Architect | Retired Spy | Nanny | Designer of Prisons, Safe Houses and Bear Bedrooms | The One Who Answered the Sign
Ava saw the help wanted sign on the tree. She stopped the car. Permafrostia said keep driving. Ava was already out of the car.
This tells you everything you need to know about Ava.
She is an architect of considerable distinction. She has designed prisons — buildings specifically engineered so that nothing gets out. She has designed safe houses — buildings specifically engineered so that nothing gets in. She has spent her career understanding exactly how structures protect the people inside them, how walls become shelter, how a foundation becomes permanence, how a building becomes a home.
She did not expect to apply this knowledge to a house in a forest occupied by five bears and a baby gorilla.
She applied it anyway. Thoroughly. With full architectural specifications.
The chandelier mounting in the main hallway has been reinforced to Ava’s precise engineering standards. Eugene considers this an endorsement of his activities. Ava considers it a necessary structural intervention. Both of these things are true.
She has designed a bedroom for Eugene — warm gold, Cheerios posters, honey bee details, exactly right. She has designed a bedroom for Georgia — banana wallpaper, pink everything, a crib with pink bedding, exactly right. She has designed rooms for everyone. She approaches each one the way she approaches every project — with careful attention to who the person is, what they need, what would make them feel completely themselves in their own space. She has been doing this her whole career. She is very good at it.
She was a spy. She does not discuss this in detail. What can be confirmed is that she survived seventeen international missions, one submarine incident, a carrier pigeon named 00Coo who has opinions, and a Walmart trip with six bears and a gorilla. She considers the Walmart trip the most challenging of these by a considerable margin.
She designed Novak Petrović a safe house once, a long time ago. She did not know he has been in the forest watching over her ever since. She does not know this yet. When she finds out she will not be surprised. She will make him tea. She will not make a fuss. This is Ava.
She talks to Medved the way people talk when they understand each other without needing many words. She leaves Earl Grey beside his laptop. He makes her tea without being asked. This is their whole friendship and it is completely sufficient.
She accepted Eugene’s Cheerios from the beginning. Not performatively. Not condescendingly. She took the Cheerio and ate it because Eugene offered it sincerely and sincerity deserves to be met with sincerity. The household noticed. The household did not comment. It was simply understood that Ava was exactly right for Bear House from that moment.
She knocked on the door of Bear House with the purposeful stride of a woman who has designed load bearing walls and is not afraid of anything.
She was right not to be afraid.
Everything she found on the other side of that door was exactly what she had been building toward her whole life without knowing it.
A home worth protecting.
A family worth designing for.
A place where her work finally meant exactly what she always hoped it would. 🌟
Special Skill:
Architecture, spy craft, bear wrangling, knowing exactly what people need before they ask.
Known Weakness:
Help wanted signs on trees, Eugene’s Cheerios, buildings with good bones.
Favourite Building:
Vancouver House — that extraordinary twisted tower that proves the most daring structures are also the strongest
Personal Motto:
“How hard could it be?” 👩
Permafrostia asked her once, much later, if she regretted stopping the car.
Ava looked around Bear House.
At Eugene on the chandelier.
At Yogianna reorganizing the kitchen to her exacting standards.
At Outback Bear asleep in the hammock.
At Medved quietly knowing everything.
At Danger Bear laminating something important.
At Georgia spinning in her tutu with her bow sideways and her whole heart showing.
At the forest outside where the fairy lights glowed gold in the Banyan tree.
“No,” said Ava.
She picked up her blueprints.
She went back to work. 🌟
Ava’s Room Design
