by Madrid, Liz
“Won’t you look at me?”
“What do you want from me, Riley? I’ve had a long day at work and I’m tired,” her father said, his eyes still glued to the screen. “Just say what you want to say.”
“Why do you hate me so much?”
Her father’s eyes fluttered, his gaze finally settling on her for a brief moment. But as soon as Riley saw it, saw his acknowledgement that she really was there, it was gone, and soon he was back staring at the TV screen again.
He didn’t say anything. He just took a deep breath and exhaled, his face clouding. Then he downed the rest of his beer, crumpled it in his hand and tossed it into a pile of other beer cans in a pink trashcan next to him. It was one of those cutesy plastic bins one picked up from the dollar store.
Riley took a deep breath and walked towards him. She knelt in front of him, both her hands gripping the ends of the arm rests, as if caging him. Why did her father have to freeze like that? She wondered as she looked at him. She knew she was trembling. She was scared.
But when one has been rejected for so long, what else was there to be afraid of?
“I didn’t cause mom’s death,” she said slowly. “I was only ten years old and I was home from school because I had the flu. I know you loved her, dad. You worshipped her, and it’s the way you treated her then — like a queen — that I know how it feels to be loved by someone. It’s that look you used to give her when you came home from the garage, the way you would dance with her even if she was in her wheelchair and you never noticed it.”
“Don’t-” Her father’s voice cracked as his eyes welled up with tears. He looked away from her, his eyes staring into space, his mouth set in straight line.
He could easily push her away, even kick her if he wanted like he did once so long ago, or demand that she leave. But he didn’t do any of that. He simply looked away from her, his breathing becoming deeper.
“Look at me, dad,” Riley pleaded.
“You know I can’t do that,” he whispered. “You killed her. If it weren’t you, she’d still be alive today. My Millie would still be around. She’d still be laughing, saying my name. She had the most beautiful voice.”
No, she wouldn’t, Riley wanted to tell him. She wouldn’t be able to do anything once the MS progressed. But no matter how true, it would have been cruel. In many ways, the fire had memorialized her mother before the disease would have progressed further. Though she couldn’t walk anymore, she could still use her arms, reading her books out loud to Riley. She could still cook, though they were the type of meals one threw together in the crockpot. She could still smile and laugh.
“I miss her, too, dad,” Riley said. “But I didn’t kill her. The fire did. The smoke did. I didn’t.”
She could have told her father that she’d tried to get her mother to get off her wheelchair and make it down the steps. Just grip the railings, mom, we can do it.
But her mother didn’t even want to try. She said no, pushed Riley away, and told her to go down the stairs alone. That she, Riley, could do it. She was strong enough.
You’ll be fine, my darling, she had said. You’re strong. Now be brave and go!
But she had refused, clinging to her mother even as the fire approached the landing. She had screamed, the sound of crackling fire filling the room, the heat hotter than she’d ever felt before, coming from downstairs where she’d later learn that their first floor neighbor had fallen asleep with a cigarette in bed, and books and newspapers all around him.
It’s for the best, love. I’m tired. One day you’ll understand. Now go, or I’ll be forced to push you down the stairs.
But of course, Riley didn’t go. She stayed with her mother, even after the door, a window, or a wall — she couldn’t remember now — popped and a piece of wood hit her in the arm and she screamed and smoke spilled into the hallway where they’d been waiting at the top of the stairs for help. Riley saw that smoke in her dreams, like fog rolling in, filling the corridor, creeping up the stairs, one step at a time.
“I didn’t kill her,” Riley said as her father’s breathing came in deep bursts, like he was struggling to breathe. As she pulled herself up, his breathing calmed and she wondered how her presence so close to him could make him feel like he was drowning. Did he hate her that much?
Still, it was something Riley had no control over. And she was done with worrying about things she couldn’t control — not that she would have wanted to control them if she could. She didn’t want to turn into Clint, micro-managing other people’s lives without their permission or knowledge. She didn’t want to be the grand master of other people’s lives — just her own.
“I hope you have a good Thanksgiving, dad,” she said. In the past, she and Paige usually came by to say hello, bearing sliced turkey and ham for they could never stay too long, not when their dad usually had friends over, like Gareth’s dad and other guys without families from the garage where he worked.
“Aren’t you coming?” He asked, his voice raspy.
“Would you want me to?”
“Not really. Not with that attitude,” he replied and Riley nodded, the pain in her chest deepening. She had asked for it this time, she thought. She should have known better than to ask him.
She nodded, finally done with the self-immolation, even if it were all emotional with no physical wounds to hide. She knew she had come here to do one thing, and she’d done it. She’d done what she could. Maybe she would keep reaching out to him like this, not caring whether she’d get the same answer though always hoping that one day, he’d tell her that he really did care for her, that it wasn’t her fault. But who was she fooling?
“Happy Thanksgiving,” she said, moving away from him and allowing him view of the TV screen again. “And Merry Christmas. I probably won’t be able to see you for the holidays.” Or at all, if she wanted to say the truth, but Riley doubted it would faze him. She had to stop being his whipping boy. Or was it whipping girl?
“Why? Where are you going?”
She shrugged. “Nowhere. I’ll still be around. I just can’t be where I’m not wanted.”
Her father frowned as Riley headed towards the door, reaching for the doorknob.
“She called you her Mini-Millie. Did you know that?”
Riley stopped and turned to look back at him. “No, I didn’t.”
“That’s why I can’t stand to look at you. You look just like her — only you’re not her. You’re just the one who killed her,” he said, his eyes looking into space as he popped open another can of beer and took a sip. “I just want her back, Riley. Is that too much to ask? I just want my wife back.”
When her father finally burst to tears, Riley took a step towards him but he brought up his hand, palm facing her. It felt like a slap to the face, but then, Riley realized that she should have known better. How many more times would she do this? How many more times would she be able to handle his rejection of her?
“I didn’t kill her, dad,” Riley said. “And I won’t let you make me believe that I did either. Not anymore. It’s just too much and I’m tired carrying it around. I couldn’t help being ten. I couldn’t help being too small to help her down the stairs. But she didn’t want to go down the stairs. Can you understand that? She could have, but she didn’t want to.”
“Don’t you dare tell me what she wanted,” he said quietly. “You didn’t know what she wanted.”
Her father wiped the tears from his face and glared at her. This time, she realized that he really was seeing her. Or maybe it was her just hoping he was seeing her.
“Just get out,” he said. “If you came here to say goodbye, then you’ve done it. But you’ll be back. I know it. You always come back.”
Riley sighed. It was useless, and she didn’t need to stand there one more minute feeling herself being weighed down by the guilt all over again. She’d allowed it to frame her whole life and all her relationships for so long, and she needed desperately to move forward.
�
��Bye, dad,” she said, opening the door and letting herself out. She’d tried all that she could and there was just no use.
Riley Eames simply needed to move on.
33
Dry Run
It wasn’t easy walking out of her old house without crying, but Riley didn’t care. By the time she reached the subway, the cold dry air had dried up her tears and she decided to go to the Library. Now that she felt she had done what she could to move on from her guilt over her mother’s death and her father’s blame, she needed to figure out how to extricate herself from Clint’s financial grasp and move on with her life without his influence. If she was cleaning house, why not go all the way?
So Riley decided to talk to Allen and figure out exactly what Clint’s terms had been when she became a business partner. How much had Clint loaned him? What were the terms?
It wasn’t as if she’d done nothing but take Clint’s money all these years. Though she hadn’t gone to a traditional college, she might as well have done the equivalent of one when it came to coffee and running the Library Cafe. It was how she knew the difference between Arabica and Robusta, fair trade, shade-grown, and why dark roasts, light roasts, and French roasts were just not the same, and why she was quite picky when it came to different varieties of coffee that the Library would carry, and not just settle for what was easier to purchase in bulk. They could, but it was her decision not to. It meant that coffee and espresso at the Library Cafe sometimes seemed overpriced, but only because a macchiato — or at least a real one at that — was actually a perfectly brewed espresso with a sliver of foamed milk and absolutely no sugar or syrup.
She did her fair share to run the shop, putting more hours than she should, spending days off when she should be doing something else. She worked the hours she was supposed to and hardly ever took a day off. She trained the baristas on the job, after work, and only had the ones who’d proven themselves to know their coffee behind the espresso machines.
But she’d also hidden herself behind her job all that time in the hopes of forgetting what had happened between her and Gareth, how they’d both messed up. Her, when she lost it in that movie producer’s party, and him, long before, when he slept with Paige and fathered her three boys.
In the back office, Riley and Allen came to a tentative agreement. Until they’d finally sit before a financial adviser who was not Clint Caldwell, Riley would buy Allen out by the middle of the following year. She’d figure out the specifics later. She knew that she had half of what she needed sitting in mutual funds that she could withdraw and the other half, she’d simply take out a loan for. Then she’d figure out how to repay Clint’s initial investment.
It could work. It could not. But Riley knew that she had to start learning how to do things on her own. She’d relied too much on other people to do things for her, that it was time she learned how to do the same things herself.
By the time she arrived home, it was 9:30 in the evening and after a quick shower, she dressed in pajamas and settled on the couch with Miss Bailey. She didn’t really want to think of that afternoon’s conversations with Clint or Paige, or her father, though they were the only things she could think of as she sat alone on the couch chewing on her cuticles. It was as if someone had left a movie on continuous loop, and the images and the accompanying awful dialogues simply kept playing over and over. And they would have played over and over if her phone hadn’t beeped, interrupting her thoughts.
“I didn’t hear from you all afternoon,” Ashe said, his voice worried. “Are you alright?”
“I am now,” Riley said, smiling and forcing all thoughts of Clint, Paige and her father from her mind. She was going to see this as a new start, even if it was nothing but a simple phone call. She had to. If Ashe’s appearance in her life told Riley one thing, it was that new beginnings were always around the corner, even if sometimes they took the appearance of Hollywood’s latest boy toy and a stuck elevator. But then, it could be worse.
“Have you had dinner?” he asked.
Riley’s stomach growled as if response, and she realized she hadn’t eaten anything since the light lunch they had at the Village before ending up at the park. It was so like Ashe to call and check up on her since he’d become familiar with the way she ate, which basically was only whenever she remembered, and that if left to her own devices, she’d be inhaling coffee all day and call it a balanced diet.
“No, I haven’t,” she replied. “But I’m too tired to go out, Ashe. It’s almost ten.”
“It’s never too late to eat, Riley, especially if you haven’t eaten anything other than the salad you had for brunch” he said. “Anyway, I made some dinner. Well, actually, it’s my dry run for Thanksgiving.”
“Would you like me to come over?” She asked, hoping that he’d say no and tell her he’d be on his way. Riley was feeling guilty for spending too much time at his apartment anyway, leaving poor Miss Bailey alone all the time.
“No, stay where you are,” Ashe said. “I know you need your time alone so I’ll drop off dinner and head back home.”
“No, you don’t have to do that-”
Her doorbell rang then and Riley got up from her couch, wondering who would come over at this time of the night. Was it Paige, needing to talk? As far as Riley was concerned, she was done talking. Besides, why hadn’t Frank called to let her know she had a visitor? Or maybe it was Wayne come over to say hello. But as she peered through the peephole, she grinned and opened the door.
She laughed. “What if I had said no?”
Ashe shrugged. He was standing outside her door with a paper bag tucked under his arm. “Then Frank would have to be the royal taster and tell me whether I did good or not. I don’t think he’d have minded. And if not Frank, then I’d be eating it all on my own, and my trainer would not be happy. I’m supposed to be ripped by the New Year and Josh will probably put me on a protein shake diet come Christmas.”
“But you are ripped,” Riley chuckled.
“Not ripped enough,” Ashe made a face. “I just saw a picture of the one-piece suit I’m wearing for the next movie I’m filming in April, and it’s so fitting you can practically tell my religion.”
“Guess I’ll need to rescue you then,” Riley laughed, making way for Ashe to step inside and deposit the paper bag on her kitchen counter.
“I’m serious. I really was just going to drop these off for you, Riley,” he said. “I didn’t plan on staying.”
“Shut up, Ashe, and come here,” Riley said, and Ashe stepped into her arms, enveloping her in a deep embrace. She listened to the sound of his heartbeat through his jacket, feeling herself settle down, the warmth of his body grounding her.
“I do want company, yours most of all,” she said, holding him. “And since you’re bearing gifts, I’m not about to refuse them. We can even talk about this religion thing later on, and if you want, I can even check.”
“That’s not such a bad idea,” Ashe chuckled, kissed her on her forehead and disentangled himself from her arms. “But do let me present you the dinner entree before we get too caught up with whatever religion I practice.”
As he began unloading the plastic containers from the paper bag, Riley saw how proud he was to show off his creations. His face took on a boyish glow as he named each dish, setting each container on her kitchen counter. There was shepherd’s pie in a glass container covered in foil and still warm, sautéed green beans and Brussels sprouts with herbs in another glass bowl and this time with its lid included, and grape and almond frangipani tart in two small foil pie dishes.
“You went all out with the menu,” Riley laughed, opening a bottle of red wine to compliment the meal. “I’m speechless. You really can cook, too. You’re making me look so bad.”
“Thank goodness I had my mum write down her recipe for the pie to the letter. The rest, I went online and all I had to do was follow all the directions,” he said. “Besides, I have to be busy when I’m anxious.”
“And why wer
e you anxious?” Riley couldn’t help but chuckle. Thank goodness he didn’t have her drama. His abs would be soft by Thanksgiving.
“Because I didn’t know how you were doing — if your meeting with Clint went alright, or not. And then you sent a text instead of calling me, and you only really text me when you’re upset. So I cooked,” he said, doling out a generous serving of each dish on her plate, except for the tarts, which he was reserving for dessert. “At first it was just the meat pie but then I figured I might as well make some vegetables, too, in case you weren’t into lamb, because you know it’s not shepherd’s pie unless it’s lamb.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” Ashe said, handing the laden plate to her. “I just hope everything turned out alright.”
Riley didn’t know whether he meant his cooking or her meeting with the Caldwell’s and then her dad. But the specifics of his question didn’t really matter. Not at that moment. There was a time for everything, and right now, Riley wanted that moment to just be about her and Ashe.
“I guess we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?”
She took a bite of the shepherd’s pie and made a sound that made Ashe furrow his brow, probably unsure whether the sound she just made was a good sign or not. Then a bite of a Brussels sprout, roasted whole but glistening from still-warm olive oil and herbs.
“Well, I’m waiting,” he said and Riley couldn’t help but giggle. Whether he was doing it intentionally or not, Ashe always knew how to make her smile.
“Well, the food is perfect,” She smiled, touched his face from across the kitchen counter. His stubble scratched her fingers. “As for everything else, I’m sure it’ll all work out just fine. It’ll just take some time.”
*
After dinner, as she lay in bed with Ashe, nestled under the crook of his arm with her head on his chest, Riley told him what happened, though she left out her meeting with her father. He didn’t need to know that, at least not yet though one day, she’d tell him. She had enough baggage as it was — no point in scaring the poor man with more. So she told him about Clint and about the triplets, about how Gareth was their father.