Now that her heart was yelling loudly at her, without her permission, she didn’t know how to set herself free. It felt reckless and unsound. Since Hannah, the Matthewses, and Noelle had all made their opinions known and she still wasn’t closer to a decision, she went to visit the reindeer.

There had always been reindeer at Carrigan’s because Cass preferred them to people. Miriam had been afraid they might have been sold, their upkeep too expensive as the farm tried to stay afloat. She should have known Cass would never allow it.

“Hello, my sweet friends,” she cooed, pulling apples out of her coat pocket. “It’s so lovely to see your fuzzy, fuzzy faces. Yes, it is. No, sir, you can keep your teeth to yourself. Now, no one around here has anything for me to do, but I suspect you are in need of skritchy-skritches behind the ears, aren’t you? Aren’t you, you beauties?” She snapped a quick selfie with them for the Bloomers.

She heard a throat clear behind her, and turned around to find Mr. Matthews, his hands stuffed in his pockets, and Noelle, an eyebrow raised and a smirk on her face.

“The reindeer were lonely,” Miriam said defensively, her heart in her throat. If her dad had caught her being sweet with an animal, she would have had to worry forever that he would use it as emotional leverage against her. But this wasn’t her dad. The reindeer were safe.

Mr. Matthews shuffled his feet and grumbled. “The barn’s looking mighty ratty, and it sure would be nice if someone repainted the old mural that used to be on the side, the one with the Carrigan’s logo.”

Mr. Matthews was right. What had, in her childhood, been a vibrant mural done by some wandering artist trying to impress Cass was now a few sad peeling scraps of color.

Noelle looked between the two of them. “Miriam,” she said, “would you like a project? You know how to paint, right?”

Miriam blinked. That was a much bigger question than Noelle knew. She hadn’t painted in a very long time.

She went with the obvious answer.

“I am a professional artist. I could do the mural. I remember what it used to look like.”

“Maybe you could add a few artistic touches,” Mr. Matthews added, in his sly, taciturn way. If anyone but Mr. Matthews had made the suggestion, her stomach would have knotted and her blood would have turned to ice. She could do this. Painting a barn wasn’t making a painting. This was fine. She could paint a damn pine tree and a weird vintage reindeer on the side of a barn. Weird vintage reindeer were practically her bread and butter. The Bloomers would love it.