Page 6 of When Alec Met Evie
Or, fresh-ish?I can’t completely start over when I’m financially dependent on my mother-in-law.Ex-mother-in-law now, I guess. But I wouldn’t be here without her, and honestly, I’m lucky she still wants to be involved at all.
After her son basically signed over his parental rights in the divorce, giving me full custody of Juno, not every mother-in-law would want to be.
Devon is the youngest in his family, a surprise baby ten years younger than his closest sibling. His dad passed away a few years back, but his mom, Karen, is an active, busy grandma. Her three daughters are all married, all living in the same coastal Oregon town where they grew up, and they’ve given Karen sevengrandkids that she sees all the time. But she still flew out to see me right after Juno was born, still talked to me like I was as much a part of her family as I was before the divorce. Best of all, she apologized profusely for her son’s ridiculous behavior and promised she would help me financially for as long as I needed it.
It killed me to take her up on the offer. My identity is rooted firmly in self-sufficiency, and having someone send money every month simply because I believed all the lies her son told me feels wrong. Like I’m taking advantage.
If I only had to think about myself, I probably would have declined. But I’ll swallow any amount of discomfort for Juno.
Besides. I can’t make this apprenticeship work without her help, and Ireallywant it to work.
First order of business?
Make the house in front of me look as cute as it did in the rental listing. It’smostlywhat I saw in the pictures. Same front porch, same bright blue shutters. But the overflowing flowerpots are nowhere to be found. Same with the porch swing and the neatly manicured front lawn.
I was excited about that porch swing. I thought it might be a nice place to sit with Juno.
I take a deep breath and look back at the car.
It’s going to be fine.
Ithasto be fine, because I’m here, and I’m definitely not driving back to White Plains.
And really, I shouldn’t be so critical of the house. I just need to warm it up a little. I can’t exactly expect spring flowers in the middle of fall. But if I add a few of those pumpkins I saw all over Maple Street and some brightly colored mums, the house will be halfway to what I expected, just like that.
I move back to my Honda and pull Juno’s carrier out of the back seat. She was asleep when I pulled up, but she’s awake now,staring up at me with wide blue eyes. She smiles when she sees me and kicks her pajama-clad feet.
Just looking at her stills some of the panic creeping into my heart. Nothing calms me faster than knowing I have to be calm forher.
With Juno’s carrier looped over one arm, I step back up to the front seat and grab my violin—the only other thing I won’t leave in the car—then head up the sidewalk to my new porch. I pass the enormous moving pod sitting in the driveway, ignoring the sense of overwhelm that creeps in whenever I think about unpacking it by myself. I’ll at least have help moving it all inside, but after that, I’ll have to come up with some sort of system. Unpack a box, feed the baby. Unpack another box…feed the babyagain.
When I reach the porch, the boards on the bottom step look like they’ve been recently replaced, which makes me feel a little better about the empty flower beds and leaf-strewn lawn.
And the street looks nice too. All the Craftsman-style houses are small, including mine, but they look loved and well maintained, with wide sidewalks on either side and a line of maple trees with bright yellow leaves shading the pavement.
The front door has a coded entry, so I pull up the latest email from my landlord to retrieve the code. I read over his message one more time.
Hi Evie, I hope you find all in order once you arrive. The code is the same for the front door and the garage. There’s a key in the kitchen drawer that will open the back door in case you ever need it. The back door sticks when it rains, so you might have to pull extra hard on those days. Also, watch out for the bottom step on the front porch. I didn’t notice it was rotten until I was on my way out of town, but I’ll fix it next month as soon as I return. I’m backpacking in Yosemite until October 20th, soI’ll have limited access to cell service, but I’ll check messages as often as I can. The code for the door is 7412. Cheers— John
I look back at the step, which is definitelynotrotten, and frown. If John didn’t do it, who did?
“Hello?”
I spin around to see an elderly woman with deep brown skin and striking gray hair making her way up the front walk. She’s carrying a tinfoil-covered pie plate in her hands, and she smiles wide when we make eye contact.
“You must be Evie,” she says.
“Um, yes?”
She climbs the steps and stops in front of me. “I’m Ruth. I live a few houses down.”
“Oh. Hi. Nice to meet you.”
She looks down at Juno’s carrier and smiles. “And this must be Juno.”
There is nothing even a little bit creepy or uncomfortable about this woman. Everything about her vibe is friendly and kind, but it still feels a little weird that she knows my nameandJuno’s name.
“I’m sorry, do we—was it the landlord who told you about me?”
