rest of her fingers into a loose, anxious fist.
“Yes,” she said. “I want to finish the quilt.”
“Over making kites for Pippa Grandon?” He sounded disappointed.
Her stomach sloshed, and she felt like she was riding on a tiny boat rocked by vast ocean swells. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to stop trying to please me.”
“Why are you in such a strange mood?”
“It bothers you when just being yourself upsets people.”
True. Gia shuffled aside the kites and sat down. “Why is that so bad?”
“Because when you’re busy trying to keep the peace, you don’t get to do what you want.” He stayed standing, arms folded Bruno-style, studying her with the saddest eyes.
Her heart lurched. “Maybe I want nothing. Maybe I’m plenty happy riding in the passenger seat.”
“Are you?”
She was going to say yes, but then images filled her head, a mind map of shortchanged moments and missed opportunities. Agreeing with Grammy that piano lessons were fine because that’s what Madison and Shelley were doing, and they already owned a piano. Never mind that she really wanted to play the flute. Or the times she left the decision making to others, so no one could blame her for the outcome. Or not even bothering to have a preference in the first place because she got lost in the sprawl of her older sisters’ big personalities, always drifting along on a dream.
Maybe that’s why she loved to fly kites—the loft, the drift, the glide. Easy and soft focused. She’d fallen in love at five years old, when Mike first put a kite into her hands.
“I wanted to go to Japan and study kitemaking and I did it. That was my choice. I wasn’t trying to please anyone.”
“Weren’t you?”
“No.”
“I was the one who encouraged you to go. You didn’t want to leave home. You weren’t going to go. Remember?”
Gia stroked her chin, recalling the conversation she’d had with Mike after kite master Mikio Tetsuya picked Gia and her award-winning design in art school as being worthy of his mentorship.
Grammy had wanted her to come home to Moonglow Cove after college, especially since Maddie and Shelley had left.
But Mike urged her to go to Japan, promising that he and Darynda would look after Grammy. She’d been like a fledging bird, too comfortable in the nest to attempt flying. It was only when Mike said she was letting fear run her that Gia had packed her bags.
“I wanted to go,” she insisted.
“But did you go to please me or yourself?”
“Maybe a little of both.”
“Fair enough. I have another question.”
“Okay.”
“Why does everyone get their way except you? Why are your family’s wants and needs more important than your own?”
“They’re not.”
“Then why don’t you speak up? Make your wants and needs known?”
“I want to connect with people.”
“Is that true? Or is it that you don’t want anyone to get angry with you?”
“That too,” she admitted, ducking her head so he couldn’t see her eyes.
“And you believe that if you stopped sacrificing your wants and needs for them they wouldn’t love you anymore?”
Yes. “Well,” she said. “It sounds silly when you put it like that.”
“That’s because it is silly, Gia. Being connected to people is good. But living for other people is not. That’s why I came to get you today. Sitting by your grandmother’s side for eight hours a day won’t change the outcome. It’s as if you believe sacrificing your health and well-being will save her.”
“Maybe it will.”
“Gia . . .” The look in his eyes was so tender, his voice so light, but his words shot through her sharp as an arrow. “You simply don’t have that much power.”
“I know.”
Mike moved the remaining kites off the sofa, stacked them on the floor, and plunked down beside her. He took her hand and his skin felt so warm.
“Do you”—he tapped his knuckles against her chest just above her heart—“want to make those kites for Pippa? Don’t think. Just feel. What does your heart say?”
“Yes,” she said. “I want to make the kites. But I also need to finish the quilt and help my grandmother heal and mend my relationship with my sisters. That’s three things I must do weighing against the one thing I want to do.”
“Why can’t you just tell your sisters what you want?”
“We’re supposed to be getting married,” she said. “They’ll want to know why I’m catering to Pippa’s wedding and not my own.”
“You can tell them the truth. Or tell them it’s none of their business.”
“C’mon, you know I’d never