16
CALLIOPE
Acouple of days after I split Elijah’s head open with the tiara, I sit in my office poring over countless emails voicing their displeasure at the delays from Christmas that have spilled into the new year.
I start being honest in my replies, ignoring protocol and telling anyone asking exactly what happened with the flood and the damaged stock. Surprisingly, most people email back with sympathetic understanding while only a few really dig their heels in about how unacceptable it is.
My fingers fly over the keys as I type out a reply to yet another email asking about extending their subscription through to June and what that would cost, but as I get halfway through the paragraph, my mind wanders back to Elijah.
And that kiss.
The moment he brought up what happened at the convention, I should have left. I should have told him his girlfriend cheating on him was karma and then left. But I didn’t. I stayed and he kissed me, and that’s all I’ve been able to think about since.
Elijah’s taller than me, but even with that kiss, I’ve always marveled at how nothing is intimidating about the way he leans down to meet me. There wasn’t then and it remains the same now. But it was just a kiss, a single press of lips that unlocked a ball of tension in my chest and made me feel, just for a second, like it was safe to lean into him and trust him. Like I could fall and he would catch me, and for the first time in years, I would have support.
But Elijah isn’t supportive.
He isn’t anything to me. Not really.
It wasn’t even that good of a kiss.
So why can’t I stop thinking about it? Why does my heart flutter every time I hear footsteps in the hall as if I expect him to come and see me again?
I stare at the half-written email until the words blur and then close my eyes with a soft sigh. I don’t need this kind of distraction right now. Focusing too much on Elijah means I can’t dig into this acquisition properly. All I want to know is how safe my job is. That’s all. With Nick having a great time at school and catching up with all his friends, I’ve been able to pawn him off with playdates and more in order to spend more time at the office, but my searches have revealed nothing.
Maybe I will have to lean into Elijah just enough to find out what is going on.
I could reach out to someone else, but who around here has their ear to the floor enough to pick up on anything?
By the time six o’clock rolls around, I’ve exhausted my possibilities and Elijah continues to invade my thoughts on thedrive home. Every time I breathe in, I can smell him. I’m hyper-aware of my lips and the ghost of pressure he left behind, and the fact that I haven’t even seen him the past couple of days ignites a ball of worry in my gut that the blow to his head was more than it seemed.
By the time I get home, I’m worried. Should I call him? Hardly a good idea, but I should make sure he hasn’t ended up in the hospital or something. Phone in hand, I let myself into the house… and stop dead.
At my feet, strips of damp wallpaper curl around one another on the carpet and a sharp scent in the air tickles my nose. I lift my head and my mouth falls open.
The once warm, welcoming hallway is now completely void of life. The wallpaper has been stripped from halfway up the wall all the way down to the floor and it lies in piles around the skirting board. Peeling, crumbling plaster now sits in its place and as the front door closes behind me, clouds of plaster dust shake free and rise up into the air. The table has been removed, and the coat rack is empty except for a lone blue scarf hanging dejectedly from a hook.
“Mom?” I call the moment I find my voice, gazing around in horror. “Mom!”
“In here!” comes her cheerful voice from the living room.
I step forward cautiously, carefully avoiding the larger clumps of wet wallpaper. The line of wallpaper that remains up near the ceiling ends at a height that suspiciously matches my mother, and the living room isn’t any different.
In fact, it’s worse.
The walls have been stripped much the same, with only half the wallpaper removed from the highest Mom could reach all the way down to the floor. Most furniture has been moved away from the walls and are covered in blankets—soft, cotton blankets rather than plastic—and they’re dotted with fallen bits of wallpaper and a few other bits of dust and dirt that’s clumped up on the fabric. The curtains have been removed from the window with some force, judging by the unnatural bend to the railing that remains, and all the knick-knacks have been removed from the wall cabinet.
Except Dad’s urn.
It rests on the empty mantelpiece, looking exceptionally lonely without the flowers that once surrounded it.
“Mom.” I can barely speak. “What have you done?”
She stands near the wall cabinet with a metal scraper in hand and a wide smile on her face. Her gray curls are scraped back from her face by a colorful strip of yellow fabric and damp streaks of plaster cling to her cheeks.
“What does it look like?” she answers shortly. “Use your eyes, for goodness’ sake.”
My relationship with her has been on thin ice these past few days. That ice just broke.
