The People We Choose

by Katelyn Detweiler

  The Jackson house is a home again.

  If Max’s grandmother ever really did haunt this place, I’d like to think she’s long gone by now. She can rest in peace knowing Elliot and his family are happy—or at least getting there, happier every day—under this roof.

  “I’m pleased that Elliot is keeping up the hedges so nicely,” Mama says, eyeing the lines approvingly. “The flower bed is satisfactorily weeded, too.”

  “He’s certainly very lucky he had you to train him in the fine art of lawn care,” I say, climbing the stairs up onto the porch. “He would have been lost without you.”

  Mama preens as she steps up next to me, her chin lifting like a queen’s as she turns to fully survey the landscape. “Too true, sweetheart. He was a clueless city slicker when he got here. Forgot his own roots, that one did. But now almost a year in, and I think he’s rediscovered that Green Woods boy buried deep down inside.”

  “I can hear you, you know,” Elliot says, tugging the screen door open to welcome us in. “But I’ll choose to remember the compliment, and not the ‘clueless city slicker’ bit.”

  “Good,” Mama says, clapping a firm hand on his shoulder. “Now, let’s talk about your grilling technique, shall we?”

  Elliot rolls his eyes, but he smiles at me as he turns to follow Mama inside.

  Mimmy heads straight to the kitchen with her three-tiered pineapple cake, and I hear Joanie greet her, exclaiming about the cake’s beauty, Mimmy humbly insisting it’s nothing special—she was too busy dealing with Mama’s tears to frost it as intricately as she would have liked. And then Joanie starts in on some story about her shift at the studio yesterday, where she’s working part-time at the counter while she trains to be a yoga teacher. She likes to say that yoga is saving her mind, and her marriage. Yoga, and long walks in the woods. She’s a country convert, too, even if she refuses to admit that much out loud.

  I take a moment to admire the polished banisters, the vines and leaves springing to life as they wind up alongside the staircase. The carved wood will always be my favorite part of this house. I start toward the kitchen to drop off the tin of lemon drop cookies when I hear a creaking floorboard behind me.

  “I spent some time working on my woodblock this morning,” Max says, and I turn to find him standing in the doorway to the living room. “I’m nowhere near my grandfather’s level, but I can almost tell what I carved is a flower.”

  Marlow pushes him aside from behind and beams at me. “Almost is right. I guessed he was carving a booger.” She shrugs. “Sorry, bro. Keep working at it, though. Maybe you won’t suck as much by the end of the summer.” She walks up to me with her arms out for a hug, but she stops in her tracks when she sees the tin. “Lemon drop?”

  I nod.

  She grabs the tin from my hands. “Margo made these for me, thank you very much. I made a special request. I’ll be taking them before Max inhales them all.” She dashes up the stairs, presumably to hide them in her room.

  Max watches her go, shaking his head. “Wow. I’m the one who graduated today, but I don’t get a single cookie? How fair is that?”

  “Don’t worry. Mimmy made the pineapple cake you requested. Personally, I voted for something s’more themed to kick off the summer, but oh no. You had apparently told her how much you were craving her pineapple cake. So pineapple cake it is! How’s that for fair, hmm?”

  He laughs. “Sorry, but not sorry. I’ve been dreaming about eating that cake again ever since my birthday.”

  “She’ll probably let you pick the flavor for my birthday cake next month, too. I’ve already had eighteen years of her cakes, she says. You and Marlow get to have your say now.”

  He comes up to me for a hug, patting my back consolingly. “Thank goodness I’m going to Penn State, too, so she can streamline her dessert drop-offs in the fall. Is that why you decided to go there? Scared you wouldn’t get as many treats if we split off?”

  “Excuse me, no. I decided first. And it’s because they have a good Environmental Science program. You could be studying art anywhere.”

  “Digital Arts and Media Design, thank you. Art, but ‘practical art.’” He lifts his hands to air quote. “Got to keep Mom happy.”

  “Mm-hmm.” I fake a pout like I’m sad about it. But I was nothing but relieved when Max made the decision this spring. With Noah heading up to Berklee and Ginger to Vassar, I’m glad I’ll have a friend on the same campus. And I’m glad that friend is Max.

  We start walking toward the sunroom—once again an actual room, a fully enclosed glassed-in space with a freshly tiled floor. It’s the most impressive transformation of all.

  “Are Ginger and Vivi still coming over for a bonfire later?” he asks, flopping down on one of the two new plush sunny-yellow chaises.

  “Yep.” I drop down onto the other chaise and sigh with contentment as I sink into the cushions. It’s infinitely more comfortable than their sleek city-chic sofa. “And Noah said he might pop by with Penelope.” Penelope Park. It’s new—Ginger’s brainchild, actually, a surprise twist to senior year—but Noah seems happy. And that makes me happy, too.

  “Cool. Our first fire of the summer. We’ll have to do it every night to make the most of these last months.”

  “Are you sure you want to see me that much? I don’t want you to get sick of me and then avoid me at college. I need you. You know I suck at making new friends.”

  “Maybe not every night then,” he says, smirking. “But you don’t suck at making friends. Aren’t I proof of that?”

  “You don’t count. Maybe we only clicked because—oh, you know—we share half our DNA. So that was an unfair advantage.”

  “Hm. True. So maybe you do suck at making friends then? I guess we’ll see this fall when you dive into the shark tank.” He lets out an evil chuckle, and I toss an oversized chaise pillow squarely at his smug face.

  “You,” I say, sighing heavily, “are such an annoying little brother sometimes, do you know that?”

  “Only because I have years to make up for. You had it too easy being an only child.”

  I’m opening my mouth to make some kind of scathing retort when Joanie interrupts from the doorway.

  “Did you think the table would set itself?” she asks, hands on her hips as she squints in at us. “I see four very capable hands in here.”

  “Yes, Mom,” Max says, springing up from his chair.

  “Yes, Joanie,” I say, more reluctantly, as I pry my legs one by one from the wonderfully cloudlike cushion.

  Before I turn toward the kitchen door, I see Mama and Elliot outside by the grill, Mama seemingly demonstrating something with a pair of tongs and a burger patty. Elliot is leaning in, dutifully listening. If he’s annoyed that she’s taking over, he doesn’t show it.

  I smile.

  And then I follow Max down the hallway to set the table, because it’s time for our family dinner to begin.

  acknowledgments

  Every book is its own unique journey, and this has been an especially weird and windy and wonderful one. As everyone in my life well knows by now, I am chronically obsessed with hypotheticals—with asking hard, maybe sometimes even impossible, questions. (Thank you all for putting up with me, by the way.) The particular question driving this book has been with me for a long time now: What if you unknowingly fell in love with a person you’re not allowed to love, not like that, not under any circumstances? As I wrote, though, the question became about so much more: What is family love versus friendship love versus romantic love? How are those loves different, how are they the same? How do we define what makes a group of people family, and what makes that love so special? These are not easy questions, and it took a village of wise people to get me on the right path.

  To my agent (among many other things!) Jill Grinberg, I remember the first time I worked up the courage to tell you about this idea, years ago now, over some matcha at Primrose. You listened thoughtfully, quietly, never batting an eye, and then started asking me
so many necessary and valuable questions about my intentions and hopes for this book. You have poked and prodded and nudged this story along through so many variations and courses, and for that I am immensely grateful. Denise Page and Sam Farkas, thank you both for reading and sharing your brilliant insights, for helping to make this book richer and rounder and better in all ways. Sophia Seidner, thank you for all the vigilant, empowering work you do behind the scenes. I am thankful every day to be part of the JGLM team, as an author and as an agent—to share all pieces of my working life with such a fiercely talented and funny and kind group of women.

  To my editor Margaret Ferguson, working with you feels like earning an MFA in the best, most rewarding way possible. Your wisdom and expertise are unparalleled, truly a vast treasure trove of knowledge, and you make me an endlessly better, more careful, more thoughtful writer with each project I’m lucky enough to share with you. Thank you for pushing me further with each new draft, for asking all the big questions—and the little questions—and for not stopping until the story was as it was meant to be. It is an honor to be on your list.

  To my Holiday House team—Terry Borzumato-Greenberg, Michelle Montague, Emily Mannon, and everyone else who helped bring Calliope Silversmith to life—thank you for championing me and this book and for allowing me to bring my hypothetical questions to the world. Thank you to my copy editor, Chandra Wohleber, for your insightful polishes.

  To my dear readers and friends, Melissa and Lauren DelVecchio, thank you for helping to make this book better and more accurate, and for sharing your beautiful family with me. Your love is an inspiration, always.

  To all of my family and friends who have heard me talk about this book idea for years upon years, thank you for listening. Thank you for entertaining my absurd questions and ultimatums. Thank you for accepting and supporting me as I am. I love you all with my whole being. Whether we share blood or not, you are my family. My people for life.

  To my parents, Denny and Carol, I will thank you endlessly, because you’ve made all things possible. This book and every book I’ve written and every book I’ll ever write—they’re because you believed in me unconditionally. You let me dream big dreams and you made me keep fighting for those dreams to come true, no matter how scary or distant or impossible they sometimes felt. Thank you for holding my hand through it all.

  To Danny, thank you for living and breathing this book with me. All the countless drafts, the constant push to write, write, write through pregnancy (because what if I would never write again otherwise?!), the balancing of momming and revising and working full-time, all from home, all together, every day. Thank you for being next to me for every last bit of it, for being a superhuman who keeps our home and family merrily chugging along. Thank you for being my first reader, my caffeine supplier, my master chef. You make every day a good day.

  To Alfie, your first acknowledgment! You are my joy and my reason, and you are worth every cup of coffee it takes to write these words. Thank you for teaching me the meaning of motherhood.

  And to my readers, thank you for joining me on this unusual journey, for trusting in me, and for, I hope, loving Calliope Silversmith and her beautiful family as much as I do. Thank you for being here. You are my people, too.