Promises to Keep Nan Rossiter (books for 7th graders .txt) 📖

in the fridge, sat down at the kitchen table, and opened her laptop. With everything going on the last few days—the picnic at Macey’s, packing up her apartment, moving in with Gage, unpacking, and going out to dinner with Gage’s brother—she hadn’t even had time to check her email.

She clicked on her Facebook page and slowly scrolled through her newsfeed—smiling and “liking” posts. She wasn’t a huge fan of social media. She enjoyed seeing what her friends were up to, but it sometimes made her feel a little jealous. They all seemed to be living lives that were much more exciting—and perfect—than hers. They posted photos of themselves in all kinds of amazing places—from long sandy Caribbean beaches to the breathtaking sights and summits of national parks. They posted photos of artistically plated food and frosty craft cocktails with comments like It’s all in the presentation! . . . and they posted photos of their families. When she did find time to go on Facebook or Instagram, she usually found herself scrolling past photos of cute kids doing amazing things—winning games, holding up trophies, going to proms, and hugging their moms. All the fun and love in their lives made her feel oddly sad, and sometimes, for her own mental health, she just had to avoid it. She wanted these things, too, and she often had to remind herself how lucky and blessed she was to have the wonderful family she did have, including sweet Harper—who’d brought light and love and laughter to all their lives—but Maeve would love to have a child (or three) of her own someday. The one time she and Gage had talked about children, she’d teasingly said, “A whole tribe!” but he’d only smiled and said, “Maybe one or two.” She’d found it ironic that he—who’d come from a family with six kids—only wanted two, and she—who’d come from a family with only two—wanted more. Now, here they were, both almost thirty-six and they weren’t even engaged. A family was beginning to seem less and less likely.

She was just about to close her laptop when the notification of a new friend request popped up. She clicked on it and discovered it was from Chase. Without hesitation, she confirmed him, and then curiously clicked to his page. There he was, the handsome young man she’d met the previous night, and although he absolutely looked like Gage, their personalities were very different. Chase was much more easygoing, and his style of dress was definitely trendier than Gage’s casual, faded Levi’s and T-shirts . . . and with those classy sunglasses, he looked like he should be a model. In the large background picture behind his profile picture, he and Liam were standing shirtless and tan—Chase’s hair so blond it looked white—on the deck of a gorgeous wooden sailboat floating on clear blue-green water. It was a stunning photo, and she clicked on it to see if he’d added a location. There in the sidebar were the words: Finally . . . Mykonos! Inclusion of the word finally made her think it had been a destination they’d wanted to visit for a long time, but she had never even heard of it. She googled “Mykonos,” and when images of a lovely Mediterranean island appeared, she found herself nodding approvingly. “Nice,” she murmured. “I would love to go to Greece someday.”

She scrolled through Chase’s timeline and saw photos of all kinds of exotic places, and it suddenly dawned on her that they’d never talked, last night, about what Chase and Liam did for a living—just that they lived in DC and owned their own business. “Sheesh, Chase, what the heck do you do?” she murmured. She clicked on his bio and discovered that he and Liam owned their own travel agency, and when she clicked on the link to their website, she realized their agency specialized in LGBTQ-friendly destinations. She’d never even considered there might be places that wouldn’t be friendly, but he and Liam had obviously found a need and filled it—that’s what you do when you have an entrepreneurial spirit. She scrolled through the pictures, looking at all the lovely destinations. Yep, Chase was definitely a millennial—sophisticated, tech savvy, and worldly!

Gage, on the other hand, had very little interest in technology. He had an iPhone, but that was it, and he only used it for texting, calls, and listening to music. She’d tried to tell him that having a website might help him get into a gallery, but he was leery of putting his personal info online. He was only ten years older than Chase, but he seemed to be from a previous generation when it came to technology.

She took a bite of her English muffin and licked her lips, savoring the sweetness of the marmalade. “Oh, my goodness, this is really good,” she murmured, and then, feeling like an unrepentant snoop, clicked on the left side of Chase’s page to see all of his photos. As she scrolled through them, she told herself she wasn’t trolling or stalking. She was just interested. She scrolled past an old photo of all six brothers standing in front of a sign that had TENNESSEE TENNYSON DAIRY FARM painted on it. She clicked on the picture and studied the larger version that popped up. It looked just like the photo that she’d seen in the newspaper clipping about Cale’s accident. In it, Gage looked to be about seventeen, which meant the little towhead on the far end must’ve been around seven. She looked at the description to the right of the picture and realized that all the brothers except Cale and Gage had been tagged—which meant they all had Facebook pages, too—and the name of the farm was also highlighted in blue, which meant it also had a page. What a gold mine! she thought. She clicked on the farm’s Facebook page, and found herself looking into the soulful brown eyes of several cows. Behind them was a big white barn. As she scanned the page, she realized the