to buy it one day.
Bellamy
College Graduation Day
“I hate that I can’t be there, sis.”
I press the Speaker button and place the phone on my bed as I continue to dress for the convocation ceremony. I’m finally graduating from the University of Chicago with a double major in environmental and animal sciences, and I can’t wait to get out of here. Don’t get me wrong; Chicago is an amazing city, but the winters are brutal, and I’m homesick.
It’s funny; when I graduated high school, I couldn’t wait to get out of Colorado, but I miss my friends, and now that my brother and his new wife, Dallas, are making me an auntie, there is nowhere I’d rather be at the moment than in Poplar Falls with my family.
“It’s okay, Myer. I understand. I’m just hoping my niece or nephew waits at least a few more days before making their grand entrance into the world, so I can be there too,” I reassure him.
“Yeah, I’m torn. Momma commanded that he or she stay put as she kissed Dallas’s stomach at the airport because she doesn’t want to miss the birth of her second grandchild, but Dallas has reached that miserable state of pregnancy, where she can’t get comfortable and isn’t sleeping at all. She wants to have this baby—like, yesterday—and Beau is about to burst at the seams,” he says, and I can hear the chuckle in his voice.
Beau is the cutest seven-year-old boy on the planet. He is Dallas’s son from her first marriage, but Myer adopted him last year, and he is very much ours. All of ours.
“Well, that’s three of us—if you count Pop—against two. So, hopefully, that little rascal will hold on for us,” I say as I pull my long blonde locks into a low ponytail and place my cap on my head.
A loud knock comes at the door.
“Speaking of, I think that’s Momma and Pop now, coming to pick me and Derrick up to take us to the main quad. Elle and Sonia are meeting us there,” I inform him as I scoop the phone up and grab my purse and keys.
Derrick Chilton is a grad student that I have been seeing on and off for the past couple years. Elowyn “Elle” Young and Sonia Pickens are my best friends. We have known each other our entire lives, and they are like my sisters. They came up with my parents from Poplar Falls for graduation. We have never missed a single important moment in each other’s lives. Elle and I were bridesmaids when Sonia married her husband, Ricky, at