“So,” Hannah drawled, peeking into the bags, “do you know what your theme is going to be, yet?”

“I do,” Miriam laughed, snatching the bag back, “and it’s a secret! Cole?”

“To the attic!” They linked arms and skipped up the stairs. At the top, Miriam looked back down at Noelle and winked.

Shit, she was a goner.

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Miriam

I have never seen this many Miriam Blum originals in one place,” Cole said, circling the attic.

“I gave them to Cass over the years. She’s the one who pushed me to make a career out of turning mild-mannered antiques into kitschy wonders,” Miriam said, half-lost in memories of the girl who’d made them, the woman who’d collected them, and the one who treasured them now. She ran her hands over a rocking horse with cellophane, sequin-covered dragon wings, and giant, mirrored reptile eyes. “I went through a weird dark phase where I made a lot of creepy animal mash-ups.”

“You have a lot of potential money up here, Mimi.”

Miriam surveyed the attic. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Especially if I parceled the pieces out and sold them over a couple of years.” She touched pieces she hadn’t seen in a decade, parts of her past she’d thought were gone forever. “It could help keep Carrigan’s afloat.”

“But you wouldn’t have all the pieces you gave to Cass that she kept all these years,” he pointed out. She should have known he would see how hard that choice would be, even if it were the rational one.

This attic felt like another message Cass had left her: “I never stopped loving you or supporting you.” If she sold all of it, she would lose another string tying her back to Cass.

“I can always make more art.” Although it wouldn’t be art she’d made for Cass, where she’d pulled a part of her heart out and gifted it to her favorite person, the only way she had known to show her gratitude.

“Can you?” Cole asked skeptically. “You haven’t actually made any art you’re happy with since you got here, I notice.” Damn Cole. He chose the least opportune moments to be perceptive.

“I can,” she said, picking up a miniature Ferris wheel covered in spikes. “I can feel the inklings of that creative itch with this tree project.”

“What do you think the block was?” Cole sat on a trunk that was too short for him, his knees up around his ears. “Was it like a walking and chewing gum thing, where you could either experience deep emotion or make art, but not both at once?”