Page 14 of Cherry Picking

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.