He grunted, probably at her use of his middle name. He hated it. Which obviously contributed to her love of using it. “We didn’t talk for three days after I pushed you into the pool that one summer. Only that time, you were the one giving me the silent treatment.”

“Because I’d just gotten a perm.”

“I was doing you a favor, Syd. That perm made you look like Annie.”

She sank onto her bed, one elbow propped on the tub. “So . . . you’re not mad at me anymore.”

“I wasn’t mad.”

Through the phone, she heard the ding of his key in a car’s ignition, engine waiting to be started, and the thump of his door closing. Where was he going at this time of night? “Your face—”

“Still don’t want to talk about it.”

Everything in her wanted to argue. Press for answers. Insist that after nineteen years of surrogate older sister status, she deserved to know why he’d shown up at the bakery Saturday morning looking like he’d just stepped out of a boxing ring.

But wisdom, or maybe simply a bone-deep weariness of one too many conversations just like this, bade her to hold her tongue.

Finally, after a stretching silence, he sighed. “I just owe someone some money, okay?”

Don’t ask. “How much—”

“So you’re in Maine? You said it was a long story. Can I get the short version? I’m on my way . . .”

Somewhere he was apparently as reluctant to tell her about as the whoever it was he owed or how much or how it could be so serious he’d ended up with a bruised face. What in the world had he gotten mixed up in this time?

And what kind of big sister was she to abandon him?

The kind who’s trying to do what Nikola said—to show him what it looks like to take a different path, for once. Her friend wasn’t wrong. They’d been stuck in a cycle for years. Maybe it was time for Micah to stand on his own two feet, figure out his own solution to whatever trouble he’d found himself in now.

But she prickled at the thought. Could hear fifteen-year-old Micah in her head: “You’re all I have, Syd.” He’d said the same words so many times since. And, always, she gave the expected response: “You’re all I have, too.”

Except now that might not be true. Now she might have a grandmother. Might have a whole family history with roots that tied her to land and sea alike. She spilled the story to Micah as quickly as she could.

“Wow, that’s, uh . . . that’s crazy,” he said when she finished. “I guess I get why you wanted to take the trip and go figure out your heritage or whatever. Just . . .”

He paused and she could hear him cut his car’s engine. “Just what?”

“Don’t forget you’ve got family back here, too, even if it’s not by blood.” There was something vulnerable in his voice.