Chapter 22
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I must have fallen asleep. It’s not surprising considering we woke up before sunrise this morning.
And also that I cried my eyes out in a public place, cried more at the hotel, coaxed Hollis into confessing he’s feeling something like what I’m feeling, then had the most transcendent sex of my life.
It’s been a long, exhausting, roller coaster of a day.
Hollis isn’t in bed with me. There’s no noise coming from the bathroom, though he must’ve showered; slightly humid air and the citrusy smell of the hotel’s complimentary shampoo have drifted into the room.
I call for him, but he doesn’t answer. There’s a small part of me that panics.
What if he got freaked out by all of this new intensity between us and left?
But then I see the note on the desk, sitting beside my phone and Hollis’s notebook.
It’s a slip of hotel stationery with a message sprawled across it in a loose, hurried cursive.
Picking up dinner. Back soon. —H
The flatscreen TV beside the desk reflects the massive smile taking up most of my face.
It feels strange to look so happy while still harboring so much disappointment and grief, but there’s also this spark of joy inside me that fans into a bonfire whenever I think about Hollis and the things he said.
The annoyance in his voice when he called me “inevitable” shouldn’t have been sweet, but from him it was like a peach straight off the tree at the height of summer.
God, he’s really rubbing off on me, isn’t he? I’m practically smeared with his tendency toward purple prose. And so much dried sweat. I smell like a pile of fried onions got boinked by a grapefruit.
The shower pressure is on the weak side, like a lazy drizzle instead of the promised waterfall effect, but I enjoy it nonetheless.
It feels like I’m cleaning off the day’s sadness but also its small triumph.
I’m a little reluctant to lose the salty grime of making love, but I tell myself there will be more where that came from.
What would be the point in everything Hollis confessed if he planned on ending this as soon as we get back to DC?
There has to be more. This might be the end of the road for Mrs. Nash and Elsie, but it’s a beginning for me and Hollis. If it isn’t, all that we’ve been through is meaningless. And I can’t accept that at all. Even the universe’s notoriously fickle and cruel whims wouldn’t do me like that.
We’re going to have to have a real conversation at some point.
One where we both make ourselves vulnerable enough to state in plain language what we want and need from each other and for how long.
Kissing and touching is great, don’t get me wrong.
But this will never work if we don’t stop relying on our bodies to speak for us.
That’s a problem for later, though. Maybe in the car on the way home.
Right now, I’m going to enjoy the possibility that my streak of losing everything I want to keep may finally be at its end.
My phone vibrates on the desk as I’m organizing my wet hair into a braid.
I haven’t been in touch with my parents since yesterday, so it’s probably them freaking out.
I’m not sure I have the energy to explain everything to them right now.
But when I reach out to send the call to voice mail, I see that it isn’t my parents calling.
It’s a Florida number. Remembering what Hollis said about the nursing facility giving my number to Elsie’s next of kin, I snatch the phone and manage to answer it on the last ring.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is this Millicent?”
“Yes, hi. Who’s this?”
“My name’s Tammy Hines. I’m Elsie Brown’s great-niece. I got your number from Rhoda at The Palms at Southernmost. She said you were hoping to talk to me. Are you still in town?”
“Yes! Yes. Hi. Yes.”
“Oh, great. Good. I actually think I have some letters to give you. Assuming you are the... uh... parrot was it?”
“Pigeon,” I correct.
“Yes. Right. Aunt Elsie did say pigeon. Sorry, my brain is fried. Anyway, I just finished with a client, but I should be free in about, um...” There’s a pause. “Twenty minutes. Oh, where are you staying?”
“Um... we’re in New Town at the—”
“Oh, good. Close to my office then. There’s a Starbucks at Seventh and North Roosevelt. Can we meet up around six there? Or would you rather wait till tomorrow?”
“No, six tonight is perfect,” I say. Hollis and I will need to eat quickly when he gets back, but there’s no way I’m waiting longer than I need to.
Letters! I have Elsie’s letters to Mrs. Nash in a bundle, tucked next to the wooden box that holds her ashes.
So these letters are presumably Mrs. Nash’s letters to Elsie.
The idea of seeing Mrs. Nash’s beautiful, swooping handwriting again makes tears well in my eyes.
No time for that, though—Tammy is saying something.
“Sorry, what was that?” I ask.
“Do you have a pen and paper? This is my office line, so let me give you my cell number in case something comes up.”
“Oh, okay. One sec.” I flip Hollis’s note to the blank side.
Paper, check. “Pen, pen, pen,” I mumble to myself.
My eyes search for the cheap plastic pen usually found alongside the hotel-branded notepad, but it isn’t there.
“Sorry,” I say. “Looking for a pen.” There must be one somewhere, because Hollis used it to write this note and—bingo.
It’s not the hotel pen (who knows where that went), but Hollis’s clicky black one, which I found tucked into his notebook like a bookmark.
I’m careful to use my pinky finger as a placeholder while I scribble down Tammy’s phone number and the intersection of the Starbucks.
“See you at six,” she says after we confirm I have the correct details.
“Yeah. Thanks so much. See you soon.”
I flip open Hollis’s notebook to replace the pen.
My heart does this little excited wiggle, kind of like a corgi butt, at seeing the page filled with his hastily written words.
But as my eyes stop seeing it as a whole and narrow in on the actual letters, the spaces, my heart free-falls through my chest cavity and lodges somewhere stomach-adjacent.
Because Mrs. Nash’s name is on this page. Her sons, her husband, her dog —their names are here too. Why are they in Hollis’s notebook? I read the passage in a hurry, at the same speed he probably wrote it. And then again, slowly this time, hoping it says something different.
Washington, District of Columbia
October 1953
It had taken over an hour, but both children were finally in bed and quiet, if not asleep.
And quiet was really all Rose could ask for after a day like today.
First, Richie had woken up complaining of a sour stomach.
Then Walter, jealous that his mother’s attention was focused on his older brother, claimed to be suffering from the same ailment, which he proceeded to demonstrate by rolling around on the floor, clutching his gut and howling so effectively that the family dog, a male mutt the boys had inexplicably insisted on naming Lady, joined in.
Then Dick had come into the room—apparently undeterred by the already-unfolding chaos—to ask Rose if she had seen his favorite tie. ..