"Yeah, sweetheart. Give me a second."
I fill a glass and walk it down the hall. Lily takes it. She glances past me toward the kitchen, then back with a smirk on her face.
"Goodnight, Dad."
"Goodnight, Lil."
When I come back, Ellie is standing with her tote over her shoulder, not meeting my eyes. Her fingers shake on the strap. I walk her to the front door.
The porch light catches the rain. Fine mist, spring weather, the kind that gets into everything. She turns in the doorway to say something and the words don't come. She's close enough that I can see the pulse in her throat, the way her lips part around whatever she meant to say. Her eyes drop to my mouth and stay there.
I could close the distance. One step. My hand finds the doorframe instead.
She exhales, steps back, pulls her jacket tighter.
"Thank you," I say. "For helping her."
"Of course, I love Lily, she's such an amazing girl." She's halfway to her car when I say it.
"Ellie."
She stops. Turns. I'm in the doorway with the light behind me and my fists in my pockets because if I take them out I'll reach for her.
"That's not what I mean. When I say thank you." I hold her across the wet front walk. "It's not just for Lily."
She stands in the rain for a long second. Then she dips her chin and turns for her car.
The headlights sweep across the house. Then she's gone.
Ellie's photographs sit in a neat stack where she left them, and the chair across from mine is empty. Lily's light is off down the hall.
Her coffee mug sits by the sink, the blue one, forgotten. I pick it up and find coral lipstick on the rim.
I wash it, dry it, and open the cabinet. Lily's mug on the left, the purple one she picked out at a craft fair when she was six. Maren's in the middle, white ceramic, untouched for eight years because throwing it out felt like a second funeral and using it felt worse. I set the blue one on the right.
Three mugs in a row.
I close the cabinet and stand in my kitchen and let myself think about what life would look like with Ellie in it.
My phone buzzes on the counter.
Thank you for dinner.
I type and delete two responses before I send one.
Anytime.
A minute passes.
Goodnight, Colt.
Not Mr. Rivers. Colt.
Goodnight, Ellie.
Chapter 5
Ellie
