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“Yeah.” Carly patted Ellen’s shoulder. “Don’t sweat it. He has that effect on most women. I had a crush on him once, too, back in the day. Unrequited, of course. Took me a while to wise up and figure out Caleb made a better friend than boyfriend. He goes through girlfriends like Chiclets. And anyway, I’m not his type.”
The assessment made Ellen’s heart sink. “What’s his type?”
Two cars pulled up in front of the bookstore just then, one right after the other, distracting her from Carly’s answer. “You.”
Ellen knew those cars. The brown sedan belonged to Weasel Face, and the other had at one time been hers.
Richard. Goddamn it.
She’d seen him as rarely as possible since the divorce—only twice since Henry’s first birthday—but the grapevine said his drinking and undergraduate screwing had gotten so out of hand, he was on the verge of being fired.
Not that Ellen kept tabs. People volunteered the information. She tried her best to forget Richard existed, relying on Maureen to make sure he was sober for his weekly visit with Henry.
He’d been calling her lately, and whenever his name came up among her transcribed voice mails, she just hit delete. Delete, delete, delete.
“That’s your daddy,” Henry said, spying Richard when he straightened and closed the door of the Civic.
“I know it, baby.” Sorry.
“Hello, Els,” Richard said. “Hi, Henry. Fancy meeting you here.”
The bookstore entrance swung open and disgorged two people Ellen recognized from her faculty-party days. Weasel Face clambered over his armrest into the backseat of his car, rooting around for something. Richard smiled, and Ellen marveled that he could be so much the same.
The same disheveled mop of black hair brushing his collar. The same casual poet-wear, a T-shirt from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in Vermont paired with his favorite battered black leather vest and blue jeans.
It was like this every time, the recognition. His familiarity was such an unpleasant distraction from her resentment. She hated being forced to remember that she’d loved him once. That she used to lie in Soldier Field in the summer with her head in his lap, smiling up at him as he read Keats to her.
How special she’d felt in those early days in Chicago. How beyond the mundane! It had given her such a thrill back then, to think she was this man’s everything. Never once had it occurred to her that being his everything would mean she’d have nothing left for herself.
The lines in his face were deeper than she remembered them, and he reeked of tobacco. Her Richard had rarely smoked. Her Richard had been younger than this man, affectionate and romantic.
But her Richard had never really existed, and the Richard Morrow standing in front of her was a lush and an adulterer and a jerk.
He was also Henry’s father. The sad thing was, that had to outweigh every other consideration.
“Hello,” someone said. She supposed it was her, but it felt like another woman’s voice, another woman’s tongue.
“That is?” Henry asked. Weasel Face had emerged from his sedan, rested his butt against the hood, and started fiddling with his camera.
“Shit,” Carly whispered. “Camera. We have to go.”
Richard seized Ellen’s hand—a move that so astonished her, she failed to react. His palm felt perfectly normal. Perfectly familiar. It creeped her out.
“I’m so glad to see you here,” he said, “because I’d really like to talk to you. You haven’t been returning my calls.”
“What do you want?”
“I’m sober. A month on Monday. I’m going to meetings.”
The photographer lifted the camera and started shooting Carly.
“Damn it,” Carly said under her breath, one protective hand on her stomach. She tugged on Ellen’s upper arm, pulling her back the way they’d come. “Ellen, we have to get out of here.”
Richard didn’t release her hand. “I want to see more of Henry.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“I want to see more of both of you.”
