Chapter Thirteen
Seth
The city grinds out a dull percussion of engines and horns beneath the windows of my home office Wednesday afternoon as I pace, half listening to the heads of my legal and financial teams on a conference call, while mentally running through the day’s checklist. I have calls scheduled from dawn until dinner, and my inbox is a battlefield of market forecasts, contract revisions, acquisition proposals, and a dozen other projects orbiting for my attention.
Proof that success can be as relentless as failure.
If only I could pry my thoughts away from Ellie.
They move through my mind like threads of a web, catching on everything I try to focus on, tightening when I fight to pull free.
Even when I try to compartmentalize, her name weaves through the spaces between one thought and the next, a quiet insistence I can’t silence.
It’s driving me crazy. How could I have been so wrong about someone who felt so right?
“Seth? Did we lose you?” Robert, the head of the retail finance team, asks, breaking me from my thoughts.
Shit. I zoned out. “No. I’m here. Go on.” I head back to my desk.
“We’ll update the investment review to reflect the revised performance metrics and finalize the asset transfer once the payment clears escrow.”
“And I’ll get the acquisition terms updated for the Loren and Marell deal and send them over,” Stella, one of the attorneys, says, referencing a high-end retail brand.
“Good,” I say. “Switching gears. Have you received the updated property site visit lists for Sydney and Melbourne?”
“Yes. Taylor sent them over Monday afternoon,” Robert answers.
His name twists torturously in my chest. I can’t think about Taylor without seeing Ellie’s sweet face, and it’s killing me.
I can only assume Ellie didn’t clue him in to what went on between us.
I thought she might have said something to him when I didn’t receive an acknowledgment on Sunday for that care package I sent him.
He’s usually borderline neurotic about acknowledging receipt of anything, whether it’s an email, text, or package.
That’s one of the reasons we get along so well.
I’m the exact same way. But then he sent a text thanking me late Monday afternoon, and there was no mention of Ellie beyond, Thanks for entertaining my sister. I’m sure she appreciated it.
“We’re working on the demographic and economic reports for each site and the surrounding areas,” Robert says.
“Be sure to loop in operations,” I say. “I want facilities to flag any logistical concerns before the site visits.”
“Already done,” Stella says.
“Great. I’d like to see those reports before I fly out Saturday,” I say, and they agree.
After we wrap up our call, I sit at my desk and sift through emails. Taylor’s name appears near the top, subject: Australia—Confirmations and Travel Updates.
Seth,
Attached are your flight, hotel, and car rental confirmations for your Australia trip, as well as an itinerary, a compilation of notes, research, and reports you’ve had me file away over the past year about warehouse operations in Australia.
I put together an information sheet on Winston Arlo and one on his associate you’ll be meeting in Melbourne, Gus Wilson.
When I was going through my notes about the area, I remembered an email you sent a couple of years ago stating that if you were ever close enough to go caving at Kubla Khan in Tasmania’s Mole Creek Karst National Park, to make sure you went.
I took the liberty of scheduling a detour there at the end of your trip and extending your stay for two days.
You’ll find flights/car arrangements, etc.
, for that attached as well. Admission is by permit only.
Getting one this quickly was no easy feat.
It cost you a pretty penny, but if you would prefer not to go, let me know and I’ll cancel the arrangements and reimburse you for the fees.
Here if you need anything.
Holy shit. I can’t believe he remembered when I hadn’t even had it on my radar as a possibility for this trip.
Ellie must be fucking with my head even worse than I thought.
Kubla Khan cave is the kind of place whispered about in speleology circles and guarded like a secret because of its international significance.
It’s home to some of the richest and most impressive and fragile speleothems in the world.
Taylor must’ve jumped through hoops to get that permit because it’s reserved for serious cavers who need to test their limits and have something to prove.
But I’ve always seen it as a challenge for cavers like me, who ache to touch something ancient, knowing they’ll walk away forever changed.
It’s the kind of place that reminds you the world still holds wonders that can’t be bought.
My chest constricts as I realize that is exactly how I felt about Ellie. The way we clicked so easily, so different than it was with anyone else, and she clearly wasn’t someone who could be bought…or apparently forgotten.
My thoughts dig in again about why she ended things the way she did, and my attention shifts to her leather sketchbook, still right where I put it when I got home Sunday night, on the corner of my desk.
I haven’t looked through it beyond the first couple of pages.
I couldn’t. It’s crazy how much I miss her.
I had planned on asking Taylor for Ellie’s address so I could send it to her, but I don’t want to involve him.
I’ve searched for her online, but I can’t find an Eleanor Mitchell in Port Hudson, and social media is a black hole of wrong Eleanors.
I reach for the sketchbook, then hesitate, my heart thundering.
I don’t want to invade her privacy, but I’m fucking desperate for anything that might give me a hint about why she took off.
I snag it from the desk and flip through the first few pages that I saw Sunday morning, sketches of mountains and rural roads drawn so invitingly, they make me wish I were there.
There are more, similar sketches, one with burgeoning clouds over the mountains and another that boasts a meadow of colorful flowers along the road, and a third has an intricately drawn split-rail fence with broken rails, as if Ellie was trying to figure out which picture felt right to her.
As I admire more pieces of the world she’s collected, I wonder if she’s drawn them for herself or for clients.
She’s taken such care in creating them, every detail perfectly defined.
When I turn the page, the next picture stops me cold.
Tucked into the upper-left quarter of the page sits a grove of trees on a hillside, their nearly bare branches reaching gracefully toward the sun, a kaleidoscope of baubles that look real enough to touch dangling from them.
A smattering of leaves swirls in an invisible breeze beneath them.
The glass orchard. I smile to myself, remembering the way Ellie’s voice had gone quiet at the end of the story, like she was remembering a version of herself that still believed in magic.
I find more variations of the orchard scattered throughout the pages, sketched around other pictures, like doodles, depicting different seasons and skies, but always the same stable trees and the kaleidoscope of glass baubles. Ellie’s voice whispers through my mind.
It was my secret. One beautiful thing to hold on to.
She’s been keeping this memory, her beacon of hope, alive for all these years, sketching it into being as if afraid it might vanish if she stops. I picture her drawing the orchard that might not even exist, her brow furrowed and her lips pressed together in concentration.
It exists in her heart, and to me, that’s all that matters.
I turn another page, and the world around me stalls as I try to make sense of what I’m seeing.
It’s the glass orchard, full of leaves and gleaming baubles, but on the hillside just below, she’s drawn me as a kid giving Noah a piggyback.
It’s identical to a photograph hanging in my house on the island, right down to the dirt on our knees.
It’s one of my favorite memories, taken in Ghana.
We were hiking back from a spot where we’d gone so my mother could photograph antelopes.
The terrain was rocky, and Noah, at three, was full of determination to keep up, until his spindly legs finally gave out.
I hoisted him onto my back, and as he locked his arms around my neck so tight he nearly choked me, our mother called my name.
As I turned, Noah said, “I love you, Sef. You’re my hero,” and she caught the moment he said it, my smile cracking wide.
My mother used to say that the best things she photographed weren’t the animals, jungles, or sunsets.
She never told us what the best things were, and it wasn’t until I was in my twenties, looking through old pictures with her, that I finally understood what she meant.
It was us. Our family. My beacon in any storm.
I linger on that drawing for a long time, wondering why Ellie chose to sketch it.
Then I continue turning pages, taking in more beautiful sketches, stopping when I come to a familiar scene.
The view from the lounge area down by the water at my house on Saint Aurelle.
The water is drawn in soft strokes, sunlight feathering the surface, birds flying just above, their reflections gentle and fleeting.
The horizon fades into the page, and in the distance, a sailboat’s mast glints in the sun, drawn with such care it feels both real and untouchable.