My New Neighbor is a Squirrel

Yep. It was official. Sasha had hit rock bottom. Distorted beams of sunlight streamed into the tree house through cracks in its weathered planks. Sasha had spent at least twenty of her twenty five years of life, climbing in and out of this place of wonder. Her hands and legs a living record of after school fun with friends. Each limb marked by the splinters from both the tree house and the tree in which the house rested. This tree house had been a staple of her childhood. This place of childhood nostalgia, one that Sasha hadn’t seen, visited, or thought of in almost eight years, was now serving as a safe place to land. Dust mites shimmered as they danced through the air, passing through the sun beams with the knowledge that they would land unscathed.

Sasha’s dismay at not being as lucky a dust mite was embarrassingly pathetic. Blinking rapidly, the events of the previous two days threatened to undo her resolve. Before thoughts of the worst two weeks of her life could send her back into breath stealing sobs, a head appeared through the tree house’s trap door. Of all the people she did not want to see right now, the person entering without permission, was at the top of the list. Who cares if the tree house didn’t technically belong to her? This tree house had belonged to all the neighborhood kids growing up. Her brother had been the one to discover it not too deep in the woods behind her childhood home.

Her sister Saffron pulled the rest of her body up into the cramped space, tucking her legs underneath her petite body. Saffron had always been the cute book worm, never doing anything wrong in their parent’s eyes, sibling. She was also the reason Sasha was back here. Well, not entirely. But it sure was easier letting someone else tote the blame. The sisters sat blinking at one another; a Morse code of distrust from one, while the other only flashed dejection and hope of reconciliation.

A second head appeared through the floor of the tree house. The already cramped space felt even smaller when their brother Sampson made the duet into a trio. As always, Sampson was the one to break the silence. “So, are you ready to stop sulking and come inside?” Sampson was the life of the party, but moonlighted as the peacemaker in the family. His one fault was that he didn’t hold back when he felt you needed some sense knocked into you, even if it left you in tears. Sasha had already shed so many, what’s a few more? Sasha was having a hard time reconciling the siblings who sat before her, with the ones she had left behind years ago. The gangly little sister of thirteen she had left behind, was now a twenty-one year old who could give any cover model a run for her money. Sampson, two years her senior, had only turned into more of a heartthrob. If not for the invention of social media, Sasha’s siblings would have appeared as strangers to her eyes.

“How long have you known I was out here?” Sasha finger combed her now matted hair, fingers catching on tangles. Giving up with a huff, she pulled her hair up into a catastrophe bun; it would be an insult to the word messy to assign it that train wreck. “We’ve both known since mom told us yesterday.” Saffron’s angelic voice grated on Sasha’s nerves. “Wait, mom knew I was here the whole time? Well, I guess I’ll be adding ninja skills to my list of failures.” Sasha had told no one of her shameful return. She had done some serious sleuthing, or so she thought, to make her way into the tree house before her parents and sister would have returned from work. She had been very quiet, skirting the small path that led through her parent's backyard. She had made sure that the flashlight on her phone never faced the one tiny tree house window.

“Well, to be fair, Momma wasn’t the one to catch your arrival.” Saffron sent nervous glances at their brother. She looked as though she hadn’t meant to share that tidbit of information. It struck her like a spark of lightning; her back straitening so fast, she was surprised her spine hadn’t snapped in two. Him. She couldn’t even say his name. He had been their neighbor growing up and had inherited the house when his parents retired to Florida last year. He was apparently a nosy busy body just like his mother. “Samuel Edmon.” Sampson smirked as Saffron blushed. Sasha’s angry flush was not nearly as comely as her sister’s. Per usual, she was never good at tempering or hiding her feelings. As though the mere mention of his name had summoned him from the great beyond, hair the color of cinnamon appeared through the tree house floor. He climbed in noting that the only available space was next to Sasha. Now with four full sized adults sitting knee to knee, Sasha seriously began to worry about the soundness of the tree house. When she had been about seven, her dad had tried to fix the old place up once he knew his three kids spent hours in the old wooden structure. But a master carpenter, her father was not.

“Welcome home Sasha.” The voice that had hunted her for the past eight years still sent tendrils of annoyance down her back. Yep, it was simply, and only, annoyance. A perfunctory smile and bland, “hello Sam”, was her response. A quick chuckle turned into a badly covered attempt at a cough. Saffron’s giggle was so beautiful as it tinkled like fairy bells, that the only reaction was a dimple displaying smile and wink from the man himself.

Good-natured Sam never met a person he didn’t like. That was the problem. Although he had always liked Sasha and had been so deeply integrated into the lives of the Nickholls siblings, he had never shown he liked her any different than her siblings. It had led to the ultimate betrayal in her eyes. At one time in her life, she was so past like, she had decided to put 1,500 miles between them to show how much she didn’t like him. She was brought back from her wool gathering when she heard the tail end of his question, “back in town?” Not willing to admit what had really brought Sasha back home, especially not in front of Samuel Edmon, she shrugged noncommittally. “It was time” was all she would add. “Yes, it sure was.” Sasha’s gaze jerked towards Sam; she sat wondering if she had imagined the whispered words.

A loud clap had all eyes shooting to Sampson. “I’m hungry. Who wants some pizza?” Rubbing his stomach, the interloper, Mr. Rogers reincarnated, and the traitor formally known as Saffron, all agreed that they could eat. Sampson was already typing away on his phone. Sasha released a breath of relief. In thirty minutes or less, she would finally have peace and quiet. The next thirty minutes passed with stilted conversation, inside jokes that her eight-year absence had firmly placed her outside of, and a few awkward pauses. Sampson’s phone dinged and he nimbly scrambled down the questionable ladder. Sasha waited patiently, enter sarcastic eye roll, for the other two tree house crashers to follow. Before she could clear her throat in a pointed dismissal, there in her peripheral appeared levitating pizza boxes. She could not catch a break. Sasha wondered if she should be the one to leave. But the unease of staying was significantly less than her trepidation at announcing her arrival to her parents.

Napkins met hands and soon the hungry quartet converged onto the meat and cheese covered pie. Sasha didn’t want to admit it, but she was starving. She inhaled the first slice of pizza. In her defense, nothing compared to Aglio Gustoso Pizza House. She was so involved in appreciating the delicious symphony of flavors of her now third slice, she didn’t notice that all sound had ceased. A masculine clearing of the throat was the only warning she got before Sampson’s question pierced her ill constructed house of sticks. “So, what are you running from?” A piece of pastrami lodged in her throat and sent Sasha into hacking coughs. She turned an embarrassing shade of red when she felt a man-sized hand slapping her back. Taking a quick sip of her now room temperature day old water, Sasha was able to pull it together. “You’ve been gone almost eight years. Why are you back now?”

“Excuse me?” Sampson simple stared and raised a single eyebrow. She had to fight an ill-timed grin as it brought back a memory of two sisters giggling as they named the once bushy beasts. It was the eyebrow he used when calling someone out on their sugar honey ice tea; of the bad habits Sasha had picked up over the years, using profanity was not one of them. Sasha knew she needed to respond with something; a minuscule crumb to satisfy his need to know everything. At least, she had only meant for it to be a small something. Apparently, the memo had not quite reached her mouth before she was blurting, “I’m pregnant.”

Two jaws dropped, the third staying firmly shut as one person present was not surprised by the news. In a moment of weakness and self-loathing, Sasha had called to vent to the one person she knew wouldn’t judge her. She had shared a few other things that enlightened her sister to the fact that a baby in the “space” she had been in for the last year, was unacceptable. And when that same “safe place” threatened to tell their parents, well Sasha realized the tree house might once again become her place of rest. So much for a place of rest. Enter second eye roll.

“Maybe I should go.” Samuel was the first to collect himself. All six feet two inches unfolded from the floor. He squeezed her hand once before making his way down the ladder. She didn’t know what was more unbelievable; that he had managed to grab her hand without her notice or that the ladder actually supported him all the way down to the ground. Sampson had realized Saffron’s lack of shock. “You knew.” A simple nod was all he received in return. Saffron sat picking at her nails. She chanced a look up at her siblings. “Well, I couldn’t very well be the baby’s favorite aunt from fifteen hundred miles away.” That was all it took for the dam to break. What started as boisterous laughs, soon turned into soul healing sobs. She felt two sets of arms wrap around her. Until then, Sasha hadn’t believed she could cry any harder. The strength and love she felt in that embrace proved her wrong. The three siblings stayed that way for quite a while. They all slowly pulled away. Sasha saw the remnants of tears in the eyes of her sibling. Saffron kindly handed the last remaining napkin to their older brother.

Ever the picture of poise, Saffron had nay a single hair out of place. “We are here for you Say,” the childhood nickname rusty from disuse worked as a key. It freed the sisters from previous hurts and unlocked the door to future love and adventure. Sasha reached for her sister, an olive branch. Saffron carefully re-seated herself next to her older sister. She intertwined their fingers and laid her head on her favorite sister’s shoulder. Sampson, though still discombobulated by the news, couldn’t help but smile at the picture his two favorite people painted. “No matter what, you’ve got me. And Saf too.” A quick hand squeeze affirmed her thanks. “And me.”

Sasha’s eyes closed in mortification. How much had he seen and heard? Had he been standing below the tree house the entire time? A finger gently pressed to the underside of Sasha’s chin encouraged her to raise her bowed head. Her eyes opened and immediately had the privilege of swimming in pools of molten honey filled with flecks of jade. Sasha couldn’t look away. That same hand gently took the shape of her jaw, slow as to not spook her. Sasha was so mesmerized she hadn’t felt Saf disentangle their fingers; nor had she noticed her two siblings hasty, but quiet, exit. Sasha didn’t want to get her hopes up. It had happened too many times before. Samuel had often been found at the end of that string of hope. But, in case this moment never happened again, she couldn’t resist leaning into the hand that cradled her face with such care. A slow grin appeared, his two dimples like double barrel shotgun shells to the heart. “I’ve always wanted kids.”