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I rest the box against the tree and line up the bracket, while the trio watches.
“Eva makes those subscription things for everybody else, doesn’t she?” Owen asks no one in particular.
“Every month,” Lucy says.
“Has anyone ever made one for her?”
No one answers him.
He shrugs, suddenly uncomfortable with having said something meaningful. “Seems like somebody should.”
I look down at the squirrel box. This whole thing began because Eva saw a video about squirrel houses and thought of me. She remembered Thomas. She remembered the tree in my yard and the fact I’d been talking about building him somewhere to sleep before winter. A passing conversation I’d nearly forgotten, and she held on to it because that’s what Eva does. She collects the tiniest of things people tell her and turns them into proof that someone was listening.
She’s been doing that for me for as long as I can remember.
I want her to understand why I stayed that day because she always understands. I’ve let her see every raw, embarrassing part of how badly I wanted that letter, and she never once made me feel foolish for it. She saw what it meant before anyone else did.
Then her moment came, and I asked her to understand me again.
I drive the first screw into the tree.
A box won’t undo the empty chair beside her at the studio. It won’t buy forgiveness or make the hurt disappear. But maybe I can give her something no one else has.
Something that isn’t for James William’s daughter, the owner of Side B, or the woman who spends her life choosing thoughtful things for strangers.
A box made for Eva.
Filled with proof that I’ve been paying attention too.
I secure the second bracket and test the weight. The house holds firm against the trunk while three chuckleheads cheer me on from below.
Maybe I can’t fix what happened now.
But I can stop asking Eva to see me and finally show her how clearly I see her.
CHAPTER 29
EVA
How heartbreak looks in your thirties: hair twisted into a knot on top of my head, face freshly washed, and me refreshing my email for updates on the red-light therapy mask I ordered.
What I am not doing is sobbing into a carton of ice cream. I also refuse to cut my bangs, or repeat any of the other questionable ways I destroyed my hair when I was a teen. Instead, I’m waiting for a device that promises to improve my fine lines and inflammation while also making me look like a villain in a low-budget science-fiction movie.
My package has been out for delivery for the past three hours.
“If it isn’t here before I put on my show for tonight, I expect a full refund,” I tell Mitch.
He sits on the kitchen counter beside me, one paw tucked beneath his chest, offering the kind of silent support I wasn’t aware I needed.
The bell downstairs rings and I cheer. I snatch up my phone. No delivery notification, but that doesn’t mean anything. Technology has failed me before. So have men, apparently.
I hurry out of my apartment and down the stairs, one hand sliding along the banister as my bare feet skim over the old hardwood. By the time I reach the bottom floor, the bell has stopped, and whoever rang it is gone.
I step outside and look in both directions, but the sidewalk is empty. There’s no delivery van on the street. Only a cardboard box sitting beneath the light beside the front door.
My name is written across the top in thick black marker. Not printed. Handwritten.
I know that handwriting.
