My Cousin Brought An Eviction Notice Into The Winter Greenhouse

Renji set his leather folder on a tray marked DO NOT TURN.

There were twelve promethea cocoons beneath it. I lifted his folder and put it on the floor.

"Those are alive," I said.

"Of course, Emiko. I would never hurt your little project."

At thirty-nine, I was a Japanese American woman with straight black hair cut at my jaw, brown eyes, and a pale scar across my left thumb. I worked as a conservation insect breeder, raising native moths and keeping records for small habitat studies around Asheville.

My cousin had never asked what that meant.

Renji was a tall Japanese American man of forty-six, with neatly parted black hair, silver glasses, and a smile that never reached his eyes.

He brushed a spot of dirt from his cuff.

"We should settle this gently," he said. "Grandmother would want that."

Our grandmother, Nao, had been buried on Friday. It was Sunday morning. There was still a white funeral envelope in my coat pocket.

He handed me five pages held by a black clip.

The first page said LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT. Below that was December 18.

"She left me the conservatory," he said. "The land, the buildings, all of it. You need to clear out by Tuesday."

I read the gift twice. He had pointed to it with a neat yellow tab.

Outside, sleet ticked against the glass. Beyond our low roof, the bare ridge above the French Broad looked like a row of worn teeth.

"Clear out where?"

"That isn't mine to decide."

"I meant the cocoons."

He let out a soft breath, as if I had picked the wrong thing to worry about.

"A nature center. A school. Somewhere suitable."

There were 286 tagged cocoons in the winter bays. Each tag named the parents, host plant, collection site, and date. Some held lines from small mountain valleys where lights and cleared woods had left moths with fewer places to breed.

I could not pour twelve years into a moving box.

I rubbed the tiny silver moth on my apron. I embroidered one on every work apron, always with a small gap in its left wing.

Grandmother had taught me that.

"Leave a breath," she used to say when I pulled my stitches too tight.

Renji glanced at my hand.

"You can keep the aprons. Naturally."

I asked to keep his copy of the will.

"Why?"

"So I know what you're asking."

He gave it to me with a patient smile.

"You weren't an employee, Emiko. You volunteered. There are no wages owed, and no ownership because you watered leaves."

That part about wages was almost true. I had taken outside breeding contracts to pay my rent. Grandmother had paid the greenhouse bills. I had never asked for wages, and I had no old pay agreement to wave at him.

But wages were not the paper I was thinking about.

Behind the folded aprons in the potting room sat a blue seed tin. An envelope inside held my signed trustee acceptance, a copy of a deed, and instructions Grandmother had made me read aloud in October.

Renji had visited twice that fall. Once he had stayed eleven minutes.

"Have you filed this?" I asked.

"My lawyer will handle everything tomorrow."

He picked up his folder.

"I'll give you $1,500 for moving costs if you sign a release. That's more than I have to do."

He laid down another sheet. Its title was SURRENDER AND RELEASE. It said I gave up any interest in the premises and all claims related to my work.

"I'll read it," I said.

"You always did make simple things take forever."

He said it kindly. That made it worse.

After he left, I checked the winter bays. Cold dormancy was part of the work. A warm spell at the wrong time could bring an adult moth out before its mate or its host plants were ready.

I wrote forty-three degrees in the log.

Then I washed my hands, opened the seed tin, and laid the envelope beside his will.

Grandmother had written one line across the flap.

Keep Your Copy Where You Work.

I had thought it was one more rule about moisture and lost receipts. Now I heard the warning in it.

My phone lit up with a message from Renji.

The buyer expects vacant possession Tuesday. Please don't embarrass the family.

Buyer.

I looked again at the will. The last sheet carried witness signatures and a notary's name: Beatrice Cole.

I knew that name. Grandmother called her the fern lady.

I found Beatrice's number in the little book by the kettle and left a message. Then I took clear pictures of every page, including the surrender form.

The phone rang before I could put it down.

"Nao kept a rabbit's-foot fern over her sink," a woman said. "Tell me why her grandson says I watched her sign a will in December."