I dig deeper.
Near the bottom of the box, I find a manila envelope, thick with papers. The label reads STICK A FORK IN IT - 1987 in careful handwriting.
The photo inside makes me catch my breath. It’s the Fork Lick Sap Festival. Hand-painted banners hang between the streetlights. Folding tables overflow with mason jars. And at the center of it all, wearing a Pierce Acres apron and holding a clipboard, is June.
She’s running this thing. I can see it in her posture, the way the surrounding vendors are looking to her for direction, the way she’s gesturing toward something with her pen… A woman in charge. God, the resemblance.
It’s not just the dark hair or the cheekbones. It’s the energy. Even in a forty-year-old photograph, I feel it radiating off her—that same buzzy, let’s-make-this-happen spark my sisters tease me about. The one Asher probably thinks is shallow.
But June wasn’t shallow. She was organizing a community festival. My hands shake slightly as I flip to the next item in the envelope. It’s a handwritten list on yellow legal paper, the edges gone brown with age.
Stick a Fork in It — Marketing Ideas
Follow-up postcards to all vendors (personalized, handwritten)
“Sappy Stories” newsletter — monthly? quarterly?
Photo feature: behind the scenes at Pierce Acres
Recipe cards with each syrup purchase (tied with ribbon?)
Punny slogans: “We’re STUCK on you” / I’d TAP that / “You make us SAPPY”
I laugh at that last one, the sound startling in the quiet house. She was leaning into the pun. That’s what I do. Or I try to do, anyway… find the angle that makes people smile and click and share.
There’s a rough sketch of what looks like a magazine layout. “The Sappy Times,” she’d titled it, with hand-drawn maple leaves bordering the masthead. Notes about printing costs, distribution ideas, and a list of potential advertisers from other Fork Lick businesses.
June Pierce was planning a content strategy in 1987. She just didn’t have the same tools I have to execute it.
I sit back on my heels, the papers spread around me like evidence. My throat feels parched in a way that has nothing to do with Asher or my sisters or the mountain of work this property needs. All this time, I’ve been thinking of my influencer skills as something frivolous. Something my sisters tolerate.
But June had the same instincts. The same understanding that connection matters, that story matters, that making people feel something is its own kind of value. She built community through sappiness—both kinds.
I look around the house, at the faded wallpaper, the solid bones beneath the neglect, the view of the maple grove through the kitchen window. This isn’t just an inheritance. It’s not even just a business opportunity.
It’s a legacy. My legacy. From a woman I never got to meet, but who apparently passed down more than just property.
Gran asked me why I couldn’t belong to both places. Pittsburgh and Fork Lick. My sisters and this new life.
Maybe the real question is whether I’m brave enough to claim something that’s just mine. Not because my sisters need me. Not because Asher might eventually stop being an idiot. But because a woman named June Pierce had a vision for this place, and somehow I’m the one who inherited both the land and the skill set to make it real.
I gather the papers, sliding them back into the envelope. Then I pull out my phone and snap a photo of June at the festival—her clipboard, her apron, her incandescent smile.
I don’t post it anywhere. Not yet. This one’s just for me.
I know just what to text my sisters.
Eva
I’m okay. More than okay, actually. I think I’m staying.
11
Asher
Despite knowing the date of my follow-up appointment in Climax for a week, I have done nothing to secure a ride. I am eager to meet with the orthopedist and learn when I can start a walking boot, but I am less keen to figure out how to get to the meeting. I tried to schedule it as a Telehealth appointment, but Climax Hospital isn’t set up for that.
I make a note to reach out to Clayton about Meow Mobile supporting rural and semi-rural healthcare.
