25. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Louisa, if you tell me one more time he’s had croissants in Paris, so these need to be perfect, I’m going to kick you out of my kitchen. Respectfully,” Effie scolded as she laminated butter into her pastry dough to get the perfect level of flakiness.
Louisa had the good sense to retreat to the breakfast table where a rack of finished plain croissants let off steam. The ones Effie worked on now would be chocolate.
“I’m sorry,” Louisa huffed from her seat at the table. “I just want things to go well.”
“I know.” Not that a pastry would suddenly make their vagabonding sire put down roots and prioritize his family, but Effie supposed it couldn’t hurt.
Louisa brought her forehead to the table and rapped it lightly against the worn wood. “This is the first time he’s meeting Hazel,” she mumbled.
Ellen took it upon herself to field that one as she entered the kitchen, laptop in hand. She sat beside Louisa and patted her on the back. “Don’t worry, she won’t remember being disappointed.”
“Ellen!” Louisa squealed, shooting upright, her face aghast. “It could be different.”
“Right, of course,” Ellen said before Louisa replaced her head on the table. Ellen shared a look with Effie that said what a fairy tale she lives in. Effie stifled a laugh.
It wasn’t funny, of course, to know that someone was going to be utterly below the bar, but it always amused Effie to witness how her two sisters had such different reactions to their father rolling through town.
Louisa always got her hopes up. She peppered him with her updates like they were worthy of being pinned to the refrigerator, and when he didn’t share the right amount of enthusiasm for her role as Gypsy Rose in the local musical or her raise or her new car, she would go straight to being dour.
Ellen, on the other hand, expected nothing.
She always took their father to the back patio for a scotch and a chat that no one was privy to and came back looking resolute in her maintenance of a strained relationship.
He would bring expensive gifts for the girls that were not age appropriate in the slightest and would suffer through grating conversations with Pamela.
That is if Pamela allowed him to come at all.
The last time he visited, Louisa was four months pregnant, and he had the audacity to speak ill of Gil who, at the time, was the picture of commitment and affection. It didn’t end well for Louisa’s dad.
Yet, Louisa still wanted him here, and Effie wondered if it came from a keen awareness that she at least had a chance to improve their relationship, where Effie would always have to guess if her dad would have abandoned them too.
Effie never believed it. It had been a point of contention with her and Pamela for years.
Effie couldn’t imagine that her father would have ever proven a disappointment.
He was too good, too full of curiosity and wonder and ease to let them down like that.
Her parents may have been in an off-again moment in their relationship when he died, but he never stopped coming around.
In fact, he had shared custody. She didn’t remember much before the age of five, but for three years, whether her parents were together or not, Effie spent Thursday to Sunday with her father.
And then he took his motorcycle to Cape Cod for a few days and came home in a casket.
Sometimes, when she sat alone in her room, the electric kettle warming and a candle that she scented with tobacco, mint, and cloves burning, she felt like she was back in his studio apartment by the railroad tracks, sipping on the chai rooibos tea he loved.
She always told her mother how wonderful her time with him was, but she only ever replied don’t get used to it. How right she’d been.
“You okay?” Ellen asked as she clicked away on her keyboard. She paused only to look Effie in the eye and convey she was paying attention.
“Fine, just thinking.”
Effie finished forming the chocolate croissants and set the batch that had already risen into the oven.
She set a timer and joined her sisters at the table.
They rarely breathed the same air for longer than a meal, everyone busy with their own main character arcs.
Sometimes Effie worried they took their ties for granted, not mending or strengthening their familial bonds enough with deep conversation and attention.
Other times she wished to be an only child or a recluse in the woods to have some peace and quiet.
But regardless they were threaded together, through grief, triumph, and family, each taking their turn to play mother hen to the other. Apparently, it was Louisa’s turn.
“Thinking about your dad?” Louisa asked, that big sister concern hugging around Effie’s shoulders.
“Yeah . . . honestly I wish we could talk about him more.” Effie scanned the room making sure Pamela wasn’t within earshot. “I know they weren’t an item when he died, but sometimes she acts like he didn’t exist, or it’s too painful to talk about him.”
“That’s probably because it is,” Ellen admitted. “We lived with him for like a year or two before you were born.”
“I don’t remember that,” Louisa said.
“You wouldn’t, but I remember bringing Effie home from the hospital.
It was the only time I felt like we had a family like everyone else.
” Ellen looked to Effie. “He was a good guy. I liked him. A lot. He used to tuck me in at night while you were wailing for your next bottle, and he’d tell me stories.
Not like he’d pull a book from the shelf, but he’d come up with them on the spot.
These super intricate, wildly imaginative tales about dragons and warrior princesses and magic.
I wished I remembered them after he passed.
I would have told them to you every night. ”
“Why have you never mentioned those before?” Effie asked, totally taken aback by the realization that her dad had acted like a father to her sisters too. It had her picking at the lace edge of her apron.
“Because I don’t like to add to your grief. He wasn’t really mine to lose.”
“Of course he was.” It came out softer than she intended. “Biology isn’t the only thing that makes a family.”
Ellen shrugged. “You say that now, but I don’t know, I think you might have felt differently if I shared it sooner.
I don’t know. Our pathetic excuse for a father will be here any minute and I—this time I didn’t want you believing for one second that you got the raw end of the deal.
I would take your dad every day, even if I only got to have him for a short while, over mine who will never change. ”
Louisa stormed out at that, evidently having had enough dad-bashing for the evening. Effie moved to follow her, but Ellen held a hand to hers. “She’ll be fine. She’s always had a harder time accepting things that are painfully true.”
Effie squeezed Ellen’s hand. “Thank you.”
“If you ever want to talk about him, come find me. I don’t remember a lot, but I remember the good stuff. I didn’t realize his loss still weighed on you so much.”
“I’m not sure it’s a thing that will ever go away.”
Ellen nodded thoughtfully, though Effie knew their experiences with grief were vastly different. “So, are you out there breaking Thatcher curses? Or will this Theo character need a stern talking to when he finally dares to show his face?”
Effie stifled a laugh. “I’m cautiously optimistic. About him and Brayden.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Ellen turned her attention back to her laptop, typing wildly.
“What are you working on?” Effie asked, never having given much thought to what Ellen did with her time.
Six years difference felt like eons between sisters, so they didn’t gab much.
Ellen had always acted more like another caregiver in Effie’s life. Maybe that could change too .
“I’m coding a new medical chart system for the hospital, so it’s easier to cross-reference private care appointments with hospital data and stay current on patient notes, medications, and follow-ups.”
“Sounds challenging and impressive.”
Ellen laughed. “Challenging, maybe. I miss coding for Netflix’s algorithm honestly. That was way more fun.”
“Your brain is absolutely gigantic, isn’t it?”
“Probably about as big as your heart, Effie.” Ellen side-eyed her in a knowing way as Effie left the kitchen, egg timer in hand.
She found Dorothea and Beatrice in the hobby room.
Aunt Bea put the finishing touches on a portrait of Grams. She swept her brush in delicate, deliberate strokes as she often did when she wanted to amplify the painting without taking it too far.
Effie sank into the armchair that Issa perched on and stroked the bird’s head.
“You two know he’ll have to walk right past here when he arrives? ”
“So long as we’re not in that foyer, we’ll be safe for a bit.”
“Cowards,” Effie teased, the sensation of cottage cheese on her tongue screwing up her face.
“Doesn’t pay to be snarky, does it?” Grams chided, brow bunched.
“Stop frowning, I’m doing your eyebrows.”
Dorothea smoothed her brow. The smile she donned next was Effie’s favorite. The one that brought the ripe apples of her cheeks flush with the folds of her laugh lines and hid the edges of her acorn-hued irises in squinty joy.
“We could just close the door. It’s an old house. We could feasibly be stuck inside with a broken lock,” Effie mused, the intentions of wielding her heart against the impending doom of the night replaced by a deep desire to do anything else .
It was Beatrice’s turn to reprimand Effie with a glare.
The doorbell rang and Louisa skidded by the open hobby room door within seconds.
She gushed a welcome and the crinkle of packages met Effie’s ears.
More gifts . If any one of the Thatcher women had a love language of receiving gifts, Ed Norton might have a very different reputation.
Unfortunately for him, they weren’t so easily bought.