“Dobson Scott Orchard was standing outside of the music store. He offered to walk me to my car with his umbrella. I don’t know if I was one of the ones he watched, or if he decided on the spot, but I had a choice: high tail it out of there under his umbrella, or go inside and talk to you. It would seem that I made the right choice that day.”
“My God, Olivia. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’ve never told anyone,” she shrugs, “but, that moment — that one, ever-changing moment — has made a profound impact on me. My entire life would have been different had I not walked toward you. The next time you would have seen me would have been on the news.” She nods, staring at the floor, her little mouth pulled off to the side. When she continues, her voice is lower than before. “The sum of all the things we shouldn’t have done in our lives is enough to kill us with the weight, Caleb Drake. Neither you, nor I, nor anyone else in this life could possibly know the chain reaction our decisions cause. If you’re to blame, then so am I.”
“How?”
“If I’d done what my heart said and said yes to you, you wouldn’t have left for London. Luca and Steve would be alive and your daughter wouldn’t be in the hospital in a medical-induced coma.”
We are quiet for a few minutes as I think over her words. Everything she has said is frightening.
“So why did you take his case?”
She breathes deeply. I hear the air leave her in a great sigh.
“Brace yourself, this is going to sound really sick.”
I mock grab the arms of my chair, and she snickers.
“I felt a connection to him. We were both dealing with our obsessions that day, Dobson and I.” She makes her eyes wide when she says the last part. “We were both looking for someone. We were both so goddamn alone that we took a risk not to be. Are you disgusted with me?”
I smile and run my pinkie along Estella’s. “No, Duchess. Your ability to see outside the box and mentally align yourself with the scum of the world is why I love you.”
The minute the words are out of my mouth, I regret them. I glance at her face to catch her reaction, but there is none. Maybe she’s used to me professing my love by now. Maybe, she didn’t hear me. Maybe-
“I love you too.”
I catch her eyes and hold them, my heart pounding.
“Well, isn’t that beautiful. All the fucking inappropriate love.”
Our heads spin toward the door as Leah strides into the room. She doesn’t look at either of us as she walks past our chairs. She goes right to Estella. At least her priorities are right; I’ll give her that. I hear her intake of breath when she sees Estella.
“Shit,” she says. Both of her palms are pressed against her forehead, her fingers splayed out above them. If the situation weren’t so dire, I would have laughed. She lowers herself to her haunches, says “shit” again, and then stands back up too quickly. She wobbles on her heels then steadies herself on the bed.
She spins toward me. “Has she woken up? Has she asked for me?”
“Yes, and yes,” I say. On the other side of the room, Olivia stands up like she’s going to leave.
I mouth wait and turn back to Leah who has started to cry. I put a hand on my ex-wife’s shoulder. “She’s out of the forest. She’s going to be okay.”
Leah looks at my hand, which is still on her shoulder, and then at my face.
“You mean the woods,” she says.
“What?”
“The woods,” she repeats. “You said forest. Except you’re not in England anymore, you’re in America, and in America, we say WOODS!” Her voice rises and I know what’s coming next. “And if you’d stayed in America, this never would have happened. But, you had to run away because of her!” She points a finger at Olivia. If her finger were an arrow it would have wedged in Olivia’s heart.
“Leah,” Olivia says quietly, “if you point at me again I’m going to break that manicured finger right off your hand. Now, turn around and smile, your daughter is waking up.”
Leah and I both spin toward Estella, whose eyes are fluttering open.
I give a quick thank you glance at Olivia before she slips out the door.
The funeral is three days later. Sam comes to sit with Estella while we are gone. I have a sneaking suspicion that something is going on between him and Leah, but then I remember he told Claribel that Leah was in Thailand with a man. I wonder again bitterly if that man was my shithead brother and then I kill the thought. I am a hypocrite. I slept with Olivia while she was still legally married. To each his own. I toast my bottle of water to the ceiling of my car and press down on the gas. I asked Olivia to come to the funeral a few days ago.
“Your mother hated me,” she said, on the phone. “It would be disrespectful.”
“She didn’t hate you. I promise. Besides, your father would have hated me, and I still would have gone to his funeral.”
Her breath hisses across the line.
“Fine,” she says.
I’ve pushed every thought of my parents from my mind in order to give Estella what she needs, but when I walk through the doors of the funeral home and see their coffins, side-by-side, I lose it. I excuse myself from an old neighbor who is approaching me with condolences, and walk briskly to the parking lot. There is a low hanging willow to the rear of the property. I stand underneath it and breathe. That’s where she finds me.
She doesn’t say anything, just comes to stand next to me, taking my hand and squeezing it.
“This isn’t happening,” I say. “Tell me it’s not.”
“It’s happening,” she says. “Your parents are dead. But, they loved you. They loved your daughter. You have so many good memories.”
I glance down at her. She saw two parents die and no doubt only one of them provided decent memories. I wonder if she had anyone to hold her hand after Oliver and Via died. I squeeze her hand.
“Let’s go in,” she says. “The service is about to start.”
When we walk into the chapel, every eye is trained on us. Leah is sitting next to my brother. When she sees me with Olivia, it is a mixture of jealousy and rage. She quickly averts her eyes and steams privately. For now.
Doesn’t she know Olivia isn’t mine? What does it even matter that an old friend is comforting me? She’ll just drive home to her husband afterward. I take my seat near the front.
My mother’s favorite roses are — were — English Garden. There are several tasteful arrangements around her casket, as well as next to the blown up picture of her face, which is sitting on a large easel. Both caskets are closed, though Olivia told me that she had her dressed in a black Chanel dress that she chose from my mother’s closet. Steve had always jokingly said he wanted to be buried in his old baseball uniform. She blushed when she told me she took that and a suit to the funeral home, and when she got there she left the suit in the car. I reach out and squeeze her hand. She’s so fucking thoughtful, it’s ridiculous. I wouldn’t have even been able to walk in my mother’s closet, never mind choose an outfit I’d think she’d like. When the service is over, I flank one side of the door, and my brother takes the other. We don’t speak to each other, but do plenty of speaking to the people offering their condolences. It makes me sick. All of it. That they died. That Estella won’t know them. That it’s all my fault.
When the room clears out, we move to the gravesite. It’s so sunny, everyone is hidden behind sunglasses. It feels like a Matrix funeral, I think jokingly. My mother hated the Matrix. When my parents’ boxes are lowered into the ground and covered in dirt, Leah starts the fight.
It might have been seeing me with Olivia, walking so closely our arms were touching. Or maybe every once in a while, someone with that much venom can’t hold it in anymore and just erupts out of their person, burning everyone around them. Whatever the fuck it was, it came.