house, her sister Selene was standing in the hallway, using the round mirror to take a selfie.
Selene glanced at her phone screen. “You’re late.”
“What? No, I’m not.” Danae whipped her own phone out of her pocket, and sure enough, she was right on time.
Selene cackled. “Got you.”
“Ha ha.” Danae hung her purse on the set of hooks she’d installed in the hallway so that her family wouldn’t dump their stuff in the main pathway. It hadn’t kept her younger brother and sister from tossing their coats on the floor when they were growing up. They also liked to kick off their shoes the instant they stepped inside, so she used to trip her way in more often than not. “I don’t plan out every single thing, you know.”
“Are you kidding me?” Selene gave her a hug. “Your plans have plans.”
“Oh, is that Danae?” Mom’s voice drifted from the vicinity of the kitchen, so Danae headed that way. Selene followed her into the room and headed straight for the fridge.
Danae snagged a carrot from the veggie tray on the counter. “Did you apply for college yet?” Selene was twenty and had taken a couple years off after graduating from high school—something that had caused Danae’s blood pressure to rise, while Mom had made a comment about everyone being on a different path—but had finally declared she was ready to continue her education. She intended to major in art history, and while Danae had wanted to ask if she had a backup, she’d managed to hold back. For now.
Her question was met with silence, which meant no. Her sister had been a baby when Dad died. She hadn’t seen how hard Danae had worked to earn enough in scholarships to put herself through college, at the same time when Mom was also going back for a teaching degree.
Although she’d told her sister the story often. Enough times that it now earned her an epic sigh whenever she whipped it out.
The utensil drawer opened with a squeal, and Danae found the spare peeler and helped Mom with the potatoes. Sunday dinners were their time to catch up, and Danae had only missed a handful in her life—most of them back when she and Mark were splitting time between their families. “So, I wanted to let you know that I won’t be able to make dinner next Sunday.”
Mom lowered the half-peeled potato in her hands and blinked at her. Okay, so maybe Danae had become predictable. She rarely canceled and showed up when people expected her to. After having the rug yanked out from underneath her way too many times, she delighted in predictability. She had her cozy hundred-year-old cottage to return to at night, her set schedule, and—as of three days ago—the job title she’d been after.
Now she simply had to keep it. Danae’s heartbeat accelerated as she explained how she’d gotten the promotion on what boiled down to a trial basis.
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll get things all hammered out.” Mom wiped her hand on the dish towel hanging from the stove and then sandwiched Danae’s hand between both of hers. “You’re so good at getting people to agree to your plans.”
Nice, but not totally true. Danae’s gaze drifted to the dry-erase board she’d hung on the wall of the kitchen. Organization had never been Mom’s strong suit. Understandably, she’d been a wreck after Dad passed, so at seventeen years old, Danae had taken over a lot of the planning. Their lives had required intense management in order to get four people where they needed to be using only one semi-functional car.
Danae had organized their entire life on that board—well, technically it was their second, since at one point the countless lines of dry erase marker refused to fully erase. She’d helped them get through the rough patch, and the skills she’d learned had come in handy, even if she wished Mom and Selene had done a better job at picking them up.
With the potatoes on to boil, Danae circled to the other side of the counter, lifted her phone, and checked her email. Frustration bubbled up. They were taking off tomorrow morning for the eight-day chartered cruise, and Josh Wheeler still hadn’t replied to her itinerary changes.
Sure, she’d been mildly amused at his jokes about knots, but it drove her a bit batty when people only answered a couple of the several questions she’d posed. She wasn’t a fan of waiting for a response with a deadline looming, either.
She gnawed on her