She looked at me through the screen for another moment.
Then the video ended.
It hadn’t even been over a full second when something banged on the adjoining wall to our apartments. I jumped to my feet and ran to the door, gasping for air, thinking maybe she had come back for her clothes or Grace’s things. Maybe it wasn’t too late.
But when I opened the door, a couch drifted out of Vanessa’s apartment down the hallway, carried by two men in blue mover’s shirts.
Gerald’s voice came from inside. “Be careful with those, they’re collector’s items! And I’m watching you, so don’t think you’re going to slip something into a pocket!”
He saw me come into the doorway and stopped his delegating. “Ah, the lawyer!” He smiled at me.
I looked around the small studio, my heart pounding against my rib cage. A team of people were packing things into boxes. Someone in white gloves was pulling Vanessa’s Banksy down and wrapping it in paper. Her mattress was propped against a wall, and a man was disassembling her bed. Someone was in the kitchen, boxing up Grace’s bottles. A woman was on a ladder scraping the glow-in-the-dark stars off the ceiling.
“What are you doing?” I breathed, looking back at Gerald, though it was obvious.
He rocked back on his heels with his hands in his pockets in that unaffected way of his. “Moving my daughter’s possessions, per her request.” He held up a hand. “Don’t worry. You’ll have the unit back in a couple of hours. Broom clean, just like the lease says.”
I stared around at the activity in disbelief. I couldn’t breathe. It felt like she was being erased. In an hour this place would be like she had never been here at all.
“Where is she?” I asked, looking back at him, standing in the middle of the chaos.
His smile fell, and for a moment he looked almost sorry for me. “Son, you know I can’t tell you that.”
I looked at him desperately. “You can. You have to tell me where to find her. Please,” I begged.
His bushy eyebrows drew down. “Maybe we should go have a chat. I’d say your apartment is probably better suited. Shall we?”
I blinked for another moment at the impossible scene in her studio. Her life disappearing before my eyes. “Yes.”
When we got back to my place, he nodded to the bar on the way to the dining room table. “Pour me a stiff one, will you? It’s been a bit of a day.”
I poured him a bourbon with shaking hands and slid it to him before sitting down.
There was a fog of disbelief over all of this so thick it almost didn’t feel real. I looked at him sitting there like he was an extension of a strange dream I was having.
He put his nose into the tumbler and breathed in. Then he gave me a nod of approval and took a swallow. “Ahhh, that’s nice. Very, very nice. You have good taste.” He raised his glass to me. “In bourbon and women.”
“You have to tell me how to find her. Now. I need to go now,” I said, too desperate for tact.
He chuckled. “You know, you remind me a little of myself when I was your age. And Vanessa is a carbon copy of her mother. Same energy. Luminous.” He swayed his glass at me. “You know what I’m talking about. They have that inner light. And stubborn! My God, are they ever.” He laughed dryly into his tumbler. “My wife, Samantha, had been symptomatic for a year when she got in the car accident. They said she lost control of the wheel. Shouldn’t have been driving, truth be told, but nobody ever could tell Samantha what to do.” He smiled to himself, his eyes distant, like he was remembering. Then the corners of his lips dropped and he looked up at me from under his bushy eyebrows.
“You know, she wouldn’t do the trials either. Couldn’t wrap my brain around it. Was angry—for years. How could she leave us like that? Why didn’t she try? Took me a long time to realize that just because you don’t recognize the fight they choose doesn’t mean they’re not fighting.”
He leaned forward. “This isn’t even the hard part, son. Loving her isn’t the hard part. Neither is just shutting up and supporting her, even if you don’t believe in how she’s doing it. The hard part’s on its way and it’s going to last the rest of your life once that light you’ve been living under dims and goes out. Even if this thing ends up being nothing, you’ll just be waiting for the shoe to drop, driving yourself mad. It’ll eat you from the inside out. If you can’t handle it now, believe me, you’re not cut out for what’s coming.” He paused. “But I think you knew that.”
He looked at me levelly. “You knew what you were doing when you gave her that ultimatum. You knew you weren’t built for this. Don’t chase her. You have your whole life ahead of you. Take the gift she’s given you, go back to work, love another woman. Move on. Let her go.”
I studied him. He couldn’t be more than fifty-five. But he looked ten years older. Hard lines. The wear of decades of grief.
He took a final swig of his drink and pushed up on his knees. “I have custody of Grace. Annabel’s waiving her rights. Feel free to stop by and say hello.” He paused in my doorway and looked at me a long moment. “You always had my blessing, Fancy Hall Cop. I liked having a lawyer in the family.”
And he let himself out.
CHAPTER 31
ARE YOU BROKENHEARTED? TAKE THIS TEST TO SEE!
Two months later
VANESSA
We should probably hurry up if we want to catch the light,” Laird said.
We were standing on the beach at an empty tiki bar. I was leaning on the bamboo railing overlooking the water. The sun was setting and a warm salty ocean breeze blew my hair back over my shoulders.
Brent was in the surf with his pant legs rolled up, watching the waves.
I was on Drake’s private island. Brent had been in the country almost as long as I’d been on the road. Part of Drake’s condition in backing BoobStick was that production of the lip balms take place on the neighboring mainland to bring jobs to the locals. Brent and Joel came out to oversee training and do quality control.
Drake and Laird’s wedding was tomorrow, so Brent had taken a boat over to be my date. It was fucking depressing. Not only was my date gay and in another relationship, but he was also my brother. I’d achieved the crying emoji wedding date trifecta.
Brent and I had our come-to-Jesus on the phone a few days after I left. He’d known the whole time I might be sick, and he’d respected my wishes not to tell anyone about it, so he never brought it up. But it hurt him that I didn’t confide in him.
We’d gotten a lot closer over the last few months. I stopped being his big sister and started being his friend—and I liked it better that way. I needed a friend. And he needed me to know he could take care of himself.
And he could.
There was a raging pig roast going on in front of the dock. I could see the glow of the tiki lamps from between the palm trees, and music was pulsing in the distance. It was an interesting crowd over there. You were as likely to be sitting next to a Sherpa at dinner as you were Brad Pitt.
“You should get back,” I said to Laird. “You’re missing your own party.”