When the customer left, I took the phone out again.
It’s not in the family, Eden. It’s mine. Pop left it to me.
She answered in seconds.
Don’t start that again.
I felt a little coldness settle under my ribs.
That again.
As if the deed, the will, the tax bills with my name on them, the winters I drove through sleet to make sure the pipes had not burst, were all just a mood I kept bringing up to be difficult.
I did not answer right away. I finished my shift because I needed the time. I rang up deck screws, mixed a gallon of paint called Harbor Mist, helped Mrs. Landry find a new mailbox flag, and smiled through all of it while Eden’s message sat inside me like a pebble in a shoe.
After work, I drove the twenty minutes back to Silver Birch Lake. The road narrowed after the last gas station, winding through birch trees and maples, past mailboxes shaped like fish and cabins with names carved into driftwood signs. My cabin sat at the end of a gravel drive, gray cedar siding, blue shutters, a screened porch, and a dock that leaned just slightly to the left no matter how often I fixed it.
Pop’s wind chimes moved in the breeze.
I sat on the dock with a beer and watched the sunset turn the water orange. A loon called somewhere across the lake. I tried to think of a way to be firm without starting a family storm.
But some storms are already moving before you hear the thunder.
I finally texted, No. You can’t use the cabin this weekend. I have plans. And even if I didn’t, you should have asked before booking anything.
Her reply came so fast it felt rehearsed.
You’ll regret this.
I sat there looking at those four words while the dock cooled beneath my bare feet.
Eden had always been like that. As a child, if she wanted the last cookie and I had it, she would not ask. She would take it and dare me to make a scene. If I protested, she cried first and louder. By the time Mom walked in, Eden looked hurt and I looked mean. She learned early that confidence can outrun truth if it gets to the room first.
But we were not children anymore.
And this was not a cookie.
I put the phone face down on the dock and told myself she was being dramatic. Eden’s threats usually turned into cold silence at Thanksgiving, a vague social media quote, or a call from Mom asking why I could not “just try to keep peace with your sister.”
Still, I slept badly.
Wednesday passed without a word from Eden.
That worried me more than if she had kept texting.
Quiet Eden was plotting Eden.
By Thursday morning, I had nearly convinced myself I was overreacting. I opened the cabin windows, made coffee, watered the basil on the porch, and drove into town for my closing shift. Around noon, while I was labeling bins of drawer pulls, I called Colleen from two cabins down.
Colleen Baker was a retired schoolteacher who had basically adopted me after Pop died. She was in her seventies, sharp as a tack, and owned a floral housecoat for every season. She knew everything happening on that end of the lake before the rest of us had poured our second cup of coffee.
“Colleen,” I said, “can you do me a favor?”
“For you, honey, probably.”
“If you see any trucks or people at my place today, will you call me?”
There was a pause.
“That sounds specific.”
“It’s Eden.”
“Oh,” she said, and that one word carried three decades of understanding. “I’ll keep watch.”
At 3:47 that afternoon, my phone rang while I was ringing up a man buying deck screws and a new tape measure.
Colleen’s name lit the screen.