“But he was the glue. He’s what held us together.”
She strokes my hair, brushing her long fingers through my unruly locks. “It only feels that way right now, dear.”
Family. What I hadn’t really known before Al, and what it feels like I’ll never know again. The one thing I still have here, at Ocean Crescent Drive. “I can’t reach her, Ellen. I’ve tried.”
“I think she’s better.”
“Maybe on the surface.”
“She told me Inez is going to keep her this summer.” There’s no accusation in her words, but I feel heavy guilt descend in the space of a heartbeat. That I have to work, that I can’t stay with her myself. That I’m not loaded like the Richardson family used to be, once upon a time, before only the trappings of their fortune remained.
“While I work,” I offer lamely, wiping at my eyes with the back of my hand.
Ellen leans down, embracing me, and I catch the faint aroma of hand cream and perfume, tinged with earthy smells from her garden. These scents have been a constant during my thirteen years in her family. “Michael, of course you’re working.” She laughs, giving my shoulder a squeeze of reassurance. “The world works because it must, but perhaps you could take some time off. A vacation for the two of you might help Andrea to open up.” She settles herself regally in the chair beside me again, studying me with her aged blue eyes. Eyes so eerily like my dead lover’s that for a careless moment, I’m startled.
“I’ve been thinking of taking her back east. To meet my father.”
Ellen nods, but her mouth turns downward in concern. “Have you spoken to him?” Lately. She doesn’t say it, but I know that’s what she’s thinking.
“Nope.” The grandfather clock in the foyer sounds the quarter-hour, and the chimes echo through the whole house. The quiet here has always been peaceful, never lonely like at my home when I was growing up, where it was empty and cavernous. The kind of silence that would swallow you whole if you weren’t careful.
Ellen draws in a breath. “Does your father know that Alex passed?” Staring down into my tea glass, tinkling the cubes of ice in it, offers me a temporary reprieve until Ellen covers my hand with her own again. “He doesn’t know?”
“He doesn’t even know that we have a daughter, Ellen,” I confess, glancing up at her. Damned if fresh tears aren’t a serious threat, but I manage to urge them away.
“You should tell him,” she states with a resolute nod of her head. “He’s your father and he’d want to know.”
“He doesn’t want any part of what I had with Alex. He made that painfully clear years ago.”
Again, only the sound of the grandfather clock, measuring the silence between us like a metronome. She knows my family history. Knows that my old man had expected me to become a doctor, not hook up with one—one of the male variety at that. Knows that the Reverend Warner had some very choice words to say about my life partner.
Keen blue eyes fix me hard. “You are a father, Michael. You understand what this breach between the two of you must be doing to him.”
“Ellen, no. Seriously. He doesn’t give a crap, okay?”
“Has he phoned you in the past year?”
“A few times.” I shrug. “That’s it.”
“And you didn’t tell him that Alex died?”
I lean back in my chair, expelling a tight breath. “What do you hear from Laurel lately? You told me she’d be here this weekend.” I’m turning the tables intentionally, reminding her that both our families have their torn places.
Again, the faint, knowing smile. “She sends her love.”
I’ll just bet she does.
“Good. Tell her the same from me, okay?”
“Maybe you should call her, too?” she suggests in a gentle tone, but that’s one area where my emotions absolutely fear to tread. I can’t deal with Laurel, not yet, and Ellen knows it. She rises to her feet, stepping slowly toward the large picture window at the back of the dining room. Her heeled shoes tap out a staccato rhythm on the polished hardwoods, marking time between us in even measurements.
Standing at the sun-filled window, she presses a thin hand against her temple, shielding her eyes against the late afternoon light. Andrea’s been sitting out there on a giant chunk of rock overlooking the Pacific for more than an hour, her nose poked into a Nancy Drew mystery.
I follow Ellen’s gaze, and say, “She loves books.”
“Like both of her fathers.” She laughs. “What perfect sense that makes.”
“At least something in this crazy mess does, huh?”
Ellen turns toward me, absently knotting her long strand of pearls in her hand. “That Andrea would reflect so much of you both? Yes, it makes beautiful sense to me.”
The idea of some part of Alex, living on here with me, well it’s the only comfort I can take in his death.