Chapter 34 Weight of leaving
April comes with cherry blossoms and acceptance letters and the slow, dawning realization that everything is about to change.
Caleb commits to his college—the one six hours away, the one with the football scholarship and the engineering program he's been quietly interested in for years. Eleanor finishes her freshman year with straight A's and an internship at a major newspaper. Oliver's art is featured in a second exhibition, this one a group show downtown, and he sells three more paintings. Sophie loses her first tooth and writes a letter to the tooth fairy demanding "at LEAST five dollars, because inflation."
And I start packing.
The college I chose—Evergreen College, two hours from Oakhaven—sends a welcome packet thick as a novel. Course catalogs. Housing forms. A brochure for the art therapy program that makes my heart beat faster every time I read it. I'm enrolled for the fall semester. I have a roommate I've never met. I have a future that feels, for the first time, like it belongs to me.
But packing means leaving. And leaving means saying goodbye to this house that's become, against all odds, my home.
"You're not leaving forever," Oliver reminds me. We're in the pool house studio, surrounded by his canvases and my sketchbooks. "You're leaving for college. There's a difference."
"That's what Eleanor said."
"Eleanor was right. And she comes back all the time. Sophie's already planning your first weekend visit. She's made a schedule."
"A schedule?"
He pulls a piece of paper from his pocket. It's covered in Sophie's wobbly handwriting, complete with stickers and drawings of what I assume are pancakes.
MAYA VISIT SCHEDULE (OFFISHAL)
Friday 5 PM: Maya arrives. PANCAKES FOR DINNER.
Friday 7 PM: Movie night. Maya picks the movie because she's the guest.
Saturday 9 AM: Pancakes again. Breakfast is important.
Saturday 12 PM: Art time with Oliver and Maya. I will draw a T-Rex.
Saturday 3 PM: Pool time if warm. If cold, more art.
Sunday: BRUNCH. Then Maya leaves but she has to pinky-swear to come back.
"She's been working on it for a week," Oliver says. "There's a version with even more pancakes, but Margaret made her take some out."
I trace the stickers with my finger. A dinosaur. A star. A pancake with a smiley face. "I'm going to miss her so much."
"You're going to miss everyone. That's normal. That's healthy. It means you have something worth missing."
"When did you get so wise about family stuff?"
"I had good teachers." He grins. "Also, I've been going to therapy. Rosa recommended it. Turns out finding out your biological father is a murderer who erased your existence is a lot to process."
"Who knew?"
"Right? Groundbreaking discovery."
We sit in comfortable silence, the pool filter humming outside. This studio has become a sanctuary for both of us—a place where we can be artists and siblings and survivors all at once. I'll miss this too, I realize. The smell of turpentine. The way Oliver hums when he's concentrating. The way the afternoon light slants through the windows and turns everything gold.
"Can I ask you something?" Oliver says.
"Anything."
"Did you ever wish you hadn't found out? About William. About all of us. Do you ever wish you'd just stayed invisible?"
The question catches me off guard. I think about the girl I was before I moved into the pool house. The girl who ate lunch in the art room closet. The girl who believed she was too much, too big, too messy to be loved.
"No," I say. "Finding out was the hardest thing I've ever done. But it gave me something I never had before."
"What?"
"A family. Not just blood—real family. People who see me. People who stay." I look at him. "Including you. You're one of the best things that came out of all this."
Oliver doesn't say anything for a moment. Then he picks up his brush and turns back to his canvas. "Same," he says quietly. "Same."
\---
May brings the end of the school year and Sophie's official promotion to second grade.
She insists on a celebration dinner—pancakes, obviously—and makes everyone wear party hats. Even Sam, who keeps his on for approximately thirty seconds before roaring it off. Even Caleb, who grumbles about looking ridiculous but doesn't take it off. Even Eleanor, who drove home for the occasion and is wearing a hat that says "World's Okayest Sister" because Sophie couldn't find one that said "Best."
"I made a speech," Sophie announces, standing on her chair. "Everyone has to listen."
We listen.
"Okay," she says, looking at a piece of paper covered in stickers. "This year I learned a lot of things. I learned how to read chapter books. I learned fractions, which are stupid but Mom says I have to learn them anyway. I learned that Sam can't actually turn into a dinosaur, which is disappointing." She pauses. "But I also learned that family is bigger than I thought. I used to think family was just Mom and Dad and me and Sam and Caleb. But now I have THREE moms, which is more than anyone else in my class. And I have two new brothers and two new sisters. And everyone came to live at our house, which is good because it was too quiet before."
Margaret is wiping her eyes. Caroline is holding her hand.
"So I want to say thank you to everyone for being my family. Especially Maya. Because she was the first one who came, and she made pancakes, and she stayed." Sophie looks at me, her face serious. "If you leave for college, you have to come back. That's the rule."
"I'll come back," I say. "I pinky-swear."
"Okay." She nods, satisfied. "Now we can eat cake."
\---
June arrives, and with it, graduation.
Caleb walks across the stage in his cap and gown, his diploma in his hand, his family screaming from the bleachers. Sophie and Sam are holding a banner that says "CONGRATS CALEB" in wobbly letters. Eleanor is taking photos. Oliver is sketching the scene. Margaret and Caroline are side by side, their shoulders touching. My mother is here too, her hand in mine.
I watch my brother accept his diploma and think about the boy he was when I met him. The boy who called me Gravy. The boy who was drowning in grief and pressure and the impossible weight of being his father's son. Now he's this: a young man who testified against his own father, who reconnected with his biological mother after fifteen years of lies, who learned to let people see him without the armor.
After the ceremony, he finds me in the crowd.
"So," he says. "I graduated."
"You did."
"Six hours away is far."
"It's not that far. Eleanor's been doing it all year."
"I know. But she's... Eleanor. She's always been better at the independent thing."
"Caleb." I take his hands. "You're going to be fine. You're going to play football and study engineering and call me at midnight when you can't sleep. And I'm going to answer, because that's what sisters do."
"I have three sisters now. Plus Sophie. That's four people who might call me at midnight."
"We'll set up a rotation."
He laughs—the real laugh, the one that crinkles his eyes. "I'm going to miss you, Maya. You were the first person who saw me. Really saw me."
"And you were the first person who made me feel like I wasn't invisible." I squeeze his hands. "We're going to be okay. Both of us. All of us."
"Yeah." He looks around at the chaos of his family—Sophie demanding cake, Sam roaring at a balloon, Margaret and Caroline talking to my mother, Eleanor arguing with Oliver about something in his sketchbook. "I think we are."
\---
July is the month of lasts.
Last Sunday dinner with everyone around the table. Last movie night with Sophie curled against my side. Last late-night conversation with Eleanor, sitting on the back porch, watching the pool lights shift through their eternal cycle.
"Are you scared?" she asks.
"Terrified."
"Good. Fear means you're paying attention."
"That's what Caleb said before the trial."
"Caleb's smarter than he looks." She leans her head against my shoulder. "You're going to be great, you know. At college. At art therapy. At all of it. You've been practicing for this your whole life—figuring out how to help people heal."
"You helped me heal. When you came back. When you stayed."
"You helped me first. At the boathouse. When you told me revenge wasn't the same as justice." She pauses. "I think that's what sisters do. They take turns saving each other."
Outside, the pool lights shift from blue to purple to green. The filter hums. The world continues.
"I'm going to miss this," I say.
"You're going to come back. Sophie's schedule is legally binding."
"I know. But it'll be different."
"Different isn't bad," Eleanor says. "Different is just different."
\---
August arrives, and with it, the day I leave.
The car is packed. My suitcases are in the trunk. My new sketchbook is in my lap. The Sterling house stands behind me, its windows golden in the morning light.
Everyone is on the front lawn. Margaret, holding a bag of snacks she insists I need. Caroline, pressing a container of pierogies into my hands. My mother, her eyes wet but her smile steady. Caleb, already back from his first summer session, his arms crossed and his expression carefully controlled. Oliver, his sketchbook open, drawing the moment in real time. Eleanor, who drove home to see me off. Sophie and Sam, holding another banner—this one says "MAYA IS THE BEST SISTER" with a dinosaur sticker for emphasis.
"You have everything?" Margaret asks.
"I think so."
"Call when you get there. Let us know you arrived safely."
"I will."
Sophie launches herself at me, her arms wrapping around my legs. "You pinky-swore. You have to come back."
"I pinky-swore. I will." I kneel down to her level. "You're in charge of pancakes while I'm gone. Can you handle that?"
"I've been training my whole life," she says solemnly.
I hug her. I hug Sam, who roars sadly. I hug Caleb, who holds on longer than I expect. I hug Eleanor, who whispers "go be brilliant" in my ear. I hug Oliver, who pressed a small canvas into my hands—a painting of the pool house at sunrise, the light just beginning to touch the water.
I hug Margaret. I hug Caroline. I hug my mother, who smells like lavender lotion and is crying openly now.
"I'm so proud of you, mija," she whispers. "So proud."
"I couldn't have done any of this without you."
"Yes, you could have. You're stronger than you know. You always have been."
I get in the car. I start the engine. I look back one last time at the house on Oakhaven Lane—the white door, the perfect lawn, the pool that glows turquoise in the dark. The house that was supposed to be a temporary job, a pool-house bedroom, a way to stay invisible.
It became so much more than that. It became home.
I pull out of the driveway. My family waves until I turn the corner and they disappear from view.
The road stretches ahead, two hours to Evergreen College. Two hours to my new life. Two hours to a future I couldn't have imagined when I arrived at this house, unable to knock on the door.
I'm not that girl anymore. I'm Maya Reyes. Artist. Sister. Daughter. Survivor.
And I'm ready.