5. Briggs
brIGGS
Danny suggested I meet Evie at Rosefield. He provided a comprehensive list of dos and don’ts, actually. Avoid Charleston; it’s a loud mess. The Bru-ha-ha is okay, not great. And for God’s sake, keep it casual, otherwise she’ll assume you’re attempting to buy her.
It turns out Danny’s known the Suttons for two decades. He and Ray have been running their operations a few doors apart, routing customers back and forth for as long as anyone can recall.
When the topic of Ray’s daughter surfaced, Danny spoke about her like she was his own flesh and blood. Good kid. Sharp-tongued. Heart the size of a house, not that she’d ever cop to it.
He used to talk about me the same way, though I’m fairly certain the script has changed. Now I’m just the negligent son, the one who leveraged a job to stay away. The kid who gave his brother the silent treatment right up until the moment he died.
Evie and I grew up two zip codes and a whole lifetime apart. She’s four years my junior, raised in a different orbit on the other side of the desert. We had no reason to ever cross paths back then, and I made sure of it by leaving the moment I could.
I’ve been sitting here for fifteen minutes with a cold brew I haven’t touched, trying to outrun the static in my head. I haven’t slept more than four hours since Friday; I’ve spent the rest of the time at my father’s house, sorting through the remnants of Ziggy’s things.
My twenty-four-year-old brother had a drawer full of unopened mail and a nightstand crowded with my father’s prescriptions. He’d been sorting the pills into those cheap plastic organizers, labeling the lids in Sharpie.
I didn’t know Ziggy was capable of that kind of diligence. I’d filed him away as a screwup so completely that finding evidence of his care is harder to stomach than the grief itself.
The door chimes, and she enters.
Evie arrives four minutes late, her sharp eyes sweeping the room until they find me.
Her ginger hair is loose today, and she’s carrying a canvas tote with a slogan about local protests.
She doesn’t hesitate, crossing the floor and dropping into the seat opposite mine with a wary set to her shoulders.
“Alright,” she says, skipping the pleasantries. “My dad said you have a proposal. But he claims he’s in the dark about the details, which means you didn’t tell him, which means it’s something weird.” She folds her silver-ringed hands on the table. “So, hit me.”
“Can I get you a coffee first?” I ask, caught off guard. I was planning on an actual introduction before I got to the part where I ask her to help me.
She crosses her arms. “You can get to the point first.”
“I want to hire you. To help out with my dad.”
She gives a short, disbelieving laugh. “To do what, exactly? Bury him? Because I have to tell you, that’s usually a onetime service, and we like to wait until—”
“He’s recovering,” I cut in, derailing her gallows humor. She does that, I’ve noticed, reaches for the joke first. “He had a stroke eight months ago. As I’m sure you could figure by the accommodations request. He uses a wheelchair for mobility and could use a little extra help around the house.”
“Okay. You’re serious about this.”
“Very.”
She sits back. “I’m not a nurse. I’m not certified in anything except, like, wheel-throwing a clay pot. You understand I’m wildly unqualified for whatever you’re picturing.”
“My dad doesn’t need certified. He had that.
” I hear my voice flatten. “When it first happened, the agency sent a woman named Brenda, who narrated everything she did to him like he was a toddler. Now we’re going to stand up.
Now we’re going to take our pills. He stopped talking for two days. Just—went quiet. Shut the whole door.”
“God.” She winces. “That’s grim.”
“He got rid of Brenda by writing FIRED on a Post-it and sticking it to the windshield of her car. Said Ziggy could take care of it, and she needed to get the hell out of his house.”
A startled bark of laughter jumps out of her. “Okay. I like him.”
“Everyone likes him. For about thirty seconds. Then they start treating him like a patient instead of a person. He can feel the exact moment it happens, and he hates it more than he hates the stroke itself.”
I force myself to slow down. “Now that my brother’s gone, he needs help around the house.
Getting to his PT appointments. Eating something that isn’t beige.
There’s a nurse and a PT who come a couple times a week.
He just needs somebody in the house who can help him out with the small stuff while I’m working two thousand miles away. ”
She watches me with her steady brown eyes. “Why me?”
“The first reason and most important reason is because Danny likes you. Danny doesn’t like many people, and he vouches for even fewer. He told me if I could get you, I should.”
She blinks. “And the second reason?”
“You told me you were a hundred grand in debt,” I reply with a shrug. “I figured a job that pays well might not be the worst thing to land in your lap this week. And I know you’re not afraid to work hard.”
“Okay, blunt.”
I raise a brow. “Based off what I’ve gathered about you in the last two days, I assumed that was your style.”
The corner of her mouth twitches. “Valid.”
“You need something, and so do I. Sometimes the math just works.”
She fiddles with the cross necklace at her throat, running it back and forth.
“Here’s the thing,” she says finally. “I can give you names. There are aides in this city who are actually good—not Brenda-good. Real ones, people who treat the work like it matters. My dad’s whole network is end-of-life stuff, so I know exactly who’s kind and who’s just collecting a check.
I could send you a list tonight. You’d have your dad sorted in a matter of days, and you wouldn’t have to gamble on a gravedigger. ”
I grit my teeth. “I don’t want a list.”
“You should want a list. A list is the smart move.”
“Probably.” I lean forward, too. “But the smart move already failed. The smart move was my brother doing the work, and he fucking died, so—I don’t need someone with a binder full of credentials who’s going to manage my dad into silence. I need you.”
She exhales a long, heavy breath. “Damn. I certainly know how to make an impression.”
“Shit happens,” I say, leaning into the table. “Believe me, I’m just as exhausted by the performative bullshit as you are.”
She sits back, her silver-ringed fingers drumming a restless beat against the wood as she stares out the window. Outside, the sky is a flat, unmoving wash of white. It’s the kind of morning where the desert feels like a waiting room.
“How long are we talking?” she asks.
“Through the end of the season. The therapist thinks he’s months away from being independent, not years, so call it April or May at the outside. Whichever comes first,” I say carefully. “It’s a temporary bridge.”
She swallows thickly. “And the compensation?”
“Three thousand a week. Part-time hours, worked around whatever your dad needs at the funeral home, for roughly five months.”
Her face goes performatively blank. But I’ve spent many years reading the split second before a teammate hides a mistake, and I know that number just landed like a hit.
“That’s—”
“It’s not a gift,” I cut in. “I make a ridiculous amount of money to put a puck in a net. This is the most practical thing I’ll spend it on all year, and it buys me the only thing I care about right now—not sitting in a dressing room in Charlotte, wondering if my father’s okay.”
I can see her doing the math behind her eyes. “It’s a significant amount,” she says.
“You’d be earning every cent. He’s difficult, Evie. I’m not going to lie to you.”
She smiles, a sharp little thing. “That’s quite the pitch.”
“Am I making the sale?”
“I haven’t reached a verdict yet.” She pulls the mint-green coat tighter around her shoulders.
“I’m on the schedule at Sutton’s most mornings, and my dad is currently running that place on fumes.
I have to see if the logistics work without one of us going under.
I won’t take your money and then no-show because a burial went long. ”
“That’s fair.”
“And I want to meet him first. Your father. Before I commit to anything.” She levels a steady look at me. “Because if he tries to stick a note to my car, we’re finished. I’d rather figure out the fit myself before I rearrange my entire life.”
Something tight in my chest uncoils a fraction of an inch. It’s the right answer—the one that confirms Danny’s assessment. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, and she’ll give it to me straight.
“I fly back Wednesday morning. If you want to meet him, it has to be tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she says, standing up. “Text me the address. I’ll be there at noon.”
“Noon it is.”
She studies me for a heartbeat. “You don’t get bereavement leave? You have to be back that quickly?”
“I’m already missing a game tomorrow night.” My voice goes flat. “Five days is the league standard.”
“Wow.” She gathers her canvas tote and turns for the door.
Meeting adjourned, I suppose. I search for something else to say and come up entirely empty.
She stops at the threshold anyway, pivoting on her heel. “You mentioned Charlotte. Vegas won the Cup a few years back—why not play for the hometown team?”
The question catches me off balance. She’s a gravedigger with a fine arts degree; I hadn’t pegged her for a hockey fan.
“You follow the league?”
“I googled you. Late last night.” She offers no apology for it.
“Vegas signed Jake Mercer in the offseason.” If we’re doing honesty, I’ll go all the way. “I wouldn’t wear that jersey if they offered me double what I make now.”
She waits, one brow cocked.
“Mercer was with the Forge. He assaulted a woman at a team party. The organization knew—there was a complaint from a guy on the roster who’d seen it—and they traded the witness to Bakersfield and kept Mercer in the lineup.
He’s an Ace now, the woman’s under an NDA, and that’s the version that made it to the press. ”
She gasps. “Vegas doesn’t care that he’s a predator?”
The Aces made the calculation they always make. Mercer puts pucks in nets, pucks in nets sell tickets, and the woman signed the check while the witness rode buses in the ECHL for two seasons. Case closed.
I’ve been in this league long enough to know it’s not even the ugliest story. It’s just the one I know for a fact.
“Vegas cares about the stat sheet.”
“Disgusting.” She pauses. “Is that why you’re a southern boy now?”
The corner of my mouth pulls. “Not exactly.”
“Then what is it about Charlotte, besides the lack of predators?”
I turn my cold brew on the table. “It’s the team that wanted me.”
I arrived there as a man holding a spot, and they made me an identity. I’ll always be loyal to that.
She considers this. “Are they any good?”
“We’re solid.”
“But, like.” She tilts her head. “Are you the best?”
“We’re right on the line. Two points out of the playoffs, with sixty games to go.”
“So. Mediocre.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “There are better rosters.”
“Is it a big-fish thing? You’d rather be the star on a middling team than a role player on the best team?”
I stare at her. “Is this a prerequisite for you taking the job?”
“Just a curiosity. It tells you something about a man—whether he’d rather feel important or actually be a winner.”
I don’t offer a response. Partly because I don’t have a clean one. Partly because she’s already looking at me like she’s won the point, and I’m not going to hand it to her. The rest of the math can wait for a version of me that isn’t running on empty.
“Tomorrow,” I say. “Please just show up.”
“I said I would, didn’t I? I don’t leave people hanging. I’m many things, Maxwell, but I’m not that.”
She pushes the door open, satisfied with whatever she’s tallied up, and leaves. When it swings shut, I realize I’ve been leaning forward the entire time, up on the balls of my feet, and I force myself to sit back.
“Bye, then,” I say to the empty chair.
She didn’t say goodbye to me at the cemetery, either. I sit with that strange realization for a minute. Then I finish the lukewarm coffee and go figure out how to tell my father.