Eve and Lila rushed into the room, climbing onto either side of the bed without hesitation.
Suppressed memories were starting to surface, fractured and jagged, demanding to be seen.
“Honey, what is it?” Eve asked, her eyes sleep-heavy but filled with worry.
Lila rubbed her eyes. “You screamed so loud, Mom. Was it a bad dream?”
“I don’t think it was a dream,” Mia said, her voice shaking. “Hand me my phone.”
She patted Lila’s arm, and Lila sleepily reached for the phone on the nightstand.
Mia took it with trembling hands.
A street name surfaced in her mind, clear and vivid. She typed it into the search bar and hit enter.
The screen loaded.
Mia froze.
A circular cul-de-sac with a large park and pond in the middle.
She knew that road. She knew it well.
“Mom?” Lila said.
“Mia?” Eve said at the same time.
Mia looked at them. “I know why my mother really didn’t like Florida.” She held up the phone. “Remember when I said I’ve never been here?” She showed them the screen. “I was mistaken. I used to live here. Right here. In St. Augustine, this is where my father ran out of my and my mother’s lives when I was eight.”
The silence in the room pressed down like a physical weight.
7
EVE
The clock on the nightstand read 6:25 when Eve finally gave up trying to sleep.
She’d been awake since three thirty, when Mia’s scream had cut through the quiet and sent both her and Lila rushing into her room. The image of Mia sitting up in bed, sheets twisted around her legs, eyes wild with fear and confusion, wouldn’t leave Eve’s mind.
I used to live here. Right here. In St. Augustine. This is where my father ran out of my and my mother’s lives when I was eight.
Eve stared at the ceiling, her thoughts drifting back nearly thirty years, to the day Mary Gray had walked into her life.
It had been late summer. Eve and Grant had just finished fixing up the guest cottage attached to their house in the Hollywood Hills. Grant had been excited about the new surgeon joining their hospital, someone with a Harvard medical degree and a track record that had impressed even the most jaded members of the board, for someone as young as Mary was.
Eve had expected someone polished. Confident. Maybe a little arrogant, the way surgeons sometimes were.
What she got was a quiet woman who, while she had shadows under her eyes and an eight-year-old daughter who looked at the world as if she were waiting for it to hurt her, had a spine of steel. But no arrogance. She knew she was good at what she did, but never sought recognition for it. Mary was a surgeon because she wanted to help people and save lives. Not to become a celebrity.
Mary had been desperate for housing. The apartment she’d lined up had fallen through at the last minute, and she was starting her new position in less than a week. Grant had offered the cottage without hesitation, and Mary had accepted with a relief that made Eve’s chest ache.
They’d moved in that weekend. Two suitcases each. A handful of boxes. Nothing more.
No photos on the walls. No mementos from wherever they’d come from. Just the bare essentials and a determination to start over.
Eve had asked once, casually, where they’d moved from.
“The East Coast,” Mary had said, her smile tight and practiced. “I wanted a fresh start.”
