Chapter 11. Alex
ALEX
I’ve never been a violent person, despite my father’s best efforts.
He tried to make me as angry at the world as he was, tried to make me turn my own self-hatred into little bullets to fire at others, but it’s not really my style.
And yet, here I am, approximately two seconds away from putting my fist through my laptop screen.
I don’t understand how, in this day and age, in this era of technology, of CCTV and electronic banking and border controls, my father can have been completely untraceable for two months.
We were homing in, we thought, we had two possible sightings and a blurry CCTV of someone checking into a cheap bed and breakfast in Boston, not New York, with fake documentation.
But no. Neither turned out to be enough to determine whether it was him or not, and investigators found the bed and breakfast room empty, the fees paid in cash.
And now it’s been six days since we’ve had anything at all, widening our search once more to the entire fucking globe.
I shouldn’t be surprised. My father may be a nasty piece of work, but he’s a clever one, a resourceful one, a wealthy one—frozen bank accounts or not. All he’d need to do is pawn off a couple of his rarest Breitlings and he’d be able to pay his way out of anything.
“This is such bullshit,” I say, leaning back in my office chair. “Such a load of shit.”
Mack rubs his stubble, shakily holding his phone in a car somewhere in Massachusetts. The FBI agent heading the case rubs her forehead. “We’re going to get him.”
She’s said that on every phone call since early January, as has Mack. Each time they do, there’s a little less belief in the words.
“What about the lead you had with Gerry Suarez?” One of my father’s slimy buddies moved a private jet from New York to Boston two days ago, seemingly for no reason at all.
“The jet hasn’t moved. They might know we’re onto that trail. I’d guess they’re holding their breath somewhere at the moment, but they’ll have to surface.”
I watch the time hit 2 p.m. in the corner of my screen.
I’m going to be late to a hospital visit with my mother.
She was admitted a few days ago, after one hell of an episode.
The psychosis and the delusions we’re getting better at managing, but it’s the lack of eating, the painkillers, the pills, the side effects that have her shrinking into an unrecognizable woman.
Years of being picked at, poked at, told to be thinner. Catwalks and drug addiction and a son that appeared in her life earlier than she’d ever planned. A husband who let her down at every turn, six daughters in his desperate hope for a second son, a better son.
Maybe if I wasn’t so—
“Alex? You with us?”
I scrub a hand over my mouth, steadying my breath. “I have to go. The next time we speak, you better have something more useful to tell me.”
I cut off their yes, sirs by slamming my laptop lid shut, my mood sinking lower than I ever thought it could go.
Why am I in the office on a Saturday?
Depression may be a mental illness, but days like today it feels physical. Like it’s tied heavy weights to my limbs, dulled the nerve endings in my brain, shrunk my rib cage so it’s just a little too restrictive for my lungs.
But I have my mother’s appointment today, and spaghetti night with the girls tomorrow, so I know I have to survive the next two days at least. Then I’ll reassess.
I’ve never been a particularly anxious person, but I’m a nervous wreck as I make my way through the streets of lower Manhattan, sidewalks glossy with rain. I’ve never been religious, either, but I still find myself begging someone, anyone who is listening, to let my mother’s days get easier.
I’m running late, but I’m also about to fall asleep standing up, so I swing into the café beside the hospital, hoping my sunglasses are enough to not have someone’s phone pointed in my face and photos online by the time I pick up my order.
I bring up my emails and wait, staring at the long stream of unsent drafts to Ophelia.
I’ve got it bad.
A disturbance distracts my attention: a hooded figure shoving his way out the door.
He’s tall. My height. Lean and athletic, and when his head turns to the side for just a second, I catch a glimpse of graying blond hair and holy, shit, it’s him.
Discretion long abandoned, I push past the line of people waiting to order, flying out the doors and onto the street outside.
It’s Saturday afternoon in Manhattan; the streets are busy, faces obscured by umbrellas.
I look left, right, left again, scanning over what feels like an endless sea of people.
I spot the figure hurrying across a crosswalk and make a run for it, barging through groups of tourists and shoppers, and it all comes to the surface, the anger, the disgust, the bitter hatred. I clamp a palm onto his shoulder, forcing him to face me, forcing him to look me in the eyes when I—
Fuck.
It’s not my father.
He has blue eyes and an eastern European accent. His hair isn’t really graying at all. “What the fuck, man?”
Back to square one. I open my mouth to reply as horns sound from the waiting traffic, but I have nothing to say. He yanks himself away from me, disappearing into the busy street and leaving me and my thundering heart in the middle of the road.
I’M STILL SHAKEN when I reach the hospital, but I force my panic into a box for my mother’s sake. She’s sitting up in bed and looks brighter than she did a few days ago, and the relief must be visible on my face because she rolls her eyes at me. “You saw me last night, Alex.”
“I know, it’s just good to see you.”
I take the seat beside the bed, letting her hand rest in mine while both the doctors talk to me about how she’s doing, and about the new antipsychotics they’re trialing. And though my mother and I promised ourselves we’d stop getting our hopes up a long time ago, it does all sound positive.
A dangerous little seed of hope plants itself in one of the holes in my heart.
I watch my mother complete some simple exercises, sorting blocks into color groups and some memory tests. She swallows her pills and rests back on the pillows, squeezing my hand. “How is Ophelia?”
The doctors leave us to it, happy that my mother can continue her recovery from home after dinnertime. “She’s … good, I think. I don’t know. She’s gone silent on me. I guess I haven’t exactly given her the impression of a reliable boyfriend these past few months.”
I’m trying to convince Ophelia not to give up on love, to give us a chance. I FaceTime her in the evenings, read too far into every little word she says, get my hopes up every time she laughs.
My heart builds castles out of the little crumbs she leaves me, spins whole futures out of the smallest of smiles. I bend and shape the things she says into what I want to hear, because a future without her feels unmanageable.
Mom shakily picks up one of the raspberries I brought for her. “Oh no. Silence means she’s overthinking.”
“Ophelia is always overthinking.”
“Better than underthinking. Your father is an underthinker.”
I grin down at her. “That man hasn’t had a solid thought in years.”
Then we’re both laughing at a situation we really shouldn’t be laughing at, exchanging increasingly creative insults for my father.
My phone lights up with a FaceTime call from Vincenzo.
“Pick up. I don’t mind.”
His face fills the screen, complete with a shit-eating grin. He’s up to something. He’s in his Sorrowsong rugby jersey, a heavy black sky hanging low over his head.
I miss rugby. I only started it because Vincenzo asked me to, but now I find myself wanting to get back to it. He peers in closer. “Where are you?”
I pan the camera around the room, and my mom gives Vincenzo a little wave.
“Woah,” he says, when I turn the camera back around so he can see us. “Is that … surely it can’t be … is that the most beautiful woman in the world?”
“That’s my mother, you dick,” I say, but Maman is laughing. Her cheeks are pink, like Vincenzo might have just made her whole month.
His chest shakes with laughter, enjoying riling me up. “How’s it going, Elise?”
“Apparently, I’m doing good. You look suspicious.”
“It’s because I have some information Alex is really going to want.”
I tilt the phone back to me, mind racing. “What?”
“What’s in it for me?”
“What is it about?”
“A certain ginger girl.”
“Tell me.”
“Fine, but you have to put in a good word about me to Colette, okay? She’s still not sold on us.”
Terrible idea, but I nod. I’d probably give him my left ball for a snippet of information on Ophelia if he wanted it. “Deal.”
“She’s in London on a girls’ weekend with Colette, and she’s doing that naked modeling thing at an art class tomorrow night,” he says, practically hopping from foot to foot with excitement.
The sounds of a busy ward outside slow to a dull ringing in my ears. “She’s what?”
“Colette rang me, absolutely wasted, last night and told me all about it. It’s called life drawing, apparently.”
“I know what fucking life drawing is,” I snap, knuckles white around the phone. “Where is the class? What time?”
Vincenzo howls with laughter. “I knew you’d lose your shit over this. Just friends, my ass.”
“I’m not losing my shit over it,” I grit out. I am absolutely, categorically, most definitely losing my shit over this, for no good reason. Ophelia is an adult. She can try new things. I’ve sketched from a live model several times. I know better than anyone that there’s nothing sexual about it.
Yet, the idea of a room full of people looking at her, taking note of the small intricacies of her body, the soft smattering of stretch marks on her outer thighs, the gentle dip of her hips … it’s turning me into a different man. A jealous man. An unreasonable man.
It’s so unlike her. In fact, I’d say it sounds like her worst nightmare.
“Tell me where it is, Vincenzo.”
He strokes his chin. “Elise, what do you reckon? Are they just friends?”