Chapter 1 #2
William went quiet for a beat, and Eve pictured him standing in his shop back home, phone to his ear, face tightening the way it did when he decided something.
“You need to get her away from there,” William said.
Eve blinked. “Away?”
“A change of scenery,” William said. “A change of pace. A place that doesn’t smell like antiseptic and stress.”
“Lila and I were just saying we need to get Mia away from Los Angeles.”
Lila walked back into the room at that moment.
“Are we going away?” she asked in wide-eyed wonder.
Eve put the phone on speaker once again so Lila could hear.
“Then let me make it easy,” William said, and something in his voice turned decisive. “Come to St. Augustine.”
He paused for a second to catch his breath. “Come for the New Year. Come for a few weeks if you can. I have a friend, Julie Christmas, who runs the Christmas Inn on Anastasia Island. She’ll put you up. I’m sure she has rooms. She has the kind of place that makes people breathe again.”
Eve’s mind tried to organize the information. St. Augustine. Florida.
“Yes, yes.” Lila clapped her hands. “Yes. Uncle William. We want to.”
“Don’t get too excited,” Eve warned Lila. “We have to talk to Mia first.”
“Of course,” William said. “Tell her I called. Tell her I miss her. Tell her I’d like to see you all.”
“I will,” Eve said.
After a few more pleasantries with William, Eve ended the call and set the phone back on the coffee table.
Lila stared at her as if Eve had just produced plane tickets from thin air. “That was… weird.”
Eve arched a brow. “Weird?”
“I said I wished we could get out of Los Angeles,” Lila reminded her. “And then Uncle William calls and invites us somewhere.”
Eve let herself smile. “Coincidence.”
Lila shook her head, eyes glittering with mischief and hope. “Maybe I should wish for a horse and see if it appears on the front lawn.”
Eve laughed, the sound surprising her with how much she needed it. “Please do not. Your mother would have a fit.”
Footsteps sounded in the hallway. Mia came back into the living room, hair damp and curling at the ends, her cheeks flushed from the warm shower. She was dressed for the theatre and was about to say something when Lila interrupted her.
“Uncle William called!” Lila blurted out.
Mia’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “William?”
Eve nodded. “He called to wish you both Merry Christmas.”
“Oh,” Mia said, and the word carried warmth and a hint of regret as she spotted her phone and reached for it. “I haven’t spoken to him in a while. I should call him back.”
“William has invited us to St. Augustine for a couple of weeks,” Eve told her.
The shift in Mia happened so fast that Eve almost missed it. It wasn’t dramatic. It was subtle, like a ripple moving beneath still water. Mia’s spine stiffened. The color drained from her cheeks. The smile vanished.
“I don’t want to go there,” Mia said.
Lila’s joy flickered. “Why not?”
Mia looked at her daughter and forced a softer expression, but Eve saw strain in the corners. “It’s not that I don’t want to see William,” Mia said. “I just… I don’t want to go to Florida.”
Eve took a step closer, lowering her voice so Lila would not feel pushed out, but so Mia would feel held. “Why? St. Augustine is beautiful. It’s one of the oldest towns in the country. William said it is amazing this time of year.”
Mia swallowed. Her eyes went distant for a second, as if she was listening to something no one else could hear. “Lila, honey, go get your sweater. We have to go.”
Lila looked a little deflated as she left the room.
“Mia, what’s wrong?” Eve asked worriedly. “You stiffened the moment I mentioned St. Augustine.”
“I can’t explain it,” Mia said. “The moment you said St. Augustine… I felt dread.”
“Have you ever been there?” Eve asked, her brow furrowing worriedly.
Mia shook her head. “Not that I can recall.”
“You know, your mother never liked Florida either,” Eve remembered.
Mia nodded. “I remember. I’m probably just projecting my mother’s dislike of the state.”
“Yes,” Eve agreed. “That’s probably it.”
Lila came back into the room and looked at her mother. “Please, Mom, can we go visit Uncle William in St. Augustine. We could use a break, and it’s been ages since we’ve gone away.”
Mia’s gaze softened as she looked at her daughter, and for a moment, Eve saw the mother Mia had always been, the one who carried love like a promise. Mia’s smile returned, but it looked practiced.
“We can talk about it,” Mia said, then she glanced toward the front door. “Now we must leave.” She looked for her keys.
“Lila is right, Mia,” Eve pushed. “We all could use a break, and St. Augustine is beautiful this time of year.”
Mia found the house keys and turned to look at Eve and Lila, letting out a breath. “You’re right.” She nodded. “I should visit William as he’s not getting any younger. And I do need a break from Los Angeles.” She smiled at Lila. “We all do.”
“Does that mean we’re going to St. Augustine?” Lila’s eyes widened in excitement.
Mia swallowed. “What the heck,” she said, the phrase soft, tired, and almost resigned. “Let’s do it. I haven’t seen William in a few years, and it’s about time we visited him in his hometown.”
Relief washed through Eve so fast it almost made her dizzy. “All right,” she said, and kept her voice steady because Mia needed steadiness. “We’ll talk through logistics after the pageant.”
Mia nodded, but the nod looked like something she gave with effort, as if she was asking her body to cooperate. She moved toward the entryway with purpose, as Lila bounded after them and they stepped out of the house.
Eve watched without staring as Mia locked the door.
She pulled the door inward, testing the seal, her shoulders tight beneath her sweater. She turned the lock three times, then a fourth, then a fifth, each click neat and exact, as if she could build safety from repetition.
“Mom, it’s locked,” Lila said gently, taking her mother’s hand. “Are we going in your car, Aunt Eve?”
“Yes,” Eve said as they walked to her car parked in the driveway. She had to admire how well Lila had handled that.
Eve had known Mia since Mia was eight years old, since the day her mother, Mary, arrived in Los Angeles with a little girl who looked too composed for her age and too watchful for a child.
Back then, Mary had been exhausted but determined, a brilliant surgeon with an iron spine and a tremor of fear she tried to hide.
Mia had carried her own quiet compulsions in those early months, rituals that helped her feel in control when everything familiar had been stripped away.
Mary had gotten her help. Therapy. Tools.
Structure. It had worked. Mia had grown into the kind of adult who saved lives with steady hands and a steady mind.
Until two days before Christmas.
The night that child died on Mia’s operating table, the old patterns had crept back in, small enough to hide from anyone who did not know what to look for.
A little extra checking. A little extra counting.
A little extra gripping of the locket she always wore, like it could anchor her to the present.
It was one more reason Eve had pushed for Mia’s leave.
At their hospital, Mia’s record spoke for itself, the kind of surgical outcome history people whispered about with awe. Mia didn’t miss things. Mia didn’t freeze. Mia didn’t falter. They called her the miracle surgeon.
Yet the crack was there now, hairline but real, and Eve felt it like a fault line under a beautiful house.
Mia was unraveling at the edges.
And Eve knew enough about the mind to recognize what happened when a perfectionist who had always relied on control began losing faith in herself.