“I’ll bring it to you immediately.” He nods. “But Eva? I don’t think you need it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your father came here alone, and he stayed that way. Didn’t seek support. Didn’t build community. He saw what Pierce Acres could be, but he couldn’t see himself as the person who could make it happen.” Lionel leans forward. “You’re not alone.” He slides a tissue box across the desk. “Your father’s fear was understandable, but you don’t have to inherit it along with the property. You can choose differently.”
I take a tissue and press it to my eyes, breathing through the cramps in my chest. “I should go,” I say, standing. “I have work to do.”
Lionel smiles, the expression crinkling his whole face. “That’s the spirit. Oh, and Eva?” I pause at the door. “June used to make these maple chews. Soft candies… extremely popular. I lost a crown trying to eat one back in ‘84.” He taps his jaw ruefully. “Best sweets I ever tasted, though. If you get the syrup operation running, you might think about bringing those back.”
I file that away for future reference. “I’ll add it to the list.”
“You do that.” He waves me off.
I step out of Lionel’s office into the Fork Lick sunshine, and for the first time since Asher left, the tightness in my chest feels less like anxiety and more like anticipation.
My father ran.
I’m staying.
The next day, I drive back to Tiddy’s with renewed enthusiasm, fully prepared to eat crow. My father would have avoided this forever, let the embarrassment curdle into shame, the shame into distance, the distance into another place he couldn’t go back to.
I’m not doing that.
I push through the door.
The afternoon crowd is sparse; I recognize some of the same barflies from Sunday. Behind the bar, Mr. Tiddy wipes glasses with the same methodical energy as before. He looks up when I enter. His expression flickers with something I can’t quite read—surprise, maybe, or… guilt?
I approach the bar slowly, hands visible, like I’m trying not to spook a horse. “Mr. Tiddy. I know I’m probably the last person you want to see right now.”
“Now hold on?—”
“Please, let me say this.” I take a breath. “I came to apologize. Properly. What I did was disrespectful. Not just to you, but to your grandmother’s memory, to this bar, to the whole town. I made assumptions instead of asking questions, and I’m sorry.”
Tiddy sets down his glass. His mustache twitches in a way I’m starting to recognize. “About that,” he says slowly. “There’s something I should probably?—”
“I know I can’t undo it,” I barrel on, too nervous to let him finish. “And I know Alex probably told everyone by now, which means the whole town thinks I’m some clueless city girl who?—”
“Eva.” Tiddy’s voice is firm enough to stop me. “Sit down.”
I sit. He pours me a whiskey without asking, slides it across the bar, and then does something I don’t expect.
He laughs.
Not a mean laugh. A rueful, sheepish, caught-with-his-hand-in-the-cookie-jar laugh. “I was messing with you.”
I blink. “What?”
“The whole thing. The outrage, the grandmother speech, the how dare you.” He shakes his head, mustache quivering. “I was hazing you. It’s what we do to people we like around here. Ask Bacon about the time we convinced him the town had a man tax.”
I stare at him, my brain struggling to recalibrate. “But you looked so… your face was so red…”
“I was trying not to laugh.” He has the decency to look embarrassed. “You should’ve seen your expression. Like you’d accidentally insulted the Pope.”
“I thought I’d ruined everything. I thought the whole town was going to hate me.”
“Honey, I’ve been making Tiddy jokes since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. You think you’re the first person to notice my name sounds like…” He waves a hand. “Please. I’ve heard every variation. ‘Nice to meet you. I’m an ass man myself.’ ‘Is the bar named after the left one or the right one?’ Your slogan was actually pretty clever.”
I’m oscillating between relief and indignation. “I cried in my car for twenty minutes.”
