Chapter 10 Eva
Eva
The morning after Asher made it abundantly clear that we’re “just neighbors,” I decide to be mature about this. Professional. Neighborly, even.
I will bring him coffee that I make at my own house with the ancient percolator I found in the cellar. I will be friendly, but distant. I will prove I am a functional adult who does not get emotionally derailed by grumpy hermits who send mixed signals.
I rehearse what I’m going to say the whole walk over. Hey, brought you some coffee. Just being neighborly. No big deal. I’m so focused on my script that I almost don’t notice the car in his driveway.
It’s a Honda sedan, pale blue, with a Fork Lick Community Garden bumper sticker.
I slow my steps, suddenly uncertain. Maybe it’s a delivery person. Maybe it’s someone from town checking on him. Maybe it’s—
Through the kitchen window, I see Ginny from the Quick Lick, unmistakable with her cloud of curly hair and bright pink cardigan. She’s standing at Asher’s counter, unpacking Tupperware containers.
Asher sits at the table, looking uncomfortable. Good.
Ginny laughs at something—I can’t hear what—and touches his arm casually, familiarly. Like she belongs in his house.
I stand on the outside while an insider brings him a homemade casserole that’s probably full of his favorite ingredients. I know he said he’s not interested in her, but he seems to say a lot of things.
I can’t decide if knocking and staking my claim on this handsome yeti would be the mature response or the absolute wrong decision.
Neighbors don’t interrupt when other neighbors have company, right?
I turn around and walk back to Pierce Acres. The coffee goes cold on my kitchen table while I attack the first floor with a shop vac from the 1900s, raising clouds of dust that make my eyes water.
That’s the only reason my eyes are watering.
Around noon, my phone buzzes. This must be my pocket of cell service.
Asher
You didn’t come by this morning.
I stare at the message for a full minute before responding.
Me
You had company.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
Asher
Ginny brought a casserole. I didn’t ask her to.
My thumbs hover over the keyboard. I could be gracious and say it’s no big deal; I was busy anyway. I could pretend I’m not bothered. But I am bothered.
Me
You don’t owe me an explanation. We’re just neighbors.
I set the phone face down on the counter and go back to sweeping. Let him sit with that. Let him hear his own words thrown back at him.
An hour passes before he responds.
Asher
Eva.
That’s it. Just my name. No explanation, no apology, no clarification. I don’t write back. My phone is useless. Whatever magic data wave brought me grump texts from Asher has sailed away into the cloud.
I sit at the kitchen table in Pierce Acres, surrounded by photographs of Walter and June, half-sorted boxes, and a growing list of equipment that needs repair, and my phone might as well be a brick with a camera lens.
Nothing loads, not even my group chat with my sisters.
And they’re not even sending GIFs. This is ridiculous.
I live in the twenty-first century. I shouldn’t have to climb a tree and sacrifice a chicken just to check my messages.
I apparently need to get hooked up with Meow Mobile, but I honestly have no idea how to achieve that without cell service or Wi-Fi to look up where their office is.
I swing back and forth between anger at my father for inadvertently sending me to this cell-free town, and embarrassment because I had the audacity to think Asher was going to kiss me.
My face heats, remembering it. The way I leaned in. The way he leaned in, too… and then reached past me for his stupid crutches like I was invisible.
Fine. Since we’re just neighbors, I’ll just go make better friends with my other neighbors, who are more talkative anyway. I grab my laptop and head out to the golf cart.
Gran answers the door wearing gardening gloves and a huge smile. “Eva! What a lovely surprise. Come in, come in.”
“I’m so sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if I could use your Wi-Fi? I have some work stuff I need to take care of and my service at Pierce Acres is—”
“Say no more, dear. Password’s on the fridge.” She waves me toward the kitchen. “Make yourself at home. I’m just down in the basement with my plants. Come find me when you’re done if you want to see my setup.”
“Thank you so much. I really appreciate this.”
“Anytime, honey. Door’s always open.”
She disappears through a door I assume leads to the basement, and I settle at her kitchen table. The vibe is just like being at Esther’s house, only without the furrowed brows from my sister trying to hold back a comment or twelve.
Ethel’s Wi-Fi connects immediately, and reality slaps me in the face: I have forty-seven unread emails. I start scrolling, dread building with each subject line.
From Esther: “Need final approval on spring menu graphics”
From Eden: “Urgent - honey label deadline moved up, can you send files today?”
From Eila: “Spam comments AGAIN, can you look?”
From Eliza: “Reed needs help with grant application photos”
The messages go back days. There’s a message from a potential client I completely forgot to respond to.
A collaboration opportunity with a Pittsburgh food blogger that I missed.
I was too busy chasing sheep and fixing up a property I’m probably going to sell anyway and drinking coffee with a hermit who made it very clear today that I’m nothing to him.
My throat tightens. I probably have strep.
I start typing responses, but my fingers feel clumsy on the keyboard. Everything I write sounds wrong, hollow, like I’m apologizing for something I can’t quite name.
I’m sorry I wasn’t there.
I’m sorry I’ve been distracted.
I’m sorry I forgot.
But I didn’t forget, did I? I just… chose something else. Chose this place, these people, this weird liminal space where I don’t quite belong to Pittsburgh anymore, but I’m definitely not from Fork Lick either.
“How’s it going up there?”
I jump at Ethel’s voice from the basement stairs. “Fine! Great! Just catching up on some work.”
“You sound stressed, honey. Come down here for a minute. The plants are very calming.”
I shouldn’t. I have so much to do, so many messages to answer, so many ways I’ve let people down. But I close my laptop and follow her voice down the stairs.
The basement is a horticultural fantasy. Grow lights shine everywhere around neat rows of seedlings in trays, herbs in pots, tomato plants climbing trellises. The air is humid and green and alive. “Oh my god,” I breathe. “This is incredible.”
Gran beams. “Started it a few years back when I realized I could grow year-round down here. It gives me something to fuss over when winter gets long.”
I move through the space, taking it all in.
The organization. The labels on everything.
The obvious care in every plant. “My sisters would lose their minds over this. Eden especially—she’s always talking about extending growing seasons for flowers for her bees.
And Eila grows hops in vacant lots; she’d want to dish about your setup. ”
Gran pats my arm. “You’ll have to bring them up sometime. I’d love to meet them.”
I shudder at the casual way her suggestion implies I’ll be here long enough to have visitors.
“How are you settling in, dear?” Gran asks, gently dead-heading some basil. “I know Pierce Acres has been empty for a long time. It must be overwhelming.”
“It’s… a lot. But I’m making progress. Cataloging equipment, scrubbing the cobwebs, flushing the pipes…”
“Sounds like you’re planning to stay.”
Am I? I don’t know. Yesterday I thought maybe yes. Today, staring at forty-seven unanswered emails from the life I already have, I’m not sure.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Sometimes I think yes. And then I remember I have business in Pittsburgh. Clients. My sisters.”
“Your sisters would want you to be happy, wouldn’t they?”
“Yes, but—”
“And you can do social media work from anywhere with an internet connection?”
“I guess, but—”
“So, really, the question is: where do you want to be?”
I don’t have an answer.
Gran studies me with knowing eyes. “You and Asher seemed to be getting along pretty well.”
It’s not a question, but my ears tingle anyway. “We’re just neighbors.”
“Mm-hmm.” Her tone says she doesn’t believe that for a second. “That boy’s been hiding for years. You scared him by making him feel something.”
“I really doubt that.”
“He’s pushing you away before you hurt him.” She sets down her pruning shears and looks at me directly. “Don’t take his walls personally, dear. They were there long before you arrived.”
“He won’t even give me his Wi-Fi password.”
Gran laughs. “That’s Asher—controlling what he can control because so much of his life felt scary when his sister was sick.”
“She seems fine now…”
As if summoned, I hear voices upstairs. The sound of a baby fussing, a man’s low rumble, a woman’s laugh.
Gran’s face lights up. “Perfect timing. Come on.”
Upstairs, a man who must be Ethan holds a baby carrier and a tired-looking woman at his side must be Lia.
She has dark hair pulled into a messy bun and looks exhausted and radiant at the same time.
“Eva! So great to finally meet you. I was just talking about you pulling my brother out of his cave.” She glances at the baby.
“Porter’s not usually this fussy but someone didn’t nap today. ”
I move closer, unable to resist the pull of a baby. “He’s just so chunky and cute.”
“He’s a terror,” Ethan says, but his voice is full of love. He’s tall and broad and has the same general “I don’t do people” vibe as Asher, but slightly friendlier. Like, one degree warmer than absolute zero.
Feeling like I should say more, I try, “Porter looks like his uncle Asher.”
“Guess so,” Ethan says as the baby scrunches his face in a scream.
Lia elbows him. “Be nice.”
“I’m always nice.”