The only mail left to be sorted was about a dozen pieces that looked personal. There was the birthday card Evie had sent, unopened. Two more of the envelopes also looked like greeting cards. One turned out to be happy birthday from her mother’s dentist; another birthday card was from “Frank.” Of course, the neighbor who’d come over and introduced himself that morning. She put all three cards on the mantel.

Finally, there were five identical brown envelopes, each with her mother’s name and address handwritten on the front. She picked up one of them. It was thick, as if a sheaf of papers was folded inside. The flap wasn’t sealed. Evie lifted it and looked inside. She pulled out a bundle wrapped in a sheet of white paper. She opened it up to find a stack of hundred-dollar bills.

What on earth? Evie started to count them. When she got to twelve, the doorbell rang.

Chapter Eighteen

Startled, Evie dropped the envelope. Cash scattered across the linoleum floor. As she scrambled to pick up the hundred-dollar bills and stuff them back into the envelope, there was a rap at the door and a voice. “Hey, Evie. It’s Finn.”

“Hang on. I’m coming,” she called as she cast about for somewhere to stash the cash-filled envelopes. She stuck them in the refrigerator’s veggie bin. Then she went to answer the door.

Finn stood at the foot of the front steps. “Hope it’s okay I came by this late. I saw you were up.”

He saw she was up? Then she realized that anyone on the street side could have seen in. She’d left the kitchen curtains open.

“It’s supposed to rain tomorrow,” Finn said, apparently unruffled by Evie’s silence. “So I brought you this.” He pushed forward a panel of plywood. “For the window. And you left this in the store.” He held out a six-pack of beer, raised his eyebrows, and gave her a tentative smile.

Nice gambit. Evie hadn’t seen this guy in, what, decades? She felt safe with him, but she knew better than to go on instinct alone.

He must have sensed her reticence, because he set the beer on a step. “Listen, never mind. I’ll just . . .” He propped the plywood panel against the front of the house, held up his hands, and backed away.

How dangerous could a mudflat-hugging birdwatcher be? Besides, she needed to take a break. Her shoulders ached and she was bleary-eyed. A cold beer was exactly what she needed, almost as much as she needed someone to talk to.

“Come on,” she said, stepping aside so he could come in.

He cantered up the steps, scooping up the beer, then stopped just shy of the threshold. “You’re sure?”

Evie felt herself drawn into his smile. She took the six-pack from him. He had strong-looking hands. No ring. A thick braid made of black silk or maybe hair was tied around his wrist. As she looked down at the bottles, slippery with condensation, she could feel him watching her.

“Okay, so you didn’t leave the beer at the store.” He poked a sneakered toe against her foot. “I wouldn’t want to start with a lie.”

Start?

“You know, I used to have the worst crush on you.”

Even though she knew she was being played, Evie felt herself blush. She turned and walked through to the kitchen and set the beer on the counter.

“Listen,” he said, following her, “I thought—” He stopped, staring at the piles of papers on the kitchen table. “Whoa.” Then he took in the disarray of the two rooms beyond. “I had no idea it had gotten this bad. No idea at all. ”

“Believe it or not, it’s a lot better than it was. And I’m done for now. I need to take a break.”

“How’s your mom?” He gave her a searching look.

Evie started to say fine, but all that came out was a hoarse croak. She turned away, tears pricking at her eyes. “I talk to the doctor tomorrow. I’m not expecting good news.”

“I’m sorry.” He gave her a long look. “Listen, never mind. Obviously this is a bad time. I’ll come back another—”

“No, no. It’s okay. I don’t mind the company. Please, stay.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Well. Okay then.” He clapped his hands together. “I’ll get started on that window.”

“You want to fix it now?”

“No time like the present, as my dad used to say. Your mother’s got a ladder in the garage, and I brought my own tools.” He unhooked a hammer from his belt and dug a handful of nails from his pants pocket. “Be prepared. Dad used to say that, too, but I don’t think these are what he meant.”

Finn plugged in an extension cord and rigged an outside light so he could see what he was doing, and an hour and a half later, the upstairs window was securely boarded over with a sheet of plywood and Georgia O’Keeffe was back on the bedroom wall, no worse for the wear. On top of that, he promised to come back and replace the front steps, and he said he knew a local plumber he could call who would come and take care of the leak under the house.

“That would be wonderful,” Evie said, feeling ridiculously grateful. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“My pleasure,” he said, holding her gaze for a few moments. He really wasn’t bad looking. Not bad looking at all.

Evie got out two beers, opened them, and handed him one. It was a brand she’d never seen before, Bronx Brewery, its label a black-and-white image of the back of a subway car. She saw him eyeing the counter where she’d left the business card that Frank from across the street had left.

“What was he doing here?” he said.

“Asking about my mother. Apparently they were friends.”

“Friends.” Finn seemed to consider that for a moment before he shrugged and turned his attention to the refrigerator. “Your dad was a firefighter?” He pointed to her father’s official firehouse photo that her mother had stuck on the door. “How could I have forgotten that?”

The picture showed her father’s big smile, crinkly eyes, and bushy mustache. He had on black turnout gear, the jacket collar pulled up framing his face, a white 3 over the visor of his battered black helmet. He used to let her wear that helmet for dress-up, and whenever she’d put it on, she’d been surrounded immediately by the smell of sweat and smoke. She wondered what had happened to it, whether it was still in the house somewhere.

“Rescue 3?” Finn said. “That’s up in Tremont, isn’t it?”

Evie nodded, surprised. That wasn’t something most people could come up with.

“I remember him pretty well, actually. Looks like he was about my age in that picture. Nice guy.”

“Yeah. He sure was.” Evie took another swallow of beer, sideswiped by the sadness that welled up in her.

“He used to come to the store every Sunday morning for doughnuts.”

“I remember. Best doughnuts ever.” It had been years since Evie had eaten a doughnut that came even close to the decadence of the jelly doughnuts of her childhood.

Finn grinned. “The very best. They’re from a little mom-and-pop shop. They keep trying to retire, but they still make them for us. Your dad’s still a firefighter?”

“Died in ’02.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I was away.” He took a step closer to her. She could smell the tang of his perspiration. “Was he one of the first responders on Nine-Eleven?”

She shook her head. “He retired a year before.”

Her dad had died a year nearly to the day after that awful morning when eight of his best buddies boarded the rescue truck and never came back. He’d never gotten over the fact that they’d all perished and he wasn’t with them.

Finn didn’t say anything, and Evie appreciated that he didn’t feel like he had to rush in and fill the silence. “So where were you?” she asked, after a moment.

“In class. Third row.” He closed his eyes, like he was visualizing. “Second seat. Civil Procedure. Required class, and they tortured us by scheduling it at eight in the morning.”