She’d never mentioned a husband. Never mentioned Mia’s father. Only that he’d left them a few months before she decided to move to Los Angeles.
Eve had helped Mary get settled, had watched Mia slowly come out of her shell, had seen the way the little girl flinched at loud noises and checked door locks compulsively before bed.
It wasn’t until years later, when they’d gone to England for a medical conference and Mary had needed to update their passports, that Eve had seen Mia’s birth certificate.
The father’s name was blank.
Not listed. Not redacted. Just blank, like he’d never existed at all.
Eve had wanted to ask. Had opened her mouth half a dozen times to push for answers.
But something in Mary’s face had stopped her. The tight set of her jaw. The way her hands trembled when she tucked the documents back into her bag. The fear that lived just beneath the surface of her carefully constructed, calm, and iron-clad facade.
So Eve had let it go.
Mary and Mia had stayed in the guest cottage for almost ten years. Long enough for Mia to grow from a quiet, watchful child into a bright teenager with dreams of medical school. Long enough for Mary to become Eve’s closest friend, the kind of friendship that didn’t need words to communicate.
When Mary finally bought the house down the road, the one Mia and Lila lived in now, it had felt like both a graduation and a loss. But they’d stayed close. Dinners every week. Holidays together. Grant and Mary arguing good-naturedly about surgical techniques while Eve and Mia rolled their eyes and cleared the table.
They’d become family.
And then Grant had died. A heart attack in the middle of a routine surgery. Gone before anyone could save him.
Eve had thought she’d drown in the grief.
Mary had pulled her through and had even moved back into the guest cottage, leaving a newly divorced Mia and four-year-old Lila her house. Mary and Mia had refused to let Eve be alone with her grief and supported her through it all. They’d held each other up, the three of them, until breathing didn’t hurt quite so much.
But tragedy was to strike them again when two years later, Mary had gotten pneumonia.
It should have been treatable. She was a surgeon, for crying out loud. She knew her body. She’d gone to the hospital at the first sign of trouble.
But her lungs had been fragile since birth. Complications had set in fast. Within a week, she was on a ventilator. Within two, she was gone.
Eve’s heart still squeezed when she thought about losing the two people she loved most in the world so close together.
The only thing that had kept her going was Mia and Lila needing her. They’d filled the gap Grant left. And Eve had tried her best to fill the gap Mary left, to be the steady presence Mia needed as she navigated single motherhood and a demanding career.
They were her family now. The only family that mattered.
Eve sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, rubbing her face with both hands.
Mia’s dream. She hadn’t told them what it was about, just that she’d remembered something. A street. A house. A life in St. Augustine she’d buried so deep it had taken twenty-eight years to surface.
Eve made a mental note to ask her about it later.
She remembered the street Mia had recognized. Circle something. Circle Pond, maybe?
She heard Mia’s bedroom door open and close, footsteps moving quickly down the hallway.
She sat and listened for a moment, remembering that Mia was going to meet Nolan, the photographer. The man Mia had met yesterday, who’d made her smile in a way Eve hadn’t seen in months.
Eve made another mental note to ask around about him. To make sure he was who he claimed to be.
She showered quickly, letting the hot water ease some of the tension from her shoulders, then dressed and checked on Lila.
The teenager was still asleep, her face peaceful in the early morning light. Eve smiled, knowing if Lila knew she was standing staring at her sleeping, Lila would be creeped out. She couldn’t resist tiptoeing into the room. Pulling the blankets up and gently kissing her soft head.
Eve left her and headed downstairs.
