She plastered on a huge grin and lifted the phone. “He’s doing great!” she said. She was so upbeat about it that even I believed her. “He’s a hit with us locals, and my dogs already love him, which is saying something, because they’re tough judges of character. And this place is coming right along. The floors came out so nice, and the kitchen is going to look like one of those HGTV dream kitchens when he’s done with it. You guys must be so proud!”
“We really are,” Dad said.
Mom remained silent, and I knew it was because she wanted to press the issue.
Ella didn’t give her a chance to. “What’s the weather like there? Is it sunny? Do you still have leaves on the trees? Is it warm?” She lowered her voice and pulled the phone in close, expression forlorn. “Please describe what warmth is like. I’ve forgotten.”
Another round of chuckling rang through the speaker before Dad indulged her. “It’s in the mid-seventies, with a nice breeze off the water.”
Ella closed her eyes and made a pained face. “My jealousy. It burns. The high here is twenty today. And that’s a warm snap for this time of the year. Two weeks ago, it was minus fifteen.” She gazed deeply into the camera. “Please think of us kindly when you look upon the sun.”
My parents laughed at this. Again.
Across the room, Fred let out a small woof and clambered to his feet. Ella swiveled the phone around to face the dogs and spent the next several minutes introducing them to my parents. She even had Mom say a few commands to see if the dogs would obey them over FaceTime. They did.
Mom told me I should think about getting a puppy now to keep me occupied when there weren’t any other humans around or housework to do. I made a non-committal sound in response. It was the best she was going to get from me right now. Then Ella was through the door and into the kitchen, showing my parents the final choices for the finishes before taking them on a tour of what I’d already done to the space.
I leaned a hip against the doorjamb, crossed my arms over my chest, and watched her expertly distract them. I should have let Jack introduce us sooner. Maybe I could have avoided all this drama with my mom.
Ella exhausted renovation talk and moved on to other safe subjects. A ten-minute conversation followed that I barely took part in. Soon she was saying goodbye and telling my mom that, no, she would never dream of letting me spend Christmas alone.
Her expression changed from ebullient cheer to apology the second she hung up. “I’m so sorry,” she said, handing my phone back to me. “I have no intention of forcing you to hang out on Christmas if you don’t want to. And I’m also really sorry for totally steamrolling that conversation.”
“Ella it’s -”
“But your mom looked so worried, and I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable or upset, because you looked like you were upset. Kind of mad, but also kind of sad, and maybe like you didn’t know how to react. Not that I’m an accurate judge of your expressions. We just met, after all. But I mean, like, in a general way you looked like that. So of course I did that thing I always do and completely took over everything and made it about myself, because I can’t ever just shut the hell up and let other people talk when I feel awkward.” Her shoulders drooped like all the air had gone out of her. “I’ll just go now.”
“It’s okay, Ella,” I told her.
She shook her head. “No, it’s not. I’m really sorry, Ben. I had no intention of doing that.”
“I’m grateful that you did.”
Her mouth snapped shut.
“My mom has been having…”Am I really saying this right now? Guess I must already trust her.“…trouble, dealing with me being so far away after my brother’s death. She’s worried that something might happen to me, like it did him, and she won’t be here in time.”
“Oh,” she said, voice small.
“When I left, she said she’d respect my need for space, but hasn’t. At all. And it’s been coming between us. If you hadn’t taken over that call, we probably would have gotten into another argument. It’s like she can’t hear me tell her I’m okay. For whatever reason, hearing it from you seemed to help her some. So really, thank you.”
“You’re welcome then?”
I nodded at her.
“And also, I’m sorry. That’s a shitty position for her to put you in.”
“Thanks. It is.”
It was nice to hear someone else vocalize that. It made me feel less irrational for getting upset. Like it was just a normal response to an overbearing parent and not an uncontrolled mood swing brought on by early-onset CTE.
Sam padded over to me and pressed his wet nose into my palm. I looked down at him, grateful for the distraction, and scratched the spot just behind his ears. He closed his eyes and sighed in doggy bliss, leaning his full weight into my leg.
“Aaand, you’re now his new best friend,” Ella said.
One side of her mouth was pulled up in a lopsided grin as she watched her dog. My gaze rose from her mouth to trace the smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. In this light, her eyes were crystalline blue.
Damn, she was beautiful.
