15. Ellie
Fifteen
Ellie
My mother opened the front door before I reached it.
She looked at me.
Then at my suitcase.
Then past me toward the rental car, as though Savannah Brooks might be folded into the back seat.
“You came alone.”
“That was always the plan.”
“You could have warned me.”
“That I wasn’t bringing a woman I met four days ago?”
“That the car was this small.”
I looked back at the blue compact parked crookedly beside the mailbox.
“It transported me successfully.”
“Your father has concerns.”
My father appeared behind her.
“The rear visibility is terrible.”
“Hello, Dad.”
He stepped onto the porch and hugged me.
Dad’s hugs were usually efficient. Firm pressure, two pats, release.
This one lasted longer.
“Good flight?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Anyone follow you?”
“No.”
“Photographers?”
“No.”
“Suspicious vehicles?”
“I’m not in witness protection.”
He studied the rental car.
“You wouldn’t last long in that.”
Mom took the suitcase handle.
“I can carry it.”
“You flew all morning.”
“The suitcase flew too.”
“It can rest.”
She dragged it toward the stairs.
One wheel struck the first step.
Dad winced.
“You’ll mark the wood.”
“Then carry it.”
He carried it.
Thirty-eight years of marriage had refined their communication into threats involving household surfaces.
The house smelled like tomato sauce, furniture polish, and the same lavender candle Mom had been buying since I was fourteen.
My coat went onto the rack beside the door.
Molly’s red scarf still hung from the lowest hook.
I saw it.
Mom saw me see it.
Neither of us said anything.
In the kitchen, the table was set for four.
My eyes went to the extra plate.
Mom followed my gaze.
“Your father set the table.”
“I always put out enough,” Dad said.
“You set three places when Linda came at Christmas.”
“Linda brings that plastic container.”
“She has dietary restrictions.”
“She has dietary control issues.”
Mom removed the fourth plate and returned it to the cabinet.
The movement was quick.
Ordinary.
Molly’s absence had lived in the house long enough to become part of its routine.
That did not make it smaller.
A pan of lasagna rested on the stove beside garlic bread, roasted vegetables, salad, and a pie large enough to feed a minor sports team.
“Who else is coming?” I asked.
“No one.”
“This is food for nine.”
“You look thin.”
“I weigh exactly what I weighed last month.”
Mom narrowed her eyes.
“You look tired around the soul.”
“That is not a medical measurement.”
“I’m your mother. I have broader diagnostic authority.”
Dad opened the refrigerator.
“Wine?”
“Yes.”
“Red or white?”
“Whatever is open.”
He looked offended.
“We have standards.”
“You drank boxed wine until I went to college.”
“It was economical.”
“It had a plastic faucet.”
“Efficient packaging.”
He selected a bottle and began opening it with the concentration of a bomb technician.
Mom pointed to a chair.
“Sit.”
“I’ve been sitting for six hours.”
“Sit somewhere I can look at you.”
I obeyed.
She placed salad in front of me without asking whether I wanted salad.
“How is Hank?” she asked.
“Fine.”
“And Captain Pancake?”
“Financially successful.”
Dad looked up from the corkscrew.
“The dog has income?”
“People are paying to take pictures with him.”
“He needs a separate account.”
“He needs fewer cupcakes.”
“Those are not mutually exclusive.”
Dad poured the wine and gave me more than either of them.
My parents believed in equality until one of their children arrived with a public scandal.
Mom folded her hands.
“So.”
“No.”
“I haven’t asked anything.”
“You said it with an investigative pause.”
Dad carried the lasagna to the table.
“Let her eat.”
“Thank you.”
He cut me a piece large enough to have its own weather system.
I looked at him.
“This feels less like dinner and more like a zoning issue.”
“You didn’t eat on the plane.”
“How do you know?”
“Your mother checked.”
“There was no meal,” Mom said.
“I know. That was the problem.”
I took a bite.
For almost thirty seconds, nobody mentioned Savannah.
It was an impressive family record.
Mom broke first.
“Your father thought she was a news anchor.”
Dad lifted his glass.
“The name sounded familiar.”
“She has six albums,” Mom said.
“News anchors also have careers.”
“She wears rhinestones.”
“That does not exclude journalism.”
I kept eating.
“I watched the concert,” Dad said.
“I heard.”
“You told her?” he asked Mom.
“You made notes.”
I stopped chewing.
“You made notes?”
Dad reached toward the unused chair and lifted a yellow legal pad.
Mom closed her eyes.
“I told him not to bring that to dinner.”
“This concerns Ellie.”
“This concerns someone Ellie knew for less than a week.”
“Limited data requires careful organization.”
He placed the pad beside his plate.
At the top, he had written:
S. brOOKS — GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
Underneath:
Successful
Strong posture
Good under pressure
Avoids direct answers
Interrupts repetitive interviewers
Owns multiple guitars
Probably overscheduled
Retirement planning unknown
I stared at him.
“How would her retirement planning come up?”
“It didn’t.”
“So you listed it as unknown?”
“That is what unknown means.”
Mom took the pad and placed it on the counter.
“She is not applying for a mortgage.”
“I like to understand the situation.”
“You watched an old interview where she decorated a Christmas tree.”
Dad pointed his fork at her.
“She overloaded the extension cord.”
I laughed.
It escaped before I could decide whether I wanted to.
Both of them looked relieved.
That nearly undid me.
I returned to the lasagna.
Dad leaned back.
“She seems intelligent.”
“She is.”
“You answered quickly,” Mom said.
“She is objectively intelligent.”
“And the interrupting?” Dad asked.
“Most interviewers ask the same question four times and act as if changing one adjective makes it new.”
Dad nodded.
“That was my conclusion.”
I looked at him.
Mom smiled.
“You’re defending her.”
“I’m correcting weak analysis.”
“Your father says the same thing when he argues with television weather forecasts.”
“They exaggerate probability.”
“You have no meteorological training.”
“I understand percentages.”
Mom turned back to me.
“Is Savannah your girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Do you want her to be?”
“I don’t know.”
“That is not the same answer.”
“I arrived half an hour ago.”
“Thirty-one minutes,” Dad said.
“Thank you.”
“You came in at four-seventeen.”
Mom passed me the garlic bread.
“Tell us what happened.”
“You saw the videos.”
“We saw you climb onto a wall and invent a marine emergency,” Dad said. “The emotional context was limited.”
“It was crowd control.”
“It worked.”
“You sound impressed.”
“I appreciate decisive public communication.”
I looked down at my plate.
The story felt too large for the kitchen.
Annie laughing at breakfast.
Annie underwater.
Annie in my bed.
Savannah smiling for strangers while my hand fell away from hers.
“Her real name is Annie Miller,” I said.
Mom nodded.
“That’s what you call her.”
“Yes.”
“What does she call herself?”
“Both, I think. She just doesn’t know how to be both at once.”
Dad glanced toward his legal pad.
Mom moved it farther along the counter.
“Did she lie?” Mom asked.
“She left things out.”
“Large things?”
“Stadium-sized.”
Mom made a face.
“Technically honest. Emotionally useless.”
“Exactly.”
Dad cut another piece of bread.
“Your mother once told me she worked in health.”
“I worked at a dentist’s office.”
“You answered the phone for one summer.”
“People had health.”
Mom turned back to me.
“Did Annie invent the person you met?”
“No.”
The certainty of the answer surprised me.
“She didn’t fake liking terrible breakfast sandwiches or being nervous underwater. She really bought too much cheese. She really hates being told what to do while being surrounded by people whose jobs involve telling her what to do.”
“So Annie is real,” Dad said.
“Yes.”
“And Savannah?”
I thought of the concert video.
The white spotlight.
The smile after Hard Winter.
“Also real.”
Mom watched me carefully.
“That makes it harder.”
“Yes.”
“Were you sleeping together?” she asked.
Dad reached for his wine.
“Carol.”
“She is thirty-two.”
“I am at the table.”
“You are welcome to leave the table.”
“It is my table.”
Mom looked at me.
“Well?”
“Yes.”
Dad drank.
Mom nodded once.
“Then she should have told you.”
“She should have.”
“Does she understand that?”
“Yes.”
Another answer that came too quickly.
It would have been easier if Annie had dismissed my anger. If she had sent Rachel to explain the situation in clean corporate language.
Instead, she had listened.
Badly at first.
Then better.
“She left because photographers were coming,” I said. “If she stayed, they would have camped outside the shop.”
“Did you ask her to leave?” Dad said.
“No.”
“Did she ask what you wanted?”
“Eventually.”
Mom heard the word.
“She has work to do.”
“Yes.”
“And you?”
“I flew here.”
“That answers a transportation question.”
Dad pointed his fork at Mom.
“Let her finish dinner.”
“She can eat while avoiding introspection. She is talented.”
“I inherited that.”
“From your father.”
Dad frowned.
“I am highly reflective.”
“You made a spreadsheet when we discussed replacing the sofa.”
“It was an expensive sofa.”
The conversation moved to safer subjects.
The neighbor’s disputed fence.
Aunt Linda’s pottery hobby and her collection of bowls that leaned consistently to the left.
Hank’s coffee.
Captain Pancake’s lack of moral discipline.
I ate lasagna, then pie, then another narrow piece of pie that Mom cut before asking whether I wanted it.
By eight, my body thought it was midnight.
I carried my plate toward the sink.
Mom took it from me.
“You’re a guest.”
“This is still my house.”
“You haven’t lived here in fourteen years.”
“That changed quickly.”
“I maintain records.”
Dad looked toward the legal pad.
Mom pointed at him.
“No.”
He put his hands in his pockets.
I went upstairs.
My old bedroom had become part guest room, part storage unit, part museum of choices I no longer remembered making.
Pale green walls.
College sweatshirt behind the closet door.
Three swimming medals beside the desk, including one for participation.