I want them to see what I see here.
I want them to understand why I’m… what? Considering staying? Actually staying?
I don’t even know anymore.
“You look conflicted, dear,” Gran says gently.
“I am.” I sink onto a stool near her potting bench. “My sisters need me. I begged them to let me take on their marketing and branding, and now I’ve built a whole business around helping them succeed. And, well, I work for them.”
“And that’s wonderful. But is it what you want?”
“I don’t know. I thought it was. But then I came here and found this property and this community and—” I gesture helplessly. “I don’t know where I belong anymore.”
“Maybe you belong in both places.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Why not? Your sisters could visit. You could visit them. The world’s not as big as it used to be, Eva.”
She makes it sound so simple. I’m very obviously in some sort of honeymoon phase with Fork Lick. It all looks shiny and exciting right now, but in reality, I don’t even have internet access or any sort of plan to keep up with my property taxes.
Gran hands me a mint leaf, which I munch before blurting, “And then there’s Walter and June—the family I never knew about. I never knew I had this missing piece and… now that I do, it feels really important to at least explore it a bit.”
“You don’t have to decide today,” Gran says. “Or even this week. Just… don’t close doors before you’ve walked through them, okay?”
Back at Pierce Acres, I sit at my kitchen table, staring at my laptop. I’ve answered the urgent emails. Sent the files Eden needed. Fixed Eila’s website. Apologized to Esther for missing another Storm dinner.
Gran must have one heck of a router over at Bedd Fellows because I still have Wi-Fi access at the house, enough that my phone will at least receive text messages. And it starts to do so at a rapid pace.
Esther
Thanks for the files. You okay up there?
Eden
Yeah, you’ve been quiet. Everything all right?
Eila
If the yeti is being weird, I can come up there and kick his ass
Eliza
We miss you
The sentiment from Eliza hits the hardest. She’s a hard-ass who doesn’t readily communicate her feelings. I stare at the messages, at these women who raised me and love me and need me.
And then I look around Pierce Acres. At the boxes of photos. At the list of renovations that will take months to complete. I’ve been avoiding the photos since Lionel handed over the keys. They’re in boxes stacked in the corner of the living room, cardboard edges soft with age. Someone’s whole life, boxed up and waiting.
I should sort through them. Add it to the list right under “figure out my entire future” and “stop thinking about the grumpy neighbor who rejected me.”
But Gran’s words keep rattling around in my head. Don’t close doors before you’ve walked through them.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I’m on the floor, pulling the first box toward me. The photos on top are what I expected—landscapes of the property in different seasons, the maple grove heavy with snow, the sugar shack before it started sagging.
But deeper in the box, the photos get more interesting. Birthday parties with cake smeared on little faces. A young couple slow dancing in this very kitchen. Walter and June, I realize, decades younger than the portrait in the hallway. They’re laughing at something off-camera, and June’s head is thrown back, her whole body radiating joy.
I trace my finger along the edge of the photo. She was beautiful. Dark hair like mine, the same round cheeks I see in my mirror—the same wide smile Esther says I use to get out of trouble.
