Chapter 7 Eve
EVE
She’d been awake since three thirty, when Mia’s scream had cut through the quiet and sent both her and Lila rushing into her room. The image of Mia sitting up in bed, sheets twisted around her legs, eyes wild with fear and confusion, wouldn’t leave Eve’s mind.
I used to live here. Right here. In St. Augustine. This is where my father ran out of my and my mother’s lives when I was eight.
Eve stared at the ceiling, her thoughts drifting back nearly thirty years, to the day Mary Gray had walked into her life.
It had been late summer. Eve and Grant had just finished fixing up the guest cottage attached to their house in the Hollywood Hills.
Grant had been excited about the new surgeon joining their hospital, someone with a Harvard medical degree and a track record that had impressed even the most jaded members of the board, for someone as young as Mary was.
Eve had expected someone polished. Confident. Maybe a little arrogant, the way surgeons sometimes were.
What she got was a quiet woman who, while she had shadows under her eyes and an eight-year-old daughter who looked at the world as if she were waiting for it to hurt her, had a spine of steel.
But no arrogance. She knew she was good at what she did, but never sought recognition for it.
Mary was a surgeon because she wanted to help people and save lives. Not to become a celebrity.
Mary had been desperate for housing. The apartment she’d lined up had fallen through at the last minute, and she was starting her new position in less than a week. Grant had offered the cottage without hesitation, and Mary had accepted with a relief that made Eve’s chest ache.
They’d moved in that weekend. Two suitcases each. A handful of boxes. Nothing more.
No photos on the walls. No mementos from wherever they’d come from. Just the bare essentials and a determination to start over.
Eve had asked once, casually, where they’d moved from.
“The East Coast,” Mary had said, her smile tight and practiced. “I wanted a fresh start.”
She’d never mentioned a husband. Never mentioned Mia’s father. Only that he’d left them a few months before she decided to move to Los Angeles.
Eve had helped Mary get settled, had watched Mia slowly come out of her shell, had seen the way the little girl flinched at loud noises and checked door locks compulsively before bed.
It wasn’t until years later, when they’d gone to England for a medical conference and Mary had needed to update their passports, that Eve had seen Mia’s birth certificate.
The father’s name was blank.
Not listed. Not redacted. Just blank, like he’d never existed at all.
Eve had wanted to ask. Had opened her mouth half a dozen times to push for answers.
But something in Mary’s face had stopped her. The tight set of her jaw. The way her hands trembled when she tucked the documents back into her bag. The fear that lived just beneath the surface of her carefully constructed, calm, and iron-clad facade.
So Eve had let it go.
Mary and Mia had stayed in the guest cottage for almost ten years. Long enough for Mia to grow from a quiet, watchful child into a bright teenager with dreams of medical school. Long enough for Mary to become Eve’s closest friend, the kind of friendship that didn’t need words to communicate.
When Mary finally bought the house down the road, the one Mia and Lila lived in now, it had felt like both a graduation and a loss.
But they’d stayed close. Dinners every week.
Holidays together. Grant and Mary arguing good-naturedly about surgical techniques while Eve and Mia rolled their eyes and cleared the table.
They’d become family.
And then Grant had died. A heart attack in the middle of a routine surgery. Gone before anyone could save him.
Eve had thought she’d drown in the grief.
Mary had pulled her through and had even moved back into the guest cottage, leaving a newly divorced Mia and four-year-old Lila her house.
Mary and Mia had refused to let Eve be alone with her grief and supported her through it all.
They’d held each other up, the three of them, until breathing didn’t hurt quite so much.
But tragedy was to strike them again when two years later, Mary had gotten pneumonia.
It should have been treatable. She was a surgeon, for crying out loud. She knew her body. She’d gone to the hospital at the first sign of trouble.
But her lungs had been fragile since birth. Complications had set in fast. Within a week, she was on a ventilator. Within two, she was gone.
Eve’s heart still squeezed when she thought about losing the two people she loved most in the world so close together.
The only thing that had kept her going was Mia and Lila needing her. They’d filled the gap Grant left. And Eve had tried her best to fill the gap Mary left, to be the steady presence Mia needed as she navigated single motherhood and a demanding career.
They were her family now. The only family that mattered.
Eve sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, rubbing her face with both hands.
Mia’s dream. She hadn’t told them what it was about, just that she’d remembered something. A street. A house. A life in St. Augustine she’d buried so deep it had taken twenty-eight years to surface.
Eve made a mental note to ask her about it later.
She remembered the street Mia had recognized. Circle something. Circle Pond, maybe?
She heard Mia’s bedroom door open and close, footsteps moving quickly down the hallway.
She sat and listened for a moment, remembering that Mia was going to meet Nolan, the photographer. The man Mia had met yesterday, who’d made her smile in a way Eve hadn’t seen in months.
Eve made another mental note to ask around about him. To make sure he was who he claimed to be.
She showered quickly, letting the hot water ease some of the tension from her shoulders, then dressed and checked on Lila.
The teenager was still asleep, her face peaceful in the early morning light. Eve smiled, knowing if Lila knew she was standing staring at her sleeping, Lila would be creeped out. She couldn’t resist tiptoeing into the room. Pulling the blankets up and gently kissing her soft head.
Eve left her and headed downstairs.
The dining room was quiet, just a handful of early risers scattered at tables near the windows. Coffee sat in a carafe on the side table, and Eve poured herself a cup, adding cream until it turned a caramel color.
She settled into a chair near the window and pulled out her phone, typing “Circle Pond St. Augustine” into the search bar.
Circle Pond Gate Community popped up. Yes, this was it, Eve thought, remembering the pictures on Mia’s phone.
She scrolled through the images of the community, admiring the houses.
Each one more beautiful than the last. A circular cul-de-sac with a large park and pond in the middle.
With houses ranging from sprawling mansions to more modest yet gorgeous homes.
Trees lining the streets. A gated entrance with elegant iron scrollwork.
It looked like the kind of place people raised families. Put down roots and built lives.
“Are you interested in Circle Pond?” A male voice came from the side of her.
Eve jumped and turned her head to see the young server, Brian, if she remembered his name correctly, standing beside her with a fresh pot of coffee, his smile apologetic. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s okay.” Eve smiled at him. “Yes, I was just looking at it. It looks like a nice place to live.”
“It is,” Brian said, moving around to refill her cup. “I grew up there. My grandparents have lived there for, well, forever.” He smiled, the kind of pride that came from loving where you came from. “They were one of the first residents.”
“Really?” Eve added more cream to her cup. “How long has it been there?”
“I’m not sure exactly,” Brian admitted. “But a long time. If you’re interested in looking at living there, you should talk to William Moore.”
The world tilted slightly.
Eve stared at him. “William?”
“Yeah, he built the gated community many years ago,” Brian said, as if it were common knowledge. While it probably was to St. Augustine and Anastasia Island locals, it wasn’t to her. “My grandparents tell stories about when it was just dirt roads and construction crews everywhere.”
“Oh,” Eve said, her mind racing. “So you live there then?”
Brian nodded. “Yeah, I have since my parents died when I was two and my grandparents took me in.”
“I’m sorry, Brian,” Eve said, her heart going out to him.
“It’s okay,” Brian told her with a smile that suggested he’d made peace with it a long time ago. “I didn’t really know them.”
“You were very lucky to have your grandparents,” Eve said.
“Yeah, I really am,” Brian said. “They’re the best. I’m actually working here because I want to help with my college tuition.”
Eve smiled at the young man, feeling a surge of pride on behalf of his grandparents. Not many young people felt like he did. “What are you going to study?”
His face lit up. “I want to be a virologist.”
“Really?” Eve’s eyebrows rose. “That’s impressive. What made you choose that?”
Brian’s expression grew more serious. “My parents went on holiday when I was a baby. They contracted a virus overseas. They died before they could come home.”
Eve’s chest tightened. “Brian, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he said again, but this time his smile was softer, sadder. “I don’t remember them. But I want to help make sure other families don’t have to go through what my grandparents did. What I went through.”
Eve reached out and squeezed his hand briefly. “That’s a beautiful reason.”
The front door of the dining room opened, and Lila walked in, her hair still damp from the shower, wearing jeans and a soft sweater.
Brian’s cheeks flushed instantly, his eyes tracking her as she crossed the room.
“Aunt Eve,” Lila said, giving Brian a slight smile before settling into the chair across from Eve. “You should’ve woken me.”