Page 33 of Pipe Dreams
“In a minute. There’s a couple of things I need to talk to you about.”
“What?” She stuck her hand in the popcorn bowl.
“I found you a math tutor.”
Elsa pulled a face. “Yippee.”
“This young woman was recommended by your school counselor.” He’d spent the plane ride back from D.C. catching up on all things Elsa. “She’s fun, apparently. You’re seeing her on Tuesday.”
“Fine. What’s the other thing?”
The other thing was even trickier.
Mike leaned forward and pulled a FedEx envelope off the coffee table. “This came in the mail, and I really don’tknow what to think about it.” He pulled two sealed envelopes out of the big one. One was fat, as if crammed with several pages.Elsawas printed on the front in her mother’s handwriting. The other was thin, and readMichael.
His daughter picked each one up in turn, examining them carefully. “Where did you get these?” she asked eventually, her voice shaky.
“The, uh, lawyer sent them while I was away. He’d had instructions to hold onto them for a year.”
“A year,” Elsa repeated slowly.
“Apparently that’s what she wanted.” Mike didn’t have a clue if Elsa was in the right frame of mind for this kind of bomb. There were days when Elsa was feeling much better, and other days when it seemed as if Shelly had died just a week ago, and everything was raw and hopeless.
He’d almost shoved these letters in a drawer to worry about later. But it seemed mean to withhold her mother’s last gift.
“I’m not reading it tonight,” she announced, flipping the Elsa envelope onto the coffee table.
“Okay,” he said quickly. “That’s fine. Can you do me a favor, though?”
“Sure?”
“Tell me when you have read it? I’ll read mine too, then.”
“All right.” She handed the Mike letter back to him. “Yours is thin.”
“I noticed that.” He shoved it into the FedEx envelope for now. He had no idea what Shelly wanted to say to him. While Elsa had been too terrified to acknowledge Shelly’s imminent passing, he and his wife had already said their I’m sorrys and good-byes. What was there left to say? He was half afraid he’d only find a note inside that read:Don’t fuck this up.
And was it awful that he’d seen these envelopes and thought that it was just like Shelly to get the last word?
Whether Elsa was struggling with the contents of theletter, he couldn’t tell. She pointed the remote at the TV and pressed Play. “Let’s watch this thing.”
•••
The movie was long and he found himself nodding off near the end. When his eyes fell closed, he drifted to the memory of the previous night. The win on the ice. And then the kiss on the sidewalk.
He hadn’t meant to kiss Lauren. But when he’d held her in his arms it just felt right. He’d never been as drawn to anyone on earth as he was to her.Hell. Hopefully she wasn’t too upset with him for making her talk to him again.
When the movie ended, he shut off the TV and followed Elsa upstairs, where they got ready for bed in their respective designer bathrooms.
His was on the third floor. The master suite was the least lived-in part in the house. There was plenty of furniture, but no pictures on the walls and no personal touches. He hadn’t turned the decorator loose on this floor, because nobody else ever saw it.
After brushing his teeth, he jogged back down one flight to say good night to his girl. She was in her bed already, but poking at her phone, which she put down guiltily when he came in.
“Good night, honey.” He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Tomorrow I’ll have training in the morning. But we can go out for dinner together later. “
“Okay. Can I pick the place?”
“Within reason.”
