The Dirty Truth

In trying to make things better for my niece, I’m certain I made them worse.

While there’s no rewriting the past, I can only hope I’m making up for it now.

In my younger days, I was convinced money could do anything you told it to do. But as the years ticked by, I learned the hard way that it only magnifies us. If we’re good people at heart, it makes us better. But if we are selfish, lazy, and unmotivated, it only enriches those qualities tenfold.

Rising from my chair, I switch off the lamp and close the door to my study before making my way to the elevator.

“I want to see you again, Mama. I miss you so much,” I hear Scarlett say from the end of the hall.

My chest tightens as I press the call button and step inside the elevator car.

I may have sole physical and legal custody of Scarlett and intend to see her into adulthood and beyond, but depriving her of her relationship with her mother would be cruel. She’d never understand and she’d never forgive me, and I don’t know that there’s anything to be gained from withholding that from her as long as their exchanges don’t put Scarlett in any kind of danger.

I step off on my floor and head to my suite, stopping at the door to gather my thoughts. Scarlett’s been begging to go back to Nebraska since the second she stepped off the plane at JFK months back.

While I have no desire to make my presence known in Whitebridge ever again in this lifetime, now that Elle’s in the picture, I might be willing to arrange for a quick weekend getaway. Scarlett would need to be fully supervised, of course. And she’d need to continue to walk a straight line through the end of the school year.

But I’ll consider it.

I wash up for bed before shooting Elle a text, proposing this idea.

ELLE: I’m more than willing to take her. Poor thing is so homesick, West. It’d be a game-changer for sure. Would really lift her spirits.

ME: How was she tonight?

ELLE: Again, not her babysitter . . .

ME: Well aware. I’m asking if you think she’s doing better. She seemed to be in a good mood tonight when she came home.

ELLE: We had fun. And for the record, she didn’t complain about you once tonight which is a first. I think you’re making progress . . .

I begin to type a response, something along the lines of how this wouldn’t be possible without her help—but I delete it all. I’ve never been a sentimental sap. No need to start now.

ME: I’ll book the flights tomorrow. Good night, Elle.

ELLE: Good night, Superman.

I darken my screen and hit the pillow with a ridiculous grin commandeering my lips. And then I roll to my side, facing the empty half of my bed. Squinting, I imagine her beside me. The warmth of her body, the cashmere feel of her skin beneath my palms, the heat of her mouth against mine, her sugar-sweet scent dragging into my lungs.

Reaching for my phone, I spend the next several hours googling the ever-loving fuck out of Elle Napier.

While I’ve been content to maintain the “perfect” version of her I conjured up in my head the first day I laid eyes on her, I’m finding it difficult to stop thinking about her lately. Perhaps if I found something less than savory about her, a flaw or black mark of some kind, a reason to keep her from running laps in my mind . . . I could snap some sense into myself.

Ninety minutes later, I emerge from a wholesome rabbit hole of Napier family social media photos. Like a damn stalker, I flicked through every public photo Elle, her mother, and her sisters posted with eagle-eyed scrutiny, zooming in and out in search of anything and everything that could possibly signify that Elle isn’t all she seems.

But she’s all carefree smiles and good times.

And the Napiers are just a regular, tight-knit family from some small town in Louisiana.

They love boating. Fourth of July celebrations. Family trips to the mountains. Reunions and anniversaries. Christmastime, weddings, and babies.

From what I can gather, Elle Napier is the kind you keep. The prettiest girl in the room, though she never acts like it. Witty and brave. An uncomplicated breath of fresh air. A yes-woman in the best of ways.

Will would’ve loved her.

And maybe I could, too, if I were capable of that sort of thing.

In the moments before I finally succumb to the day’s exhaustion, I paint a mental picture of the life Elle deserves. A blue-blooded, pedigreed man to sweep her off her feet and place a permanent light in her ocean eyes. The kind of man she can take home to her parents and who would fit into those mile-wide family portraits they hang above their mantel each year. A guy who can roll around in the grass with her nieces and nephews and play a mean game of boccie ball with her brothers-in-law before drinking an ice-cold IPA with her father on the porch.