by Lisa Henry
He extricated himself from Lucien’s hug and then climbed into the front passenger seat.
“Ready to go home?” Deanna asked him.
“Fuck yes,” Elliott said. “More than ready.”
***
It took seven days to reach California, with Elliott and Deanna sharing the driving between them. Marianne was a trooper. She slept a lot of the way, but every bump in the road seemed to bring her awake again. At the end of each day she was usually in more pain than she admitted. Elliott could see it in the tight line of her mouth. So could Deanna.
They spent an entire day in Salt Lake City because Marianne couldn’t face the idea of getting into the van again. They stayed in their hotel instead, and watched television and ate takeout.
“Don’t apologize,” Deanna told Marianne when she made a tearful attempt at doing so. “I know it hurts.”
Marianne wiped her face with the sleeves of her hoodie.
“Have you tried yoga?” Deanna asked. “I hear it’s very good.”
Marianne stared at her wide-eyed for a moment before bursting into laughter.
Deanna was a godsend. Elliott couldn’t have done it without her. Her gruff no-bullshit exterior was actually paper-thin. Underneath that she was one of the warmest people Elliott had ever met, and it was ridiculous it had taken this long to realize it. How many other people would volunteer to drive across the country just to help them out?
He called John from Salt Lake City. He called Lucien too, but Lucien didn’t answer. Elliott fretted about that for hours, afraid that Lucien had found out about him and Ned and would hate him for it, but he got a text back a few hours later apologizing for having missed his call, and hoping he and Marianne were both almost home. Elliott wished they were too, but they still had a few more days to go.
“I hate New York,” Marianne said, somewhere between Winnemucca and Mill City. The landscape on either side of the highway was arid and brown, dotted with scrubby bushes. Low hills obscured the horizon, bald and featureless.
Deanna was driving.
Elliott turned around in his seat. He was sitting in the middle row, on the one seat they hadn’t folded down for Marianne. “Everything about it?”
“He broke my heart, Elliott,” Marianne said. “I was so stupid. I believed everything he said, and he broke my heart.”
He’d broken his own too, Elliott thought. And he deserved all the pain it brought him.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Mar,” he said, helpless.
“Fractures heal,” Deanna said from the front seat. “All of them.”
Marianne lifted her chin. “When?”
“When they’re ready.”
The days passed with the scenery. Nights were motel beds and fast food and aching muscles from hours of driving. When they crossed the state border into California, Barton Lake seemed at once so close and still so far away. Elliott wanted to put all of New York behind him too. He wanted to return to his small life. To Abby and Greta. To the restaurant and the shop. To people he knew and trusted.
He was tired.
“New York did a number on you too, didn’t it?” Deanna asked him frankly, still a few hours out of Barton Lake. “And I don’t just mean Marianne getting hurt.”
Elliott checked that Marianne was sleeping in the back. “Yeah. I thought I liked someone. I thought he liked me. And then I met his fiancé.”
“Does Marianne know?”
“She knows what happened.” Elliott stared out the windshield.
“But she doesn’t know you got your heart broken too?”
Elliott smiled despite himself. “No, she knows that as well.”
Deanna glanced at him. “You’re an odd one, Elliott Dashwood.”
“I . . . I’m going to take that as a compliment?”
“You probably should.” Her mouth quirked in a smile.
“Fucking rich people though,” Elliott said with a sigh. “No offense.”
“I’m not old money, Elliott. I got where I am because my parents worked every day of their lives. They started off with a discount grocery store in Fresno, which they built into a chain of eight stores before they sold it. And believe me, when they bought the house in Barton Lake, there wasn’t a single day someone didn’t remind them they’d come from stacking cans on shelves. There are people like Jack Willoughby’s aunt who think that not being born into money is some kind of moral failing.” She snorted. “You know. Assholes.”
Elliott smiled. “Yeah. Assholes.”
They continued to drive.
***
“Marianne!” Abby cried out as the van pulled into the narrow backyard behind the apartment. She hurried down the steps. “Elliott! Oh, Mar! My poor baby!”
Elliott and Deanna helped Marianne out of the van and onto her crutches.
“Mom!” Marianne exclaimed.
Abby dashed across the yard to meet her, then pulled her into a careful hug before pressing her hands to Marianne’s cheeks to hold her still while she peppered her with kisses. “Oh, Mar!”
“Let her breathe, Mom,” Elliott chided gently, tugging Abby away.
Abby hugged him tightly. “Oh, Elliott!”
Elliott looked over her shoulder to where Greta was dragging herself down the steps. She was scowling, but Elliott wasn’t fooled for a second. “Get over here, Greta.”
Greta burrowed into their hug. “You suck, Elliott. You were away too long, and you brought Mar back broken.”
Marianne poked her with her crutch. “Hey. Where’s my hug?”
Greta buried her face into Marianne’s shoulder and burst into tears.
“Oh!” Marianne patted her back awkwardly. “Oh, Greta. I missed you too, monster.”
Abby smiled warmly at Deanna. “Thank you so much, Colonel Brandon, for bringing my babies home.”
Deanna suddenly appeared as gruff and awkward as she had the first time Elliott had met her. She cleared her throat. “That’s, um, that’s not a problem, Mrs. Dashwood. And it’s Deanna, please.”
“Then you have to call me Abby!” Abby insisted. “Come inside, please. I’ll make you some oolong tea.”
Deanna looked pained. “I, ah, I don’t know what that is.”
Abby took her by the arm and led her toward the stairs. “You’ll love it, I promise.”
Elliott eyed the stairs, and then turned to Marianne. “What do you think? Bridal carry or piggyback?”
“Piggyback,” Marianne said decisively.
“Let’s do it,” Elliott said, bracing himself to lift her.
Greta followed them up the stairs, carrying Marianne’s crutches.
***
Abby declared she was sleeping with Marianne while she recovered, in case she needed anything, so Greta took her room. She didn’t stay there though. Elliott woke up on his first night home to find her crawling into bed with him.
“Don’t steal all the blankets,” he said.
Greta tugged on them aggressively for a moment and pressed her cold feet against his calves.
“Greta!”
She slumped in defeat, and they lay in silence for a while. And then Greta said, “Mom was really scared, you know?”
“Yeah,” Elliott said. “Me too.”
“Me too,” Greta echoed. “Please don’t go away again, Elliott.”
Elliott caught her hand and squeezed it.
“When . . .” Greta sniffed. “When Dad died, when we didn’t get there in time . . . I thought it was happening again. I thought Marianne was going to die, and I wouldn’t get to see her again. When you called Mom, she just collapsed. It was like someone cut her strings.” Her voice wavered. “And I can’t be you, Elliott. I can’t keep her together like you do, like you did when Dad died.”
Elliott’s heart clenched. “Jesus, Greta, you don’t have to. That’s not your job, okay?”
“It’s not your job either!” she hissed. “But you did it because someone had to! God knows Mom can’t!”
Elliott fro
ze. What could he say? That it wasn’t fair? Maybe not, but it was true, and Greta was smart enough to have seen it. Elliott loved Abby with all his heart, but growing up he’d always secretly wished she were more like other moms. Like the moms of his friends from school, who were . . . normal? Because there were some things that the universe didn’t just take care of. There were some things Elliott had to take care of instead.
“It’s not your job,” Elliott said again. “Let me handle stuff, okay?”
“You shouldn’t have to do that all on your own,” Greta whispered.
“I’m not. I’ve got you and Mar. We’re in this together, right?”
“Right. Just don’t go away again, okay? Not for a while, anyway.”
“I won’t,” Elliott promised.
It was an easy promise to make, because where the hell else did he have to go? Barton Lake was home now.
For better or for worse, it was home.
Winter in Barton Lake was beautiful. Ball-freezingly cold, but beautiful. Elliott took to escaping the apartment and walking around the lake. It was too deep to freeze over, but mist clung to the water on the coldest of days. Mount Shasta vanished behind a shroud of clouds, and the world seemed incredibly close and quiet and small-drawn. There was snow. More than Elliott had expected—he was still struggling with all his old preconceptions about California being all about sunlight and surf—but not enough for the snow days Greta was hoping for.
John Middleton continued to hold his Friday night get-togethers on his back deck, which was warmed by large outdoor heaters. Marianne always claimed the warmest place. She was still on crutches, for another week at least, but she was getting increasingly impatient with them and spent a lot of time hopping from place to place, stopping and yelling out for help when she overexerted herself and had invariably left her crutches out of reach.
“Did you hear?” Paula asked one Friday night, pouring Elliott a glass of wine.
“Hear what?” Elliott asked.
“The Ferrars Corporation passed on the land,” Paula said with a sigh.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Paula sighed again. “It can’t be helped. And he was so nice about it when I spoke to him. He apologized for taking so long to get back to me, but he’d only just got back from his honeymoon.”
Elliott flinched and spilled his wine. He reached for a napkin to mop it up. “Shit. Sorry.”
Marianne shot him a sharp look.
Paula topped up his glass again, then moved on to chat with Deanna.
It had been a week or so since Elliott had texted Lucien, but Lucien hadn’t mentioned anything about getting married. Elliott wondered if he should text him his congratulations. But what if Lucien had found out about Ned and Elliott? Elliott didn’t want to step into metro-card-messy territory. Lucien was a friend, but that friendship had always been conditional, hadn’t it? It had relied on Lucien not knowing the truth. The best thing Elliott could do was step away and let Lucien and Ned live their lives. Elliott had his own life in Barton Lake.
He had his mom, and Marianne and Greta, and he was working more hours at Russo’s. He had his eye on a rental a few blocks away from Main Street that had three bedrooms and a small study that could easily be a fourth bedroom. The house was out of their budget for now—Elliott didn’t want to dip into their savings—but he could save a deposit in a few more months, and if the restaurant could guarantee him a few more shifts per week, it was doable. They could move into a bigger place and still keep a safety net.
Elliott took his wine and went and sat next to Marianne. She leaned into him. They looked out at the lake.
“I heard what Paula said,” Marianne said at last.
“It doesn’t matter.” Elliott didn’t look at her. He couldn’t. “It was never going to be anything between us.”
Over at the edge of the verandah, Greta and Poppy were lining olive pits up along the top of the railing, then flicking them out into the darkness.
“I was a fool, wasn’t I?” Marianne asked.
“Hmm?”
“With Jack,” Marianne said. “I was a fool.”
Elliott hesitated.
“You can say it. I know I was.”
“He was sorry,” Elliott said at last. “Jack was. He came to the hospital. He brought flowers. I think he was heartbroken too.”
“Sure.” Marianne wrinkled her nose. “Heartbroken, but still engaged to someone else.”
Elliott put an arm around her. “Yeah.”
“I am a flower in a garden,” Marianne announced, her smile bright. “I am learning and I am growing.”
“Have you been reading the magazines in the shop again?”
“Shut up.” Marianne poked him in the ribs. “Don’t mock my emotional journey.”
“I would never.”
Marianne leaned her head on his shoulder. “Also, I’m pretty sure I’m bi.”
“Uh-huh,” Elliott said. “Did you figure that out all on your own?”
Marianne lifted her head and looked at him. Her face was pink, and Elliott wasn’t sure it was entirely the fault of the heaters. “It’s true what they say about yoga,” she said at last. “It really does do amazing things for flexibility.”
“You haven’t been doing yoga,” Elliott said, nodding at the cast on her leg.
“Deanna has,” Marianne said. Maybe it was supposed to be a joke, but she wasn’t smiling. She was waiting for Elliott’s reaction, he realized, and for a moment, he wasn’t sure what to think.
Deanna was older. There was a massive gulf of life experience there—probably a solid two decades at least. But their dad had been fifteen years older than their mom, so Elliott knew that for the right people, an age gap didn’t matter. It didn’t automatically translate into a power imbalance. And Deanna had volunteered to drive across the entire fucking continent just so Marianne could make it home earlier. She was a good person—Elliott didn’t doubt that for a second—and maybe, for Marianne, Deanna was also the right person.
Marianne’s revelation wasn’t a total surprise. She had been spending a lot of time with Deanna over the past few weeks, and wearing a secretive sort of smile whenever she got home again. It was unlike Marianne to play her cards close to her chest like that, but being hurt by Jack had changed her. Elliott thought she would always be a little more cautious in the future, more guarded. But he was glad it hadn’t made her too afraid to try. That wouldn’t have been the Marianne he knew.
“I hope you make each other happy,” he said.
Marianne smiled, her eyes lighting up.
Elliott laughed and kissed the top of her head.
“But you can’t tell Mom,” Marianne cautioned him. “Deanna thinks she’s going to freak out because of the age thing.”
“Our mom? She thinks our mom would freak out? She’s met our mom, right?”
“She worries. It’s sweet.”
From over by the grill, Deanna was watching them, and yeah, that was worry creasing her brow and tugging her mouth down. Elliott had the impression she knew exactly what secrets Marianne was spilling.
He smiled at her, and she looked startled, and then embarrassed, and then she quickly turned her back to them.
Marianne stole a sip of his wine. “I’ve been looking at college courses.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “I’m thinking of nursing. The nurses at the hospital were so good to me. And the ones here at the clinic, too.”
“I think you’d be really good at that, Mar,” Elliott told her. “I think you’d be amazing.”
They fell silent as John, emboldened by more than a few glasses of wine, brought out his old acoustic guitar and strummed it a few times. Paula sat by him and watched fondly. Abby joined them.
“Ah,” John said. “Remember this one, Abby? You taught me to play this one.”
Elliott didn’t recognize the tune until John began to sing and Abby joined in, then Paula, and he realized it was Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to
the End of Love.” Elliott remembered his parents swaying together and singing it years and years before. He’d always found it somehow sad and beautiful at the same time, but his parents had smiled as they’d sung it, and they’d always been sure to end it with a kiss.
Elliott wanted that, one day.
He wanted someone who would kiss him when their song ended.
***
Tuesday was coupon day at Russo’s, and Elliott worked the lunchtime rush. Anyone who’d clipped the coupon out from the edge of the Barton Lake tourist map got half price on their second meal, and it was a trick the locals had wised up to long ago. Elliott wasn’t sure any of the Tuesday crowd were tourists at all. Most of them came straight from the old people’s home in Whitwell, and they were always super critical of the service, and of the food itself. And they were shitty tippers. Elliott hated Tuesdays, but he’d been taking as many shifts as he could in the two months since they’d gotten back from New York, and that included Tuesday lunchtimes. But there were a few regulars he liked and looked forward to seeing. Mrs. Ketteridge, who paid the tip with quarters. Mr. O’Brien: “Call me Bob.” There were one or two others whose names he didn’t know yet, but they were always polite and friendly.
Sometimes Elliott looked back over the past few months—his dad’s death, coming to California, that entire fucking disaster that had been New York—and thought that maybe, at last, he was getting a handle on things. He had his routine. Marianne was healing. Abby was spending more and more time in the shop, and with her enthusiasm for all of that “hippie bullshit”—Greta’s words—she was a better fit for the clientele than Elliott ever would be.
Greta was settling into school. She had friends now, an eclectic group of kids who were just as odd as she was. Elliott liked them.
Elliott finished his shift, shoved his apron into a plastic bag, and then headed for home.
It was a cold, wet day in Barton Lake. Elliott cut down the alley between the restaurant and the bookstore, and stepped into the laneway that ran behind Main Street. He avoided the worst of the puddles on the cracked asphalt by walking on the muddy verge where the wilted brown grass met the narrow road. It was easier to clean the mud off his shoes when he got home than have to dry them out entirely before his next shift.
