Me:There might be a guy. Not so much a lumberjack as a mountain man type.
Three dots appear instantly. Disappear. Appear again.
Cece:EVELYN MARIE PORTER. It has been ONE DAY.
Me:Believe me, I know.
Cece:One. Single. Day.
Me:I KNOW.
Cece:Tell me everything immediately. Is he tall? He's tall isn't he? You always go for the tall ones.
I laugh and it’s real. It’s the kind that comes out before you can catch it. I roll onto my back and type with both thumbs.
Me:Tall. Broad. Dark hair, dark eyes. Tattoos. Ex-military. Works as a handyman. His sister works at the library and apparently set up a blind date situation that I accidentally walked into.
Cece:I'm sorry, his sister set him up on a blind date and he showed up and YOU were there?
Me:I was shelving picture books on the floor. He thought I was the date.
Cece:Were you?
Me:No. But I didn’t mind.
Cece:And he stayed.
Me:He stayed.
Cece:Evie, you deserve this. You know that, right?
My throat tightens. I do not know that. I know it intellectually, the way you know that the earth orbits the sun. But that has zero impact on how you feel at two in the morning when you're alone in a strange cabin and your hands still smell like someone else's thermos.
Me:How are you? How's Birdie?
The pivot is obvious and I don't care. I need to stop talking about James Holt before I say something that makes it real. I need to hear about my niece. More than that, I need to hear that my sister is fine because Cece being fine is one of the few constants I have left.
Cece:Oh you know. Birdie's got a cold, hasn't slept in three days, so neither have I. The usual chaos. But who cares? Tell me more about the mountain man.
She pivots back fast. Too fast? I don't know. It's hard to read tone in a text. But there's something about the way she keeps redirecting toward me and away from herself that snags in the back of my mind.
I let it go. Cece's life is the together one. Cece has the husband, the house, the daughter, and the put-together Instagram grid with the matching throw pillows to prove it. She’s the sister who callsmeto check in, not the other way around. That's how it's always been.
I'm the mess. She's the map.
Me:Not much more to tell. We had coffee. He followed me home to make sure I made it up the canyon road. He flashed his headlights when I got out of my car.
Cece:He WHAT.
Me:Flashed his headlights. Like. Goodnight.
Cece:Evelyn, I need you to understand that I just clutched my chest like a Victorian woman and Birdie is looking at me like I've lost my mind.
I'm laughing again. Quietly, in the dark, in a cabin that still doesn't feel like mine yet but feels less empty than it did this morning.
Me:It's nothing. It's probably nothing, but I do appreciate the distraction. I'm here to work and breathe and figure out how to be a person again.
Cece:I know, babe. But also you're allowed to be a person who has coffee with a hot handyman. Those aren't mutually exclusive.
