“Nora,” Izzy said gently.

“Don’t you Nora me,” she snapped. “I’m tired of being the bad guy. You know as well as I do her behavior isn’t healthy.”

Izzy cleared her throat.

I should have known this was coming given the circumstances of Constance’s passing. And I knew my aunts were worried about me. They had raised me from the age of five when my parents were killed in a car accident. You could say it was their job to worry about me. But I had just passed my thirty-first birthday. There had to be boundaries. I was an adult now.

I challenged Izzy with a look. She cringed but carried on. “Brynn, your aunt Nora isn’t wrong. We know you’ve been through a tragedy. A terrible loss. And everyone is entitled to having time to heal, but we’re worried you might be stuck, darling. And that you might need a little help getting unstuck.”

I wouldn’t say I was stuck. I was changed. There was a difference.

Recently I had come to a decision about how I wanted to live my life going forward. I hadn’t, however, told my aunts about that decision yet. They would not react well.

“We are your family, Brynn. Don’t shut us out. There isn’t any problem we can’t solve together.”

I suspected she intended to say more, but all of the sudden a strange look came over her face.

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what? What are you talking about?” Nora slapped the armrests of her chair. “You were doing so well! Don’t stop now! You were saying Nora’s right and . . .”

“No, I’m being serious,” Izzy said, holding up her hand. “Listen.”

I took a breath, trying to focus on whatever it was my aunt was talking about, but all I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears.

Nora slowly sat up in her chair. “Please tell me that isn’t what I think it is.”

What was going on with the two of them?

I took another breath and tried to refocus my energy. This was obviously important if they were willing to drop the issue we all had been dancing around for months.

I closed my eyes.

I didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary at first, but then it came to me.

It was a soft trilling.

Soft because I was hearing it from a distance, but louder than it should have been. Probably because there were so many of them making the steady hum.

“Come on,” Nora said, sweeping to her feet.

Izzy and I followed her around the side of the house, down the porch steps, and into the back garden.

Nora’s garden was a sanctuary. There was no better word to describe it. Even though she tended to it daily, it had a wild feel, lush and overgrown. It was the type of place where you wanted to dance in the moonlight, trailing your fingers over flowers, or laze away a hot summer’s day listening to the wind rustle in the trees.