“He’s none of your business, that’s who he is. And I have nothing to say to you. So go home, Tobias.”
I folded my arms over my chest and widened my stance. “You heard the lady.”
He scoffed at me. “What are you going to do, punch me?”
My hands were already balled into fists. Sure, why not? Give me a reason, asshole. “Why don’t you just listen to what your ex-wife is saying and take off? Obviously you’re not welcome here.”
Hailey came to the door. “Who’s this?”
Elodie answered. “This is Tobias. My ex-husband. Would you mind rolling my suitcase out from the bedroom, Hailey?”
My niece shrugged. “Sure.”
Elodie stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind her. “As you can see, we’re on our way out. So why don’t you send me an email if you need to talk to me.”
He sighed. “It’s about Bree.”
“What about her?”
“My mother asked me to speak to you.” The douchebag glanced over at me. “Can we speak in private, please? It’s a family matter.”
Elodie blew out a deep breath. “Fine. But we need to get on the road.” She turned to me. “Would you mind waiting five more minutes, Hollis?”
I didn’t want to leave her alone with this guy, but Elodie obviously didn’t feel she would be in danger. I nodded. “Hailey and I will wait in the car.”
“Thank you.”
Hailey brought the suitcase to the door, and I picked it up and loaded it into my trunk. Elodie’s ex-husband seemed like a real dick. Rather than wait inside the car, I leaned against the driver’s side door, keeping my eye on the house. Hailey did the same thing right next to me. Looking over at her protective stance, I realized how comical we probably looked, both standing guard with our arms folded across our chests. Though I didn’t give a shit.
“Did you see that?” Hailey said.
“What?” My eyes had been glued to the front door. I couldn’t have missed something.
“Next door. The blinds moved, and I saw a woman. I think she’s watching us or something.”
“Oh. That’s probably Elodie’s friend Bree. She lives next door. I’m sure she’s just keeping an eye out, making sure everything is okay.”
Two minutes later, I saw the blinds move next door. Her friend was definitely watching us. But not long after, Elodie’s front door opened, and her ex walked out. I stretched my spine straight.
He gave me the evil eye as he passed, but said nothing while he walked back to his car and got in.
Elodie walked down the front path with her purse. “Sorry about that.”
“Is everything okay?”
She looked back at her friend’s house and frowned. “Not really. Would you mind if I took five more minutes?”
“Not at all. Go do whatever you need to do. We were early.”
“Thank you.”
I gave Elodie privacy this time and got into the car while she went next door to her friend’s. Fifteen minutes later, she opened the passenger door to my car. Her face was puffy with tears.
“Elodie?”
She shook her head and looked forward. “Not now.”
“You want to take a few more minutes? Go inside and wash up?”
“No. I just want to go.”
I nodded and started the car.***Hailey went to the newsstand across from the gate to look at magazines. Elodie had been quiet the entire trip to the airport.
“You want to talk about it?” I said softly.
“About Tobias? No. But about Bree? Maybe.”
I shifted in my seat to give her my attention, while still keeping an eye on the newsstand. “Whatever you want.”
“I’ve told you my best friend is sick. Bree had been part of an experimental treatment for her condition. She has lymphangioleiomyomatosis.”
“That’s a mouthful.”
She nodded. “It’s an incurable lung disease. She doesn’t talk about it much, doesn’t want to burden me with the details. Which I think is stupid, but that’s who she is. It’s important to her to not disrupt my life—so she plays down how she’s feeling. Tobias’s mother, Mariah, is married to Bree’s father, and yesterday Bree told her father that she’d stopped the experimental treatment. It’s making her really sick and dizzy, more out of breath than usual. But the new drugs were basically a last hope. Bree won’t listen to her dad, so Tobias came to talk to me to see if I could intervene. His family doesn’t know our marriage ended poorly. We told them we jumped into things too fast and realized we were better off as friends.”
I nodded. “I understand. And I’m sorry about your friend. Did your talking with her help any?”
She shook her head. “She promised she’d think about going back to the treatments. But I know her, it was just to get me out the door.”
I thought about what I’d gone through with my mom at the end. The treatments had made her so sick. “My mom had cancer. She died when I was nineteen after multiple rounds of chemo. At the end, she chose to stop all treatments and enjoy the days she had left. It was really hard to accept. There’re just some things in life we can’t change. So we need to change to deal with them. And that’s much easier said than done.”