CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ellery
Seventeen Years Ago
“What are you doing, sweetie?” My mother’s eyes meet mine from her reflection in the mirror.
“Just thinking.”
“About?” She turns to face me, her long, elegant neck exposed as she pulls her hair to one shoulder and continues to brush it.
I watch the continuous motion of her hand, mesmerized by all things that are my mother.
Her delicate skin. Her bright blue eyes that my eyes mimic.
Her signature scent—rose and ivy. The hint of the South in her voice.
“Things. Stuff. You know.” I shrug from where I lie on the bed, face in my hands, feet kicking back and forth in the air over my butt.
My eyes veer past the brush to a picture on her vanity. It’s tiny and faded, and I know what it looks like from memory even though I’m across the room.
It’s of my mom, dad, and me. We were at the beach. I’m in one of his arms and his other is around my mom. She’s looking at him like he’s the entire world, while he’s looking at me with the same, adoring look.
It’s the expression I always think of when I think of him.
I don’t remember the moment because I was so young, but I savor the image and the feeling it gives me.
“What’s wrong, Elle? You’ve got that look on your face,” she asks, her head angling to the side to study me.
“Does it bug him that you have that picture?”
“What?” She looks over her shoulder and her entire body relaxes. “That’s my absolute favorite.”
“Mine too.”
Her expression softens. “He loved you with everything he had, you know that, right?”
I nod, the funny feeling in my chest returning just like it always does when I think of him and miss him. “Why did he . . . never mind.”
Why did he not love himself enough then? Why did he do it? Why did he rob me of a life with him?
Questions. They’re always there. Always haunting me.
Because I know I loved him enough to make up for all the love he didn’t have for himself. Wasn’t that enough? Weren’t we enough?
“Daddy had an accident, Elle.”
I don’t understand why tears are streaming down Mom’s face. Why her hiccupped breaths can barely come out.
“He smashed the new car?” My eyes grow big. We just got it, and he loved that car so much. Oh, he’s going to be so mad when he gets home.
“No. Not that kind of accident.”
Why does she keep shaking her head back and forth as if she doesn’t believe what she’s saying?
“Then what? Did he accidentally cut himself with that super sharp knife in the kitchen like I did?” Man, I got in so much trouble for trying to use that to cut an apple last month.
“Baby. You need to listen to me.” My mom kneels in front of me and puts her hands on my face. Her mouth opens and closes as she blinks away more tears. It looks like she’s already cried so many she’s probably out of water inside to cry more.
“Okay.”
“Daddy has gone away and . . . he won’t be coming back.”
It’s hard to swallow and my tongue feels heavy. Thick. “Why? He’s my dad. He loves me. He wouldn’t leave me.”
She makes the most horrendous sound as she pulls me against her and just holds on. Her chest heaves against mine and her fingers dig into my shoulders.
It’s then I get it.
It’s then I know.
Daddy’s gone.
My perfect world inside my perfectly pink room on my perfectly lacy bedspread with my perfectly perfect parents will never be the same.
And he’s never going to be able to come back.
“Sometimes people’s minds are sick. And they can’t help it. I loved him and you loved him . . .”
I nod again because it’s easier than speaking. We both study the photo. A picture of love . . . until it wasn’t. “You have his smile and his laugh and his intuitive sense to make people who are nervous, comfortable.”
It feels good to hear all those things, to feel like I’m like him somehow, some way . . . but it doesn’t take away the sting of his absence.
“Do you still love him, Mom?”
Tears well in her eyes as do mine. “I do. Yes. I’ll always love him.”
“So will I.”
“Of course you will. You’re a part of him.”
“But you married Garland, though,” I say of my stepfather.
“I did.” She gives a measured nod.
“So you love him too, then?”
Her smile falters. “He’s a good man.” Her eyes dart to the doorway as if to make sure no one is there and then back to mine. “But our marriage . . . it’s different from the one your father and I had.”
“How? Isn’t being married the same thing?”
Her sigh is hesitant as she moves to the bed and sits beside me.
“Garland is kind. He treats us well. He’s a good provider.
I mean, look at the company and everything it has allowed us to do and have.
Who would have thought that this could happen to us?
That I could build that with him.” She smooths a hand over my hair and leans down to press a kiss on my forehead.
“But wasn’t Dad kind and didn’t he treat us well?”
“Yes, silly. He did and then some. What Garland and I have is just . . . how do I explain this? Sometimes two people meet and decide that they want a partnership in a sense. Meaning, we want the same things out of life, for our children, and in most respects, really.” Her smile is tight, almost as if she’s trying to convince herself of it, and I’m too young to understand why.
But I do know that when I look at my mom, when I see her talk about my dad and then Garland, her eyes go from being alive to hollow.
And I’m old enough to understand that’s how I feel inside too with my dad being gone.
Love isn’t enough.
Lesson learned the hard way. Love is glorious but fleeting. It hurts. It will cut you open and bleed you dry before emptying every other part of you.
I’ve only loved two people in my life. They were my whole world. One is gone. Little do I know that within years of losing Dad, I will have lost them both.
Seems the pain that comes with real, true love isn’t worth it.