Chapter Fifteen #2
“Shut up,” Evie scolded. The intensity of her drive to protect her older brother, even from his own harsh self-critiques, made him laugh.
He told her then about the party and Annie finding the picture.
“Wait,” Evie interrupted, “who’s Merritt?”
“What?”
Whit hadn’t even realized he’d said her name.
“You said you were on the back steps with Merritt when Annie showed up. Who’s Merritt?”
Whit’s free hand clenched the bench beneath him for reasons unknown. Fine, half-known. Okay, reasons fully known.
“She’s the one who’s helping me,” he said after too many seconds. “With Helen’s book.”
The silence on the other end of the line suggested that his voice had done something weird. And just when he’d been desperately
trying to make it sound normal, too.
“And now she’s coming to parties with you?”
Whit let out a huff of exasperation. “Yes. Don’t.”
“Okay,” Evie said, trying and failing to sound casual.
“That is not why I’m calling, Evie.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“But you’re implying—”
“How can I be implying anything, Whit? I asked two questions and then said ‘Okay.’ ”
Whit, the writer of the two of them, did not have the words to respond to that.
“Fine. Whatever.” A weak defense. Whit rubbed a hand down his whole face.
“But if I were . . .” Evie began.
Whit laughed despite himself.
“No, it’s not like that,” he said, fully aware that he was lying. It was at least partially like that, though speaking it
aloud felt impossible. He wanted to ask Evie, Am I evil for even thinking of kissing another woman? Would Helen be horrified? Am I going to ruin Annie’s life? Should I be shunned?
“But,” he said instead, “Annie found this picture of Helen. And she begged me to keep it, and she was so happy to have found
it, but I could tell she was sad, too. And she just won’t talk to me about it or anything, and I don’t know what to do.”
He paused. He sensed her waiting for him to say more, so then he added, “That’s all.”
“Of course you don’t know what to do,” Evie said, slowly, measuredly. “No one tells you how to parent a child who’s lost her
mother.”
“Well,” he mused, “there are books.”
She laughed.
“Has it gotten that bad? Are you reading the grief books Mom sent you?”
Whit smiled, too. “It has not gotten that bad.”
He stood up. He hardly ever sat still while talking on the phone, and he was feeling a bit more like himself now. Whit leaned
against the stone wall that limned the back terrace, comfortable in the silence.
“I think this is all normal,” Evie said eventually. “Everyone processes loss in their own way, including kids, and—I’m about
to give you unsolicited advice, so brace yourself—but I think the thing to do is just to be there for her, and be patient
with her, and let her know that her feelings, whatever they are, are allowed. She knows she’s safe with you. When she’s ready,
she’ll talk. So don’t freak out.”
“I’m not freaked out.”
Evie laughed at that, and even over the phone, Whit had the sense she was laughing in his face.
“Whit, you called me. To talk about your feelings. Two things that are enough to make me consider the possibility that you
have been body-snatched.”
Whit was pacing in the grass now. He paused to look at the popcornlike clouds above him.
“Tough but fair,” he said through a sigh.
“Anyway,” Evie said, with an air of finality, “I need to go, but I have a couple of things to say to you, and I’m trying to
figure out what order to say them in.”
Whit began pacing again, suddenly wary.
“Okay. Maybe do the less painful one first.”
He could almost hear her eye roll. “Neither one is painful, but you might be annoyed with me. Okay, fine, the first one is
this: I am not going to press, but I am signaling to you my interest in this Merritt woman—that’s it, end of statement. I
am interested.”
Whit’s mouth hung open slightly, unsure of what to say, until finally he went with, “Okay. Statement acknowledged.”
Evie laughed. “All right, and the second thing is . . . listen, Whit, I know you are essentially fine, because you are always
fine.”
Whit waited.
Evie waited.
“Okay,” he said eventually.
“And I really do think you have the Annie stuff under control. But . . . okay, don’t take this the wrong way. I am not judging
or critiquing you or anything like that.”
She trailed off, and Whit predicted, accurately, what she was going to say next.
“I just wonder if it might be good for you both if I came to stay with you for a bit.”
“Evie—”
“Don’t be defensive, it’s just a thought. édouard is neck-deep in some case, and he hardly has time for me anyway, and you
know I can work from anywhere, and—”
“Evie,” Whit said, surprising even himself, “I think that would be great.”
The pause on the other end of the line was so pronounced that Whit repeated himself.
“Did you hear me? I said I think that would be great.”
“I heard you all right,” Evie said, her grin audible. “I’m just seriously, seriously weighing the body-snatcher possibility, that’s all.”
“If you annoy me, I will change my mind.”
“It’s too late,” Evie laughed. “I’ve already started packing.”