* * *
The notebook sat open on the sawhorse, blank except for the date.
Ira had brought it thinking he'd work on the speech during breaks. The dedication ceremony was still weeks away, but Hagarty's voice kept surfacing: Something personal. About why this matters to you. What drove you to propose it in the first place.
He'd written three words. Crossed them out. Written two more. Crossed those out too.
The parsonage was quiet at this hour. No Rowan yet—he usually showed up around eight. No volunteers scheduled. Just Ira and the house and the early light coming through the windows they'd finally cleared of grime.
He picked up the notebook. Stared at the page.
Why this matters to me.
The honest answer was complicated. It had started as vision—a place for kids who needed somewhere to be. A third space. Homework help, mentoring, community. He'd believed in that. He still did.
But somewhere along the way, the project had become something else. Proof. Evidence that he was the person Hagarty said he could be, not the person she said he was becoming. Every board he replaced felt like rebuttal. Every hour of labor was a down payment on worthiness.
He couldn't say that at the dedication. He couldn't stand in front of donors and board members and say I did this because a woman told me I was rotting from the inside and I needed to prove her wrong.
But he couldn't say the clean version either. Not anymore. Not after Ellie. Not after Rowan.
He closed the notebook.
* * *
The framing was almost done on the north side. Another week, maybe two, and they'd be ready for sheathing. Then insulation, then drywall. The house was becoming something. Slowly. Stubbornly.
Ira ran his hand along a new stud. The wood was pale and fresh, nothing like the dark, softened beams they'd torn out. No water damage. No spreading stain. Just clean lumber, doing what lumber was supposed to do.
He thought about what Rowan had said. She's got a version of everyone.
Hagarty had a version of this house, too. The before-and-after photos for the newsletter. The story of community transformation. The young project lead who'd stepped up, proposed something bold, seen it through.
That version wasn't false. But it wasn't complete.
The complete version included the morning the lumber didn't arrive. The rot speech. The way he'd nodded and thanked her. The way he'd spent weeks afterward trying to cut out parts of himself that she'd named as poison.
The complete version included Rowan showing up for reasons Ira still didn't fully understand. And Ellie at the Freeze, watching him fold. And the slow, strange process of learning that maybe the rot had never been his.
He couldn't say any of that at the dedication.
But he was starting to wonder what would happen if he couldn't say anything else.
* * *
Miri sat on her bed with her phone in her hands.
The thread with Ellie was still there, dormant since June. The last messages were from the day after the bonfire: Miri's it was really nice meeting you, Ellie's heart emoji and same!! let's actually hang out sometime.
That had been almost three weeks ago. They hadn't hung out. They hadn't texted. The connection had done what beach connections usually did—dissolved into the static of separate lives.
But Miri kept thinking about it.
Not about Ellie, exactly. About the boy Ellie had described. The one who saw things other people missed. The one who didn't see himself at all.
She'd almost texted that first week. Hey, is your friend okay? Or: That thing you said about him—I keep thinking about it. But every time her thumb hovered over the keyboard, something stopped her. It felt presumptuous. Intrusive. Like asking to be let into a room she had no right to enter.
Now she was thinking about Park Yuna. About the search she'd decided to start. About what it meant to ask for information about someone else's story.
She wasn't entitled to Park Yuna's story. She wasn't entitled to Ira's story, either. But she needed to start somewhere. She needed to practice asking.
She opened the thread.
Typed: Hey, this is Miri from the bonfire. I know this is random but
Deleted it.
Typed: Hi—this is Miri. From the bonfire.
She stared at the words. Her heart was beating harder than made sense. It was just a text. Just a question about someone she'd never met.
But it wasn't just that. It was choosing to reach into a gap. It was admitting she'd been carrying something she couldn't explain.
You mentioned someone who reminded you of me. I've been thinking about that, and I wanted to ask—is he okay?
Her thumb hovered over send.
She thought about Park Yuna, holding a baby for three days before letting go. About the agency paperwork that reduced a life to dates and checkboxes. About all the stories other people told about her origin, and the silence where her own voice should have been.
This wasn't about Ira. Not really. This was about learning to ask.
She pressed send.
* * *
Rowan had been there since eight. They'd worked through the morning in the usual rhythm—labor, silence, occasional conversation. By early afternoon the heat had driven them onto the porch, where a weak breeze offered marginal relief.
"You're quiet today," Rowan said. He was drinking water from a jug he'd brought, not offering commentary so much as observing.
"Thinking."
"About?"
Ira gestured vaguely at the parsonage. "The dedication thing. Hagarty wants me to speak. Say something personal about why this matters."
Rowan was quiet for a moment. "And you don't know what to say."
"I know what she wants me to say. I just don't know if I can say it anymore."
"What does she want?"
"The version where I'm the inspiring young leader. Where the project proves something about community and faith and young people stepping up." He shook his head. "It's not a lie. But it's not—"
"The whole thing."
"No."
Rowan set down his water jug. "What's the whole thing?"
Ira looked at him. Rowan's face was open, undemanding. He wasn't pushing. He was just asking, the way he always asked—like the answer mattered but wouldn't change anything between them.
"I don't know," Ira said. "That's the problem. I don't know what the true version sounds like. I just know the clean one isn't it."
Rowan nodded slowly. "So don't give the speech."
"I can't just—"
"Why not?"
The question sat there. Ira opened his mouth to explain all the reasons—Hagarty, the board, the expectations, the fact that he'd proposed this project and seen it through and refusing to speak would look like—
Like what? Ingratitude? Failure? Rot?
"I don't know," he said again.
Rowan shrugged. "Figure it out, then. You've got time."
It wasn't advice. It wasn't comfort. It was just Rowan, stating the obvious and leaving space for Ira to do whatever he needed to do with it.
They went back to work.
* * *
The response came while Miri was helping her mother in the garden.
She felt her phone buzz in her pocket and made herself wait. Pulled weeds. Moved mulch. Listened to her mother talk about the tomatoes, which were coming in early this year.
When she finally checked, the message was shorter than she'd expected.
I don't know anymore. I thought I did.
Miri read it twice. Three times.
Ellie wasn't managing. Wasn't explaining. Wasn't offering the kind of reassurance people usually offered when asked about someone they cared about.
I don't know anymore.
There was something honest in that. Something raw. Like Miri's question had landed in a place that was already tender.
She typed: That sounds hard.
Sent it before she could overthink.
The response came faster this time: Yeah. Things have been weird. Not bad weird. Just. Different.
Then, a moment later: Why do you ask?
Miri looked at the words. She could deflect. Say something vague about just thinking about the bonfire, wondering how everyone was doing. Keep it light.
But she'd decided to stop doing that. She'd decided to start asking for what she actually needed.
You said he reminded you of me. I've been thinking about what that means.
A long pause. The typing indicator appeared, disappeared, appeared again.
Then: Can I call you?
Miri's heart rate spiked. A call was different. A call was real.
Yeah. Give me ten minutes.
She pocketed her phone and went to tell her mother she needed to take a break.
* * *
"Sorry," Ellie said. "Texting felt weird."
"It's okay."
Silence. Miri could hear a fan on Ellie's end, the low hum of it filling the space between words.
"I don't know why I asked to call," Ellie said. "I just. You asked if he's okay, and I started typing, and everything I wrote sounded like a lie."
Miri sat on her bed. Waited.
"Something happened," Ellie said. "Recently. I saw him—with someone else. And he was different. Not performing. And I realized I'd never actually seen that before. Like, ever. In years of knowing him."
"Oh."
"Yeah." A breath. "And then this other thing happened, and I—" She stopped. "I'm not explaining this well."
"You don't have to."
"I know. I just." Another pause. Longer this time. "I think I needed him to be a certain way. And I didn't know that until I saw him be something else."
Miri didn't say anything. She wasn't sure what to say.
"Sorry," Ellie said. "This is a lot. You asked one question."
"It's okay."
"Why did you ask? Like, actually."
Miri looked at her ceiling. The late light was making shapes there, shifting as the trees moved outside.
"I don't know," she said. "That thing you said at the bonfire—about him seeing things but not seeing himself. It stuck with me."
"Why?"
"I don't know that either." She paused. "I'm trying to find someone. From before. And I keep thinking about what it means to ask about someone else's story. Whether you're allowed to. Whether they'd want you to."
Ellie was quiet.
"That's not really about Ira," Miri added.
"No. But it's something." Ellie's voice was different now. Less guarded. "I don't know if he's okay. I thought I did, before. Now I don't think I know anything."
"That sounds hard."
"Yeah."
They sat with that. The line open, neither of them filling it.
"I should go," Ellie said finally. "But—thanks. For asking, I guess. Nobody else has."
"Okay."
"Okay." A pause. "Bye, Miri."
"Bye."
The call ended. Miri sat there for a while, phone in her lap, not sure what had just happened or what it meant.
* * *
The light was going golden when Rowan left.
Ira stood on the porch, watching the truck disappear. The notebook was still on the sawhorse inside. Still mostly blank.
He locked the parsonage door. The key was warm from his pocket, and his hands still smelled like sawdust.
He walked to the Civic. The August heat hadn't broken.