“Can I think about it?”
Elle grins around a bite of food. “Of course. And if you don’t want to do it now, you can always change your mind later. But your father is right. I should likely discuss this with your other teachers first and then him before we figure out the logistics.”
After that dinner commences and everything this woman does pisses me off.
She makes humming noises when she eats. She laughs a little too loud with a smile that lights up her entire face. Stella makes a point of telling me how the biscuits are Elle’s nana’s recipe and how her nana knew what she was doing in the kitchen—Elle leans over and plants a kiss on the side of Stella’s head. I swallow every morsel on my plate because it’s very likely the best thing I’ve tasted in years short of her pussy.
“Will you stay for dessert?”
“Miss Wilde needs to get home for her early day tomorrow, and you have homework.”
I get the most you’re a motherfucker glare from both these women—Elle for calling her Miss Wilde while suggesting she needs to leave. Stella for parting her from her new BFF in the name of homework she finds completely unchallenging, monotonous, and not nearly as enjoyable as spending the evening with Elle. I get it, but I did my good deed for the day and asked her to stay for dinner. Now I need her to leave.
“I finished my homework.”
“I’m sure you have reading to do.”
“Not really.”
I give up.
Keeping my distance under the guise of doing the dishes, Stella takes an enthusiastic Elle into the living room to show her our family album. But instead of doing the dishes as I should, I’m lingering in the back hallway. Watching like a creeper. Listening like a stalker.
“How long were you married for? My parents were married for almost five years. My dad says he would have married my mother the day he met her, but I know they got married because she was pregnant with me.”
Well, fuck a duck and screw a kangaroo, and I’m about to burn down the goddamn zoo. That’s not entirely true. I would have married Reese with or without Stella. She just sped things up a bit.
“I was married for three and a half years. But looking at these pictures, Stella, I can tell you that your father means what he says. It’s very obvious your parents loved each other.”
“Why did you get divorced?”
Stella, always so tactful.
“Because the man I married turned out not to be the man I thought he was.”
“What do you mean?”
There’s a long moment of silence, and I wish I could peek my head around the wall to get a glimpse of Elle’s face. She clears her throat. “Just what I said. He’s a professional golfer, and we traveled the world together. We fell in love quickly and married quickly. And for a while, in the beginning, it was heaven. Then things changed between us, almost overnight, and I didn’t like the man he became. He wasn’t treating me the way I believed I deserved to be treated.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re about to tell me another life lesson?” Stella smarts, and Elle laughs.
“See what I mean about you being so smart? I didn’t even have to proposition it that way. But yeah, that’s a big one. Tell me more about your mom. What’s this picture?”
And why does she want to hear that?
Why does her wanting to know about Reese and asking for Stella’s sake make me want, crave, desire, cling to her even more? She’s so good with Stella. So natural and not even close to jealous of Reese. She’s not trying to compete; she’s trying to love and understand my daughter.
That’s when I do peek. Ever so subtly, pressing myself against the wall, watching their profiles, just out of sight.
Elle points to something I can’t see, and I watch, strung out like a junkie, as Stella shifts in right beside her newest hero and shows her pictures of her mom. “That was the first time I tried solids.”
“And this one?”
“My first time sledding.”
“Looks like y’all were having a lot of fun. I had no idea your dad has that many teeth.”
I roll my eyes at her sarcasm, though she can’t see me do it.
“Your parents took a lot of pictures.”
“My mother was obsessed with them. She wanted to be a photojournalist when she was in college. I have her camera. I just don’t know how to use it very well. Besides, pictures aren’t really my thing.”
“Cooking and gardening are?”
“Like they are for you.”
My breath catches, my hand covering my chest.
“Well, thank goodness your mom was into photography, otherwise you wouldn’t have these. She took stunning pictures. And that smile, Stella. I think your dad was right. You do look like your mom. Especially when you smile. So beautiful. Both of you.” They flip pages in the worn album, the plastic crinkling. “What’s this one?”
“A selfie of us from her phone my dad had printed. That was the last picture taken on her phone. She died the next day.”
I can’t stop my reaction. I march into the room, staring down at my wife’s smiling eyes. The way she stared at our girl. Eyes that tell me I’m a fucked man, and I don’t deserve any happiness because she doesn’t have any for herself. She took pictures of Stella because she couldn’t take pictures as a photojournalist. She was home with Stella while I was in medical school. I stole her dream. I stole her life.
Reese texted that picture to me when I was in class and at the time, I didn’t think much about it. Reese used to send me a lot of pictures of them. It was a hey, we’re here, remember us.
Then she was gone.
“Upstairs, Stella. Now. You need a shower.”
“Thanks for the hygiene update, Dad.” Stella rolls her eyes derisively as she stands, giving Elle a hug that makes me want to die just a bit. “Thank you for today. I just… thank you. It was so much fun. Are we still good for Wednesday?”
“For sure.” Elle smiles like the first flicker of dawn after an endless night. “Just let me know what we’re making so I can get what groceries we need. You were a culinary genius today.”
Stella runs up the stairs, and the moment I hear her door slam shut, Elle closes the photo album with a heavy clap. “Can I help clean up since you were too busy spying on us to bother?”
“Why did you leave your husband? Did he hurt you?”
Setting the album down on the coffee table, she rises, adjusting her sweater and turning to look at me. I hate how long she’s taking to answer, and with every second, my blood pressure climbs.
She takes a few steps in my direction. “Yes. He hurt me. Just not in the way you think he did.”
“How do you think I think he did?”
She doesn’t answer me. “Stella told me you blame yourself for your wife’s death.”
The force of her words has me shuffling back until I’m leaning against the doorway once more, needing its support to hold me up. I didn’t realize Stella knew that, though I’m not surprised either. In a way, I’m relieved. I think. It’s not a story you ever want to tell your child. But it’s one thing for her to know I blame myself and another for her to know the reason behind that.
“That’s because I’m the reason my wife is dead.”