I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. It was January. Winter. The hell that was Christmas was over. New year. Soon it would be spring. Fresh start. New me. New Ellie.
Doug had remarried last fall. While it had cut me in two, Doug being with his new woman no longer enraged me. I no longer harbored feverish dreams of doing them both violence. Doug’s wedding had shaken something loose. I suddenly abhorred the idea of holding on to this shell of a house and what I’d shared with him and Chloe here while he was busy making a home and babies with someone else on the other end of town. I was suddenly free—desperate, in fact—to let it all go.
I was moving into an apartment downtown next month. It was one of my father’s properties, so if it didn’t work out, it wasn’t as though I’d be committed to a long-term lease or anything. I’d picked up some freelance work to ease back into the illustrating business. I could eventually get more contracts, or I could take off and travel, do anything.
I shut the lid of the suitcase and pulled the zipper closed. The sound was satisfyingly final. As I hefted the case off the bed, I glanced at the pillows on the side where Doug used to sleep, and I was slammed with a need to be held again. For a moment, as sleet pelted the windows and the clouds pressed down low and dark, I tried to recall the last time I’d actually had meaningful contact with another person—a lingering hug, a heartfelt squeeze of my hand. My heart twitched with an ache so basic and raw it made me think of abandoned dogs in cages at a pound, waiting to be adopted, to be touched and loved, and how they paced or pined and withered and died if they were not. A loving touch to an animal, a human, was like sunshine and water to plants.
I shook the feelings and rolled the suitcase toward the door. The movers would be here tomorrow. I was ready for them. At my final therapist appointment she’d said that packing Chloe’s last things away was not a move toward forgetting my baby girl, but rather a sign that I was finally finding ways to cohabit with my loss. And I should not expect my loss to be an easy or forgiving roommate. The Grief Monster would still trip me up in unexpected ways, she said. Over and over. Unpredictable. Fickle. Mean. Beguiling. Deceptive. The thing, she’d said, was to try to recognize it for what it was when it struck—the Monster—and to be kind to myself and not expect others to understand what I was going through because there was no decreed chronology of phases or trials to pass through . . . it truly was different for everyone.
Later, when I left the house to meet my father for a special birthday dinner, just him and me, I was dressed in new knee-high boots with very high heels, a black jersey dress I’d not been able to fit into for ages until now, and dark-red lipstick. My hair was brushed to a shine and fell below my shoulder blades. I felt solid. Bold. Confident.
This time, I promised myself, things would go well between me and my dad.
THEN
ELLIE
The lobby of the Hartley Plaza Hotel at the Vancouver waterfront was busy—mostly people in business attire bearing name tags, apparently all here for the AGORA convention being sponsored by the Hartley Group. AGORA was another of my father’s brainchildren. A pitch-fest that sought to match monied venture capitalists with dreamers who needed financial backing for their projects. I made my way through the throngs to the Mallard Lounge.
The lounge was no less busy. Patrons sat deep in leather chairs around low tables with flickering candles. A bar of dark wood and mirrors ran along the far wall. A pianist played muted, jazzy tunes at a baby grand, and a fire flickered in the lodge-style hearth. Floor-to-ceiling windows afforded a view over the floatplane harbor, and outside the sleet was turning into fat flakes of snow.
I waited at the hostess stand, trying to spot my dad among the patrons. I saw him almost immediately. Tall, with a shock of silver hair against a dark tan that screamed of yachts and travel and exotic locales. He was hard to miss, the distinguished Sterling James Hartley.
The hostess took my coat, and I adjusted my sweater dress over my hips. As he saw me he surged to his feet, raising his hand. People turned. Looked. Always. Whenever my father moved, people watched. His was that kind of energy. He took up that kind of space. I felt a flicker of a thrill.
“Ellie! Over here.”
I smiled and wove eagerly through the tables toward him, conscious of his gaze upon me. I’d made an effort and hoped he’d approve, and at the same time I hated myself for even wanting his patriarchal nod. Then I saw the woman seated at his side—the woman who’d until this instant been hidden by the big winged back of her chair. Slender as a rake and maybe just ten years older than I, she had a perfect lob of platinum hair and pouty lips. My mood plunged. Darkness circled.
“Ellie, this is Virginie Valente,” my father said. “She’s from Milan.”
I gave a tight smile as he kissed me on the cheek, and I said softly in his ear, “Happy birthday, Father. I thought it was going to be just me and you.”
“Oh, really?” My dad grinned, stepping back. “I thought it would be a great opportunity for you and Virginie to meet.”
I sat.
Virginie smiled. “So nice to meet you, Ellie.”
“Right. Lovely.” I decided then and there not to give my dad the present I had in my purse for him.
“What can I get you to drink, Ellie? Virginie and I are having a whiskey, and—”
“Wine,” I said. “The Sloquannish Hills pinot gris. Thanks.” I named my choice of poison, suddenly thirsting for it and desperate to put my stamp of control down at this round low table where I was clearly the spare part and resentful for it.
The server brought the bottle and artfully, obsequiously, held the label low for my father to read.
“It’s fine,” I said to the server. “He’s not drinking it. I am.”
My father’s gaze narrowed and fixed on me. My face went hot. Virginie shifted in her seat and reached for her glass to break the tension.
The server poured a splash into my glass to taste.
“Just leave the bottle. Thanks.”
As the server retreated, I reached for the bottle and sloshed wine into my glass. Nice and full. It was beautifully chilled. Little beadlets of moisture formed on the outside of the glass. I took a big gulp. A familiar warmth branched out through my chest. Like an old friend. I felt better already. I took a few more swallows to get the buzz fully going. On some level I knew I’d been triggered. I knew little brain impulses were now flaring down neural channels that had been scored deep by addiction born out of grief over my lost child. Deep down I was already gone, lost to an old coping mechanism. At least for tonight.
My father watched me in silence.
I gave a shrug. And I wondered if he’d bothered to tell Ms. Milan here about his daughter’s dangerous descent into booze and prescription medication after the death of his little grandchild.
A depressed drunk just like her mother . . .
Probably not. I took another swig of wine. Dad had probably forgotten he’d ever even had a granddaughter. He’d likely fathered kids and had grandkids all over the world that I didn’t know about.
“Shall we take a look at the menu?” Virginie said in her Sophia Loren accent. A Continental femme fatale acting in an old James Bond movie. Made me want to puke. Expensive rings. Expensive French manicure. Perhaps she wasn’t even that young. Just well preserved. Cosmetic surgery? I leaned forward for a better look, the booze already making me forthright. Yes, cosmetically enhanced lips, I decided. In fact, I was certain of it. The upper one had been overdone. I hated augmented lips. They made women look like ducks. In fact, I loathed filled lips. They made me feel violent, to be honest. A vague image of Doug’s new wife shimmered into my mind, and I reached quickly for my glass and took another deep swig.