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“She’ll lose her scholarship if she leaves,” I said, and Hannah just nodded.
“I know.”
“What could we do to make her stay?”
“Find an apartment that is magically cheap and also close to the university before she leaves for the Pacific Northwest this afternoon?”
I growled under my breath and stood, stressed.
“Dad,” Hannah said, and I turned to see tears in her eyes, “she’s my best friend, and I never ask you for anything, butpleasefind a way to make her stay.”
Strangely, this was the closest moment I’d had with Hannah in a long time. I could feel our aching hearts reaching out to each other. In a move that I rarely ever made, and not since Hannah was thirteen-years-old, I pulled my daughter into a hug. She was stiff at first but melted into it. I wondered what I’d been missing all these years if this was what hugging her felt like. I resolved that after today, I would hug my daughter more often. No matter what happened with my love life and her best friend, she was the person that had always been by my side.
“I will, Hannah, I promise.”
She had left after that, and I sat back at my desk, my heart torn by the girl I’d raised and the woman who was slowly stealing my heart. I did some calculations, my mind whirring, and kicked myself at the only solution I could think of that would save Evelyn’s pride and my heart. I stood, wondering just how awkward it could make our lives. I wandered into my living room and stared out at the view of the street when I saw someone small rush up, stopping across the street to stare at the house.
Evelyn.
I could see from here the expression on her face. She was smiling widely but also panting. She was dragging a suitcase with her, and her hair was all messed up; she had probably run all the way here.
I was in love with her.
The surety of it struck my ribcage just as it had all those years ago with Ruth. The reason I cared, the reason I couldn’t let her return to Oregon wasn’t just the fear of what it would do to my daughter. It was also the awareness that if I did let her go, I’d never get her back, and I was completely, breathtakingly, heartbreakingly, in love with her, and I had to tell her. I had to do it before she got on a plane and traveled further than I’d ever be able to reach. I turned and swept down the stairs, taking them two at a time, and only calming my pace when I reached the ground floor. I stepped into the foyer, and she was there, looking as lovely and perfect as every time I had seen her. Her hair was windswept, curls frizzing where they landed. Her eyes were heavy with sadness and exhaustion, but something else as well—resolve.
She moved, and it was like my body responded automatically to her presence.
“Evelyn,” I said.
Her name was a lyric on my tongue, fourteen years of waiting to feel whole again funneled into that one, precious word.
She started forward, her eyes locked on mine, and her mouth open. She didn’t need to say it, because I knew what words were on her tongue already.
“Julian,” she started, and my heart beat faster, just because she said my name, “You need to know that I l-”
And then Hannah was there. She was holding the piece of paper on which I’d made all the calculations, and she was smiling from ear to ear. The bubble between us was burst, and I had to take a moment to catch my breath, to remember that my daughter existed, and that we could probably never be together. Evelyn was staring with large doe eyes at Hannah like she was caught doing something she shouldn’t have been doing, but Hannah didn’t notice. She just moved closer to her friend with the paper, and showed it to her.
“You don’t have to move away!” she cried happily.
Evelyn took a moment to think before pulling the paper towards herself and looking at it. I wasn’t sure if it made any sense, but she looked at me and smiled. There was a look in her eyes that said she was glad she didn’t finish saying what she was going to, and I felt my heart drop into my stomach.
“So basically,” I was explaining, “this works like the other maids’ contracts, except you’ll have some money cut from your pay because you’re sleeping on Hannah’s floor.”
Evelyn was looking over the contract, wide-eyed. I was sitting with her and my daughter at our large dining room table. We were all nursing cups of coffee, and Evelyn’s bag had already been taken to her room by Victoria.
“You’repayingme?” she said disbelievingly.
If I told her I was paying her because her other job had gone under, she’d have left. So instead, I shrugged and answered:
“Yes, for doing the same job as any of my other employees.”
If she would have let me, she’d live for free. She nodded contently though like it assuaged some kind of moral obligation to know she’d be cleaning up after my daughter and myself. What she didn’t know was that I might have fudged the numbers so she would be receiving more money than previously intended. I wanted to know that after she lived with us, she’d be comfortable. I slid the paper with the number on it over to her, and she shook her head, gasping.
“You can’t pay me that much!”
“It’s exactly as much as I pay the other maids,” I insisted.
That much was true, just the part about me cutting her pay was a lie.
