Four October 16, 2023
Once through reception, she continues down the hall past the humming server room on her way to the staff lounge. But as she reaches her father’s office, directly across from the mapping room, her dad calls out to her. “Elizabeth? Can I see you a moment?”
Elizabeth. Elsie feels a twinge in her stomach. Her dad rarely calls her by name, as he says he can’t keep up with her name changes. He only uses Elizabeth when something’s up.
As she enters his office, her father sits back in his chair.
The lights shine off his bald spot. The buttons on his dress shirt strain, revealing the hair at his navel.
He’s only recently started wearing those boxy black glasses after finally admitting he can’t see anything up close. “Have a seat,” he says.
She sits on the edge of the chair, dropping her backpack between her feet.
On his crowded desk, there’s a photo of Bailey and Elsie when they were young, a map tube, a single monitor, mouse and keyboard, a stack of files, a phone on a landline, his cell.
As she waits for him to get around to telling her what this is about, she slides his pen holder, a Father’s Day mug, back and forth until he takes it from her.
“Bailey and Travis are getting married, eh?” he says.
Elsie’s shoulders relax and she settles back into the chair. He only wants to talk about the wedding.
“Time goes by so fast,” he says, picking up the photo of the girls. “You two were little only yesterday.”
But a lifetime ago for Elsie.
He pats his belly. “Guess I’ll have to buy a new suit. Don’t think any of mine fit anymore.”
“Bailey’s asking everyone to dress casually,” she says. “Jeans and T-shirts.” But a dress, evidently, for Elsie.
“Oh, well. That’s good, then. I won’t have to spend the money.
And a potluck, I hear? Guess I should be grateful I’m not on the hook for an expensive wedding.
” He picks up a pen, taps it against his desk.
“Got any thoughts on a wedding gift? Bailey and Travis already have nearly everything they need.”
“I don’t know. A new barbeque, maybe? I haven’t had a chance to think about it. I was busy all weekend.”
Her father leans forward, over his desk. “Bailey said you were out hiking with a friend.”
Shit. Here it comes. Elsie draws her backpack onto her lap and hugs it. “Yes.”
Her father raises his brows as if he’s thinking, Well, I guess that’s something. “But I understand you had a bit of a breakdown. You called out for your mother?”
She eyes her father warily. “Bailey told you?” After Elsie asked her not to.
“You could have called me,” he says, “told me about it yourself.” He sounds a little insulted, injured that she hadn’t.
Elsie twists the handles of her backpack as if she’s wringing out a rag. “There’s nothing to tell. I was upset, that’s all.”
“Very upset.”
“It was the fifth anniversary of Mom’s death.”
“I know.” Her father looks through the open door towards the mapping room, but not at anything in the present. “I found myself standing at her desk on Sunday,” he says. “Your desk. I could almost imagine her there.” His gaze shifts back to Elsie. “Bailey says you relived your mother’s death.”
Over her dad’s head, there’s a framed photo of her father holding up a freshly hooked chinook.
She can’t do this. She really can’t do this with her father.
He’ll grill her in his casual way until the truth leaps out of her.
And then he’ll start talking about psychiatrists and meds.
She stands, backpack in hand. “I’m good,” she says, though she didn’t sleep much last night, and is experiencing the effects of an emotional hangover today.
Her brain is foggy. She feels irritable, about to burst into tears. “Can I get to work?”
“Just hang on.” Her father gets up from his desk and, given the circumstances, Elsie thinks—hopes—he might hug her, but he doesn’t.
(He’s not a hugger. At her high-school graduation ceremony, he patted her on the head like she was a golden retriever.) Instead, he puts a hand on her shoulder.
This close, he smells of coffee, sausage, eggs and hashbrowns, the breakfast he has every morning at a local diner.
“We’re all just worried about you, honey,” he says, “given your . . . mental health issues over the last few years.”
There’s a light dusting of dandruff on his shoulder.
“I know,” she says.
“Bailey says you’ve agreed to therapy.”
Elsie didn’t. She’d have to explain too much to the psychologist, expose personal things about herself. But her father is more likely to drop this if he thinks she has. She hums in the affirmative.
“Your sister feels, as you say, that what happened yesterday was a response to the anniversary of your mother’s death.”
“Yes.”
“Understandable.” Her father pats her back and takes his seat. “I understand you found an atlas at the geocache. Can I see it?”
She hesitates, not really wanting to share it with her father. “It’s not a traditional atlas.” When he waves her over, she drops her backpack on the chair, pulls out The Pocket Atlas of Nostalgia and Longing and slides it towards him.
Her dad looks down at the atlas on his desk for long moment but doesn’t open it. It’s almost like he’s afraid to touch it. A flush blooms on his face. “Bailey tells me it seems like someone purposefully left it for you?”
“It’s weirder than that. I think someone made it for me.
” She opens the atlas while it’s still in front of him.
“Each page has my birth chart on it, along with a map. And many of the locations are places that are important to me in some way. Here, on the first page, it’s for the lookout.
” She hesitates before turning to the second page, the chart titled “The Second House: Possessions,” half expecting it to trigger another vision.
But when she does, nothing happens. “This one is for these offices.”
“Here?”
She turns the pages, points out the maps on each. “And then Joe’s Café. And here, on the fourth page, it’s our old house.” Where they lived before the divorce. She opens the atlas to the middle page titled “The Sixth House: Work and Wellness.” “And this map has the coordinates for your house, Dad.”
“My house?” He finally leafs through the atlas himself. “Is this some kind of geocache challenge? Bailey thought it was.”
“I did find it in a cache.”
“How do you know this is your birth chart?”
Bailey doesn’t want their dad to know about her monthly astrology sessions with Zander, so Elsie fudges. “It was a birthday present,” she says.
Her father snorts as if he can believe that. “You and your mother,” he says. “So alike.” (Elsie’s mom was deep into astrology, obsessed with it.) He gives the atlas back to Elsie.
“Can I get to work now?” she asks.
Her dad sits back, locks his hands behind his head. “You’re feeling okay today, though, right?”
“Yes.” She turns to leave.
But her father calls her again. “Elizabeth?”
She looks back at him from the open door.
“Next time something like this happens, tell me about it, okay? I’m here for you.”
Next time.