Chapter Eight
She couldn't say what woke her, but when she emerged from a restless sleep, Evelyn’s smiling face was peering over the fence, and she looked excited.
“Have a nice rest?”
Not really.
“Hey, Evelyn...”
“I have some people to introduce you to. Since they will be entering and leaving the joint, I thought you should know them.”
Her brain was still muddled by sleep. Either that or she was seeing double, because two smiling faces were peeking out from behind Evelyn’s shoulder and they looked exactly the same.
“Ah...”
“These are Ciaran and Declan. And this is Tanya, Tara’s older sister.”
Tanya’s smiling face appeared from beside Declan’s.
“Hey, baby girl,” she chirped. “Nanna tells me you’re new in town.”
Too many eyes on her. Feeling off kilter, she jumped out of the chair and placed it between herself and the fence, as if plastic were the best defense in the world.
“So, I guess we’ll see you around,” she added, and Freya took a step back. Around? No, no, no...
Seeing that she was starting to hyperventilate, Evelyn shooed everyone away but still said, “I’ll see you later, I’ll bring dinner. I don’t take no for an answer.”
The twins lingered a little longer, their smiles still plastered on their faces, which she found chilling. She turned and went into the house, locking it immediately.
True to her word, a few minutes later Evelyn knocked on her door, carrying a covered dish that smelled wonderful. Still reeling from her confusing dream, she nearly jumped out of her skin when Everlyn snapped her fingers in front of her eyes.
“Earth to Freya. Still with us, Frey?”
What was it with this family and sunny dispositions? It always puzzled her how chirpy people could be at any time of the day...
“Hope you like meat casserole. My kids could eat it every day. They do eat a lot every day, now that I think about it.”
There was something so comfortable in having an elderly lady in her kitchen, rummaging through the cabinets, that Freya’s mind was taken to the past, when her own mother used to do the same thing every weekend, raiding the pantry to bake enough sweets to last for the entire week.
The kitchen needed some deep cleanup afterward, though.
“Come, dear. Sit.”
While she was lost on memory lane, Evelyn had re-heated the casserole and served her a dish, clearly waiting for her to sit at the table.
“Oh ... I’m not very hungry...”
“Nonsense, come sit. Cold food doesn’t warm the belly.
Thinking this was the easiest way to get rid of her neighbor, she sat down at the table and began to waltz her food around her plate with her fork. She stifled a sigh when she saw Evelyn open a bottle of wine and pour two glasses. Clearly, she was here to stay.
“You know, that only works if you actually put the fork in your mouth once in a while.”
She lifted her eyes from the plate and faced the smiling Evelyn.
“You think I don’t know you’re struggling? You don’t sleep, you barely eat ... or is it the other way around?”
She paled and dropped the fork. Evelyn smiled sadly and patted her gloved hand.
“I was once like you, you know? My first boyfriend ... a total douche. Even thought of killing him and feeding him to the pigs, but ultimately, the idiot went off the road and down a cliff. Good riddance ... problem was, I only found out after two years of living in hiding. Fearing my shadow ... any shadow, really. If it hadn’t been on the news, I probably wouldn’t know even today. ”
Freya was struggling to grasp anything that she was saying, so she hesitated before asking, “How did you know?”
“That he was dead? On a program about unsolved murder, actually. They think his car was ran off the road, but without proof ... hell, even aliens could have done it.” She laughed heartily, but Freya was still reeling.
Her heart was beating a mile a minute, and her flight instincts were screaming at her.
Evelyn gave her a piercing look.
“Do you know how I clawed my way back from the pit of darkness and despair I fell into? One day at a time. I didn’t have a nosy old neighbor to make me dinner, which I probably am grateful for, believe me, but I wanted to live.
So that he didn’t win. I isolated myself in the beginning, of course.
Much like you do. Went to work at a local diner, forced myself to speak with people that I would never see again, until one day a handsome man asked me out. ”
“Did you accept him?”
“Hell, no. Not that time and not the next twenty either. It ended up being a joke between us. I think when I finally accepted, not even he believed it at first.” She laughed, her eyes glazing over with memories.
“And from there, we went to live thirty eight wonderful years together.” She sighed, seemingly contented.
“But what I mean is that we need to give life a chance. Being cooped up in this house won’t do you any good.
” She patted her hand and finished her wine.
“Tanya is thinking of opening a gym in town, would you accept to go there and check it out?”
“What? Why?”
“Because she needs someone to help her around, she doesn’t know anyone here, and you need to leave this house before you get cabin fever.”
“She doesn’t even know me.”
“And she will never know if you don’t do something about that. Tell you what, she’s an early riser. She’ll come here tomorrow morning. If you want, you can go with her, if you don’t ... then at least you’ll get out of your head.”
Freya sighed and saw her neighbor leave the room. But before she closed the door, she asked, “Does it ever get any easier?”
“Of course it does, dear. Just not right now. Bye!”
****
Evelyn left, walking gracefully along the path to her house.
She had the feeling that Freya was standing at the window, watching her from behind the curtains, so she couldn't be anything more than an energetic and nosy old woman. Her small lies would catch up with her, eventually, but for now, she’d laid the path for her grandsons the best she could.
Now it was up to them...