There had been a time when she would have sold her soul to have Richard look at her like this. To hear that she was his lodestar, or his muse, or some other fancy, silly thing.
Ellen closed her eyes for a few seconds, searching around to determine if any part of the dazy, yearny, sappy girl she’d once been still survived.
Nope. Nothing there. That was the thing about parenthood, wasn’t it? It beat whatever was left of your idiot adolescence right out of you.
Eyes still closed, she leaned forward and put her elbows on her own knees, matching Richard’s posture. His tobacco breath fanned over her face, but she endured it, because she wanted to be sure he really heard what she was about to say. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.” Oh, anything, Els. Ask me for the moon and the stars, and I shall give them to you.
Okay, so he hadn’t said that. But it was by no means beneath him.
“Why do you still call me ‘Els’ when I’ve told you repeatedly that I hate it?”
A sharp crease appeared between his eyebrows, and he said, “It suits you. I’ve always thought of you as my Els.”
She opened her eyes, meeting his familiar blue gaze. With her index finger, she tapped him sharply on the knee. “That’s your problem, Richard. Right there. That’s the reason we’re never getting back together.”
He squinted at her, then shook his head, a study in ponderous confusion. Richard had always been so great at projecting weighty emotions. He should have been a Shakespearean actor. He’d make a fantastic King Lear. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t see me, and you don’t listen, either. I’ve always been an accessory to you, not a person.”
“That’s not true. I have an illness, but I’ve been working on it, Els, and—”
She raised an eyebrow. “You just did it again.”
“Did what?”
“Called me ‘Els.’ ”
“It’s only a name, babe. I know that if we—”
“It’s not only a name. It’s a symptom of what’s wrong, what was always wrong between the two of us. And even if you magically woke up tomorrow morning having learned how to care what I want to be called—even if you really have stopped drinking, and you started showing up for all your scheduled visitations with Henry and gave me some evidence that you care about your son—I’m still not going to fall into your lap, Richard. I’m done with you. We’re over.”
He stared at her for a long time, the angry furrow returning between his eyebrows. He looked heartbreakingly like Henry on the verge of a tantrum. Same blue eyes, same knitted forehead. His hand clutched at his knee, and she thought, He wishes he had a glass in that hand. If he had a drink right now, he’d knock the whole thing back in one go, because Richard doesn’t know how to deal with this kind of thing without alcohol.
But she wasn’t responsible for making his life easier for him. He’d turned up in her backyard. He had to deal with the consequences of his actions, same as anybody.
“I don’t understand,” he said for the second time.
He would never understand.
Picking up the contract off her lap, she prepared to go back to work. “Buh-bye now, Richard. See you around.”
It took a full minute, but eventually he did get up and amble off. No doubt he’d pick up Cassie’s phone number on the way out.
Cassie could play the part of his new lodestar if she wanted to. Ellen no longer saw the appeal in being any man’s guiding light.
Caleb picked at his falafel and stared out the windshield of his mother’s car.
He tried not to think about what Ellen had been doing around the back of her house with her ex-husband. Tried not to think about the quick glimpse he’d caught from Carly’s driveway of the two of them inches apart and leaning toward each other.
Of Ellen with her eyes closed, waiting to be kissed.
“Eat, Caleb,” his mother said firmly. “You need to keep your strength up.”
She’d brought him the sandwich and some cookies—lunch at four o’clock—and insisted he consume them in her presence. He took another bite, but he couldn’t taste anything. It was like eating cotton balls. He forced it down with a long swig of iced tea.
Ellen wouldn’t kiss Richard. Wouldn’t. No matter how pissed she was with Caleb, she flat-out disliked her ex.