Looking Inside

She left directly from work to go to her parents’ house in Evanston. With all the bustle of the private showing that day, and then maneuvering through city holiday traffic, she didn’t have much of a chance to dwell or worry about what had happened with Trey Riordan.

It wasn’t until she drove through the familiar, sedate neighborhood where she’d grown up that evening that the detailed memories of the night before began to wash over her. It seemed right and adult of her to have snuck out before dawn without his knowledge.

It also struck her as cowardly and stupid.

He said he wanted to see me again . . . that we should undertake a sexual discovery that blended their kinks. He doesn’t even have my phone number. How’s he supposed to contact me, even if he wants to? Why didn’t I leave some kind of simple, evocative note behind on the bedside table with my phone number on it?

Because I’m crap at this, that’s why.

Her ruminations sent a rush of anxiety through her. Why did she always feel like she was on the very verge of either making something big happen with Trey Riordan or blowing it entirely? In reality, it was probably something in the gray area in between, where one stupid move on her part could leave him puzzled or turned off, all too ready to walk away with a shrug.

The recollections of her night with him struck her as sensually vibrant and intensely real, and at the same time, felt like she was having memories of another person’s life. The museum was Eleanor’s world, the basement archives, the temperature-regulated storage facilities, the endless rooms filled with precious ephemera. This was her world too—or at least it once had been—she thought as she drove down the tree-lined Evanston street with the attractive, older houses.

She pulled into the driveway and put her car in park. For a minute, she just sat there, staring out the windshield at her childhood home. Hers and Caddy’s.

After Caddy’s death four months ago, Eleanor had been to the house almost every day for weeks on end. Quite a few relatives had stayed there during Caddy’s last days, and then through the funeral. Eleanor had been there to help out her parents, provide meals, drive people back and forth to the airport and hospital, pick up the groceries—all the minutia and details that gave structure to a day and helped a person cope when death loomed. After Caddy had passed, and the house had cleared out, she’d also returned frequently. She was uncomfortably conscious of just how empty the house would seem to her parents, all too aware of how that ringing silence could just crash down on you one day.

Over the past two months, however, she’d come here less often. There didn’t seem to be as much need. Her parents had returned to their normal routine and functioning. On the surface, anyway.

But here it was: a holiday. And suddenly Eleanor knew with absolute certainty why all the psychological experts said the first holidays and anniversaries without the loved one were the hardest. Last year on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, she’d pulled up into this very driveway just like she had ever since she’d left for college at eighteen.

None of them had had a clue about how their lives would change forever that following year.

She glanced over at the empty passenger seat. Last year, Caddy had sat there. She recalled her sister had been going through the pros and cons of taking a partner position in a legal practice in Los Angeles.

“Yeah, it’s an amazing salary and opportunity . . . but come on,” Caddy joked as Eleanor put the car in park.

“What?” Eleanor asked in confusion.

“Me? L.A.? We just don’t mix,” Caddy said with a sideways grin as she gathered up her purse and discarded coffee cup. She noticed Eleanor’s puzzlement. “Okay, for one thing, people in L.A. drive everywhere. I like to drink, Nora, but I don’t drink and drive. Nobody walks there. Nobody takes mass transportation.”

“You’re not going to take this fantastic job because of alcohol?” Of course Eleanor knew that wasn’t the truth. There were likely tons of good reasons Caddy wasn’t going to take the job. But Caddy wasn’t one to hash out boring details and get all serious . . . even on a serious topic, like a job change.

Caddy just rolled her eyes humorously and opened the car door. “I’ve turned down jobs for much less of a reason. Oh, here comes Catherine the Great,” Caddy hissed over her shoulder. “Don’t say anything to Mom about L.A. She’ll dig her teeth into the topic and gnaw it to pieces by the time we leave on Friday. I’ll have no choice but to take the damn job just to contradict all her arguments against it.”

Eleanor gave a sad smile at the memory. Caddy always did have a way of stating the truth with hilarity.

—

It was a Thanksgiving tradition for Eleanor and Caddy to watch the Dallas-Detroit game with their dad while her mother did the post-meal cleanup. On holidays, Catherine Briggs got out her good dishes, and no one in existence could handle, wash and store them in the way she wanted. Caddy, Eleanor and their dad had learned long ago to leave her to fuss over her china and crystal while they sought safe refuge in front of the TV.

Today, the chair where Caddy usually sat in the family room seemed almost obscenely empty.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Eleanor heard her mom call loudly over the sound of rattling dishes and the cheer of the crowd on the television. “We’re going to watch the video I found in the attic!”

Eleanor gave her dad an “oh no” look. Her father grimaced in shared understanding.

“She found an old video of a ballet recital in the attic, and insisted we watch it while you were here,” her dad said under his breath.

“Of both of us?” Eleanor asked quietly, meaning Caddy and her.

“That’s what your mom says,” he muttered resignedly, turning up the volume on the television.

Last night and today, an alarm had started to wail in Eleanor’s head in regard to her dad. David Briggs seemed largely his wry, brilliant, jocular self, but there was an indefinable heaviness to him that was only growing since Caddy’s death. His complexion looked a little gray. Of the three of them, Eleanor worried her father had taken the loss of Caddy hardest. Eleanor had always been the quiet, serious, bookish type. Catherine’s intensity and passion were unquenchable. It was her father’s cheerful character, his light-hearted tendency to find a joke or a bright spot in even in the most serious of situations that was most similar to Caddy. It was the part of his personality that seemed to wither a little after Caddy had passed.

Her dad was a physicist, so a lot of people assumed he’d be an academic bore. He always proved them wrong, however. He was urbane and knowledgeable about everything from art to pop culture to good food and gracious entertaining. As a graduate of the school and a longtime professor, he was a huge Northwestern sports booster. Some of Eleanor’s earliest memories were of their fun, well-attended tailgate parties before football games, her dad relishing his role as chief cook, her mom’s homemade Russian kolbassa and his burgers sizzling side-by-side on the grill.

Over Thanksgiving, Eleanor noticed that her dad didn’t laugh as frequently as he used to. He was just a little more terse and short with his wife.