Chapter 1 Ilsa #2
Not that the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. But the idea of letting a stranger sort through my father’s possessions would only make the guilt worse.
Maybe I wasn’t much better than a stranger. But at least I was his. And he’d been mine. Besides, where else did I have to go?
“I need to do this,” I said.
“Then please, let me come and help.” It was the tenth time he’d offered to come to Montana.
And for the tenth time, I said, “No, I’m fine.”
“Ilsa.”
There was my name again. No pity this time, just scathing disapproval. Like I was a child in need of scolding.
I hadn’t heard that chiding tone from him before. Or maybe I had but I’d been so blinded by my love for him that I hadn’t noticed.
“How’s Lori?” I forced as much sincere curiosity into my voice as I could muster.
“Don’t do that. Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m not doing anything. I appreciate the offer to help, but this is something I need to do on my own.” I’d go through each and every box. I’d deal with the cans and dust and whatever else I uncovered beneath this roof.
Because maybe if I could learn who Dad had been in the last years of his life, I could retrace his footsteps. All the way back to that early memory, when I’d been a happy girl who looked at her father like he hung the moon.
If I started at the beginning, maybe I’d find the point when I’d gotten lost.
“I want to be there for you,” Troy said.
“I know.”
That was the worst part. If I asked him to be here tomorrow, he’d drop everything to drive from Arizona to Montana.
But being here? That was only geography. Whether he was in my living room or his own, whether we were thousands of miles apart or a few short feet, nothing would change. He could be here. And not be with me.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said. “How is Lori?”
“She’s good. At Jazzercise tonight.”
“Sounds fun.” My molars ground together. Asking about his most recent girlfriend was akin to torture, yet I’d asked for the past three months, ever since I’d found out they were dating.
The same night I’d come home from dinner to find a police car waiting outside my house and an officer poised on my porch to tell me that my father had died.
Troy and I had been out to dinner before that. He’d told me that he’d met someone, that Lori might be the one.
Maybe the reason I hadn’t cried when that police officer told me about Dad was because my heart had already been broken.
It would be easier if Lori weren’t a lovely woman. She was sweet, and the few times the three of us had met for drinks, she’d been nothing but kind. She’d fawned over Troy, always touching him, praising him, boasting about him like I didn’t already know he was smart and funny and charming.
Like I didn’t love him too.
I’d met Troy first, but it just didn’t matter. Timing had never been on our side.
For years, we’d dodged and denied a mutual attraction. In the beginning, I hadn’t wanted to risk our friendship, and by the time I’d been brave enough to tell him how I felt, it was too late. He’d met someone else.
Suzie. Then Hollie. Then Brenda. Then Tiff.
I hadn’t waited. I’d moved on, dated and tried to find my own someone special. And neither of us had ever admitted we wanted more than friendship. But there were feelings. A hope that eventually, the timing would work.
Three months ago, for the first time in years, I’d been single and he’d been single. When Troy had asked me to dinner, I’d thought it was a date. Finally.
Silly me.
He’d told me all about Lori over breadsticks at my favorite Italian restaurant.
“Have you talked to your mom?” he asked.
“Not since I called to tell her that I made it to Dalton.”
Mom didn’t want updates about my time in Montana.
She was irritated that I’d moved over a thousand miles away to clean up Dad’s mess.
She hated that I hadn’t simply taken a week off work, dealt with this cabin lickety-split and returned home.
She blamed him for my leaving Arizona. But it was all a ruse to hide her heartbreak.
Her entire life she’d been in love with my father, even after she’d filed for divorce. Mom had never remarried. She’d never shown any interest in another man. Yet for as much as she loved Dad, she hated him too.
She hated that he’d chosen Montana over her.
Twenty years ago, when she’d told him she couldn’t live here anymore, that she couldn’t do another harsh winter and needed more than his small town had to offer, he let her pack our bags. He’d watched from outside this very cabin as we’d driven away.
Mom had told me countless times that it was a mistake to come to Montana. That Dad hadn’t cared enough about me to leave Dalton in decades, so why would I uproot my life to tidy up the remains of his?
Maybe she was right.
Maybe if Dad hadn’t written me that letter, I would have stayed far, far away.
But since the day it had arrived in my mailbox, exactly two days after he’d died, I hadn’t been able to let it go.
So when I’d finished the past semester at the high school where I’d been teaching in Phoenix, I’d packed up my life, putting most of my belongings in storage in my mother’s garage. Then, despite the protests from both Mom and Troy, I’d moved to Montana.
By some miracle, I’d managed to get a job teaching. It was only temporary while another teacher was on maternity leave, but I wasn’t staying in Dalton.
Maybe once I finished the school year, once I finished cleaning and selling Dad’s cabin, I’d move to the East Coast. Maybe I’d try California or Colorado or Connecticut.
Where? That was another day’s problem. All I knew was that Arizona was history.
Mom could keep her sunshine and scorching summers.
I wanted to live in a place with all four seasons.
“Any idea when you’ll be able to come home?” Troy asked.
Telling him I wasn’t moving back was another day’s problem too. “No. But I’d better let you go before this call gets too expensive.”
“I can afford long distance, Ilsa.”
“I know. But I’d like to get more work done before I call it a night.”
“All right. Don’t work too hard.”
“No promises.”
“Next Sunday?”
“I’ll be here.” Despite the nagging feeling that our friendship was coming to an end, I’d be here on Sunday, answering the phone the moment it rang.
“I’m worried about you,” he said.
“Don’t be. I’ll be fine.”
He scoffed. “Of course I’ll worry about you, Ilsa. I love you.”
It was a knife through the chest. Did he love me? Did I love him? Or was Troy simply comfortable, like my favorite old T-shirt?
Even if it was love, none of it mattered. A long time ago, in this very house, I’d learned that love wasn’t enough.
“Have a good week.” I carried the phone to its cradle and hung up.
No matter how many calls he made, I never ended them with a goodbye. Deep down, I was too afraid he’d take it as permission to stop calling.
“God, what the hell am I doing?” The wall of boxes didn’t have an answer as I turned toward the living room. “What are the chances you’re all cans?”
Only one way to find out.
The next box I pulled from the stack was full of photographs. I carried it to the kitchen, lifting them out and spreading them across the countertop.
They were Polaroids, most faded to black and white and tan and gray. But the face in each square, white frame was mine. Every single picture was of me during my summer visits.
My nose began to sting, a lump forming in my throat, but my eyes stayed dry.
I hadn’t cried when the cop told me about Dad’s death. I hadn’t cried during the two-day drive from Phoenix to Dalton. I hadn’t shed a single tear since I’d arrived in Montana, not even when I’d walked through the front door.
Ike had been an absent father to a shitty daughter.
Neither of us deserved tears.
I picked out a stack of my favorite photos from the massive pile and slid the rest off the counter’s surface, pushing them into the empty box. Then it joined the others outside.
The next box was full of socks and white T-shirts. Everything had been folded perfectly, the shirts in tidy squares.
Dad had taught me how to fold clothes. Mom was hopeless when it came to laundry, content to pluck clean clothes out of a basket rather than put them away in her neglected dresser drawers.
The summer after we’d moved to Arizona, the first summer I’d come to visit Dad, he’d seen my haphazard suitcase and a pile of clothes on the floor and taught me how to fold.
That sting in my nose returned with a vengeance.
I closed the lid, leaving everything inside untouched.
There was no point in me keeping his shirts and socks, but instead of taking them outside, that box went to the laundry room shelf.
It couldn’t stay beside the detergent and bleach indefinitely, but for now, I wasn’t ready to throw out his clothes.
The next box was as mysterious as the cans. White paper napkins filled it from top to bottom, and every single one was adorned with Dad’s neat script. I plucked one from the top of the pile.
It was a to-do list, the first word capitalized and the tasks punctuated. Each item was crossed out with a straight line, except for the last.
Buy oranges.
Mow lawn.
Change oil.
Write Ilsa’s letter.
The letter.
It wasn’t crossed off, not on this napkin. Would I find one in the box where he’d checked it off? Because he’d written that letter. It was in my purse, tucked safely in the envelope in which it had arrived.
Why had he kept these napkin lists? Making them was normal, sort of. Keeping them? Not so much.
The cans. The lists.
The junk.
All signs that my father’s mental health had been deteriorating in his final days. Signs I’d missed because I hadn’t been around.
Dad had called me this past summer and pleaded with me to take a trip. It was the first time in years he’d invited me to Dalton. Come and see me, honey bear. Spend a week on the lake. There’s a lot I’d like to talk to you about.
A good daughter would have made the effort. Instead, I’d been too busy making excuses. Too busy proving a point.
Dad had never once come to see me in Phoenix. Not in twenty years. He’d missed my high school graduation. Birthdays. Christmases. Why should I rush a trip on my summer vacation to Montana?
Saying no had been my form of revenge.
Guilt and regret as thick as black sludge crept through my veins. Would it have made a difference? Would I have been able to get him help? Questions I could never answer.
A blast of cold swept into the cabin, so I walked to the fireplace, adding another log to the stove.
At least I didn’t have to chop wood. Dad had built up a stash of wood by the front door that would last me through two winters. Not that I intended to stay for more than one.
As the new log caught fire, I stood and took in the plethora of boxes, my energy waning. God, there were so many boxes. Tomorrow, after work, I’d unearth the couch.
I navigated the narrow path through the mess, about to slink into my bedroom and pull on a pair of warm socks and flannel pajamas to read for a few hours before going to bed. With my hand hovering over the light switch, I gave the boxes one backward glance.
And saw a person wearing a dark ski mask in the dirty kitchen window.