Ronin
Mrs. Humphrey’s wet tongue painted my face. I didn’t blackout, but I felt like the one on the losing end of a street fight. Blurred vision, numbness in my tongue, a debilitating pain along my jaw that made it hard to speak. The only word I tried to say was Lila.
I moved my phone in front of my face, focusing with my good eye as I brought up Lila’s number. It rang and rang.
My thumbs moved across the screen, texting her.
Ronin: Call me! What’s happened?
“L-L-Li-la,” I tried to say her name, but my mouth fucked up the word. I dropped my phone onto my chest, closed my eyes, and waited for the room to stop spinning, for the pain to subside, for my lunch to stop crawling up my throat.
A few minutes later, my phone vibrated. My hands fumbled it a few times before I got ahold of it bringing it to my good eye.
Graham.
Something very bad happened to Lila. That was what he was calling to say. I knew it.
I slid the bar across the screen and brought it to my ear, having no clue if my mouth would give actual coherent words. It didn’t matter; he spoke first.
“Lila left her phone. Sorry, buddy.” Graham’s words held a different tone than I had ever heard from him before. Eerily calm. “I don’t know when she’ll be back. She was pretty torn up when I told her about the surveillance cameras in the library.”
No. Fuck …. Please no …
“But some of those books are incredibly rare, first editions. Not to mention the priceless art scattered throughout the room.” He sighed. “Anyway, she left. No phone. No suitcase. Her car is still here, so apparently she took an Uber or just ran off on foot. My people are looking for her. Do you want to leave a message? I’m sure she’ll eventually turn up.”
“Wh-what did you do?” I slurred the words, trying to say them without moving my jaw.
“You’re breaking up, buddy. Listen, I have to go. And for what it’s worth. I have no hard feelings toward you. We married the wrong people. Shit happens. I think what matters at this point is the world is on the precipice of righting those wrongs. For all I know, Lila’s halfway to some other state by now. Preparing to start a new life. Maybe you should think about doing that too. Maybe you should return to Canada. Great skiing there. I’ll handle things here. Best of luck.” He ended the call, the way he ended my world.
I heaved my phone across the room. It knocked a family photo onto the floor, shattering the glass. So very symbolic.
Mrs. Humphrey barked and jumped up on the sofa with me, whimpering a few times while situating herself between my legs and resting her head on my chest.
“I f-fucked up …”
When my family returned, I had planned on telling Evelyn everything. I never planned on Graham. I didn’t know what my chances were of her forgiving me, of her not leaving me. But after that call I knew the number.
Zero. Zero chance of not losing everything.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Evelyn
Franz wanted to call Ronin the second he woke up on Thanksgiving. Ronin didn’t answer his phone the previous day. They received almost a foot of snow, so I assumed he was too busy to respond until after the kids’ bedtime. A text would have been nice.
I couldn’t keep my mind from wondering if he was with Lila.
Touching her.
Holding her.
Doing things that required him to take his shirt off.
“Now! Call Daddy now!” Franz handed me my phone as I finished pulling on my socks, perched on the edge of the bed.
“Fine. Go get Anya. She’s in the kitchen with Aunt Katie and Grandpa.”
As Franz ran out of the bedroom, I tried FaceTiming Ronin—to my surprise he answered right away.
“Hey.” I smiled. In spite of all that happened before we left, my chest felt warm and my stomach had butterflies just seeing his face. It had only been a few days, but I already missed him.
“Hey.” He sat on the bed, propping his phone up on the nightstand while drying his hair with a towel. No shirt.
“Good timing. Looks like you just got out of the shower.”
He nodded, hooking the towel around his neck. “I figured I’d get a call soon. Thought I’d at least shower for the occasion.”
“You okay? Your words sound a little slurred and weak.”
“Yeah.” He ran a hand through his damp hair. “Just tired.”
“I see you got a lot of snow.”
He nodded, not making any sort of eye contact. It had been a long time since things were exactly “right” with Ronin, but that morning something felt especially wrong—completely off—about him.
“Daddy!” Franz hopped on the bed and looked over my shoulder at the phone screen while Anya climbed into my lap, poking her dark head into the shot.
“Hey, you guys are a sight for sore eyes.” As he said those words, I noticed his eyes turning red, brimming with unshed tears. I rubbed my chest, trying to ease the ache. I wasn’t sure I had ever seen him look so emotionally tortured.
“We’re having waffles for breakfast. And Grandpa is cooking a turkey. Where’s Mrs. Humphrey? I miss you, Daddy. Is it snowing there?”
Ronin chuckled, turning his head to wipe his eyes, but I saw it even if Franz and Anya missed it.
“Daddy kisses.” Anya grabbed my phone and kissed the screen.
“Aw, muah to you too, baby girl. Here she is.” Ronin angled his phone to show us Mrs. Humphrey on the bedroom floor chewing on an elk antler.
“We saw the Golden Bridge. It was not gold,” Franz huffed.
“No? Well, that’s too bad. Why name it the Golden Gate Bridge?”
“I don’t know. I’m hungry. Bye, Daddy.”
“Hey! Wait, buddy.”
Franz grabbed my phone as Anya again poked her head into view. “What, Daddy?”
Ronin swallowed hard. “I love you guys. Okay. Don’t ever forget that.”
I quickly wiped the rebel tears from my cheeks.
“Okay. We won’t.” Franz handed me the phone and ran out of the room with Anya running to catch him.
Before I held the camera to my face again, I used my sleeve to completely dry my cheeks. Finding my long-lost friend, that mask I wore for so many years to hide all the pain and fear, I slipped it on and raised the camera to my face. “Wow. That was a heavy goodbye.”
Biting his lips together, he averted his gaze to the side, maybe watching Mrs. Humphrey, and nodded. “Yeah. Life feels pretty heavy right now.”
“Why?” I whispered.
He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Everything will be fine.”
I didn’t feel like everything would be fine. It felt like my world was ending and he just couldn’t say the actual words. Before my mom died, she told my dad everything would be fine.
He wasn’t fine.
I wasn’t fine.
Nothing had been fine since she took her last breath.
“Do you have plans for today? Did Graham and Lila invite you to Thanksgiving dinner? Noah and Tami?”
“Work. Noah is covering for me. I didn’t want to miss your call. But I’ll be working the rest of the day.”
“Well, I won’t keep you, then.”