Music—loud and raw—came from Harry’s bedroom. Ambient noise from the CCU drifted down the phone line. Outside, a neighbor’s dog barked.
“And Ella?” Speaking her name, feeling the vibration of Ella on his lips . . . He crumpled onto a barstool and tried to support the weight of his head in his hand. But his elbow slid along the top of the island, threatening to knock the pizza to the floor. “Is she in any pain?”
“She’s asleep again. They gave her a ton of happy pills.”
“She doesn’t like taking pills.”
“Oh, she’s enjoying these.”
No matter what he said, Katherine had to contradict. “Would you do me a favor?”
“What?” She sounded wary.
“Stay with her until I get there tomorrow. I don’t want her waking up alone.”
“Do you have to ask?”
“Katherine, can we call a truce?”
She gave another laugh, this one even less sincere. “Sure. But if you upset her again, I’ll beat the shit out of you. And you know I’ll win. Good night, Felix.” And she hung up.
Katherine had a point. Now that she’d taken up boxing, she could pulverize him, but who—male or female—would seek pleasure with a pair of boxing gloves?
Pushing himself away from the smell of pizza, he stared into the living room. Seventeen years of creating this perfect, open-plan cocoon for his family, of grappling with 1950s electrics, of tearing out to rebuild, and suddenly it all seemed pointless. Above the empty fireplace hung the portrait of Ella painted by one of her arty college friends. Felix had never liked oil paintings—real life embellished with heavy brush strokes and globs of paint. This one was particularly grotesque: Ella distorted into The Scream.
Felix walked across the living room and faced the night on the other side of the sliding patio doors. Beyond the glass lay an impenetrable screen of mature trees and undergrowth—the black wall of Duke Forest. Since he was a boy, he’d been drawn to small, dark places. A true Brit, he loved to sit in the sun, but he needed shade to feel safe. Ella had wanted a modern colonial with a wraparound porch, a lawn, and a cheerful sun garden—preferably in rural Orange County, outside Chapel Hill. Not Felix. The moment he’d discovered the tree-lined roads of flickering shade that surrounded the Duke campus, it was as if some missing piece of his life—that he hadn’t even known was missing—fell into place.
She had conceded, but not happily. Did she regret her decision? If she had the choice, would they move? He looked down. A foot up from ground level, a raccoon had smeared paw prints on the glass. At least, he assumed it was a raccoon, or some other woodland critter living on the outside, looking in as he had done in the hospital with Ella and Harry.
A small, dark shape with red-glowing eyes lumbered between the trees. A creature existing on nothing but instinct. The security light came on and illuminated an opossum snuffling around. Was it searching for food? Was there a nest of opossum babies to feed? Was the mother guarding the nest? Even in the wild, male and female creatures had their roles. The male was the provider, the mother the nurturer. He had always provided—school fees, a good standard of living with annual trips to England, money for stuffed Christmas stockings. And now?
Felix glanced back at the unopened pizza box. If the top of tomorrow’s to-do list was send Harry to school on a nutritious breakfast, the entire day would be ruined before 8:00 a.m.