Page 34 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The next morning, the plan was to explore the city and visit the two cafés on their list—Angelina and Café Farroukh.

Veronica had caught up with email and messages the night before. Her landlord had sent a reminder about the rent. If she lost the apartment, what would happen to her stuff?

She finally texted Jenna. I need an urgent favor. Can you go pick up my car in Denver and bring it to my apartment?

Denver? I really can’t, Mom! That will take hours!

I know. I hate to ask, but I’m desperate.

She paused, not wanting to put Spence in a bad light but also not wanting to outright lie. Then: Because of a big mess of things, I’m in danger of getting evicted. If I get the car there, it might help hold it until I get back.

Wow. Evicted? How is that even possible?

It’s a long story. Can you please help me? It doesn’t have to be today.

Mom, I really can’t. Have zero hours at the moment. Trying to get my own rent. Ask Ben.

Veronica scowled at the phone. After all that she’d done for her daughter, she couldn’t do a favor for her in return. It’s pretty critical, sweet. Can you squeeze out a couple of hours?

Mom! You know it will take longer than that, and I’m swamped! I can’t!

Her fingers hovered over the keypad. Stung, she was reluctant to ask Ben or Tim—but why? They were as capable as Jenna. But they didn’t have the same relationship. A little sense of discomfort ran through her heart. She didn’t really trust the boys to do the same job her daughter would do.

As she debated on how to respond, she suddenly thought of her friend Amber. She needed an apartment and had been having a hard time finding one in Boulder country.

Good grief! Why hadn’t she thought of her?

And why hadn’t Veronica offered before ? She’d lose the little office she loved, but Amber needed something soon.

For a moment, she felt enormous disgust at herself for not considering this offer sooner, which led to feeling more disgust over the meal she’d scarfed down like a teenager, eating the entire burger and the fries, so much food that she felt unexpectedly bloated. Probably all the salt. What an idiot—

The mental noise started to build higher and higher, like a toddler having a temper tantrum and dragging out toys from every corner of the house. She saw the chartreuse shame of the affair with Tomas, and the size of her ass at the end of the pandemic, and—

Stop.

She caught sight of her face in a mirror and was quite stricken by the twist on her lips.

Holding her phone, she approached the mirror and really looked at her face.

She relaxed her mouth, shook her head, looked again.

Her cheekbones were almost too gaunt. The collarbones she’d taken such pride in just looked bony. No wonder Mariah had urged her to eat!

Stop!

One of the things she’d learned in the group counseling she’d been forced by the courts to take was that she was really bad at boundaries.

The result was that she swallowed her own feelings over and over, which led to anger and turning it on herself, but also led to erupting like a volcano, as she had the day she’d been arrested.

What boundary did she need to set right now? She closed her eyes. Took a breath. She was in charge of her own eating. She didn’t need to starve to please Spence, or eat like a teenager to please Mariah, the ex-athlete.

She did want to enjoy the experience of eating abroad, to sample things here that she wouldn’t taste at home. Like the lamb kebab in London, which she’d eaten with great relish, and the snacks from Waitrose.

But before she got completely lost in her own appetite, she texted Amber: Have you found an apartment? I might have an idea.

An answer came back instantly: i’m all ears.

be my roommate.

what? what about the kids?

Of course. Amber had three kids under seven, who visited her every other weekend.

Veronica had been imagining Amber would be in the room she was currently using as an office, but the kids needed a place to sleep sometimes.

She typed, You’ll take my bedroom and I can move into the office room. A bunk bed should do the trick, right?

Three dots.

Three dots.

Three dots.

i’m crying r u sure

yes but there’s a problem I need to solve. Can I call you?

Veronica started dialing, and Amber answered on the first ring. “We need to talk about the rent, girlfriend,” she said. “I don’t have a ton of money.”

“We can split it,” Veronica said, and named the figure. “Is that okay?”

“Yes! Better than okay. Oh my God, I can’t believe it! That’s such a nice place.”

“There’s a small catch, Amber.”

“Oh.”

“I need you to get my car from Denver to the apartment as collateral for my rent. Is that even possible?” She explained the situation with Spence, the money, the car. “I’ll be evicted if I can’t get this worked out.”

“Ugh, I can’t leave the county, remember? But I got something better. I have deposit money saved, so I can cover the whole rent.”

A wild swell of relief rose through her. It almost seemed too good to be true. Veronica hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“Do I have to wait for you to get back?”

“No way. You can move in today if you want. You can pick up the key from my daughter.”

Amber made a soft sound. “This is saving my life, babes.”

“It’s also saving mine, so we’re even.”

They discussed the logistics of getting the key, making sure Veronica could have a roommate, and how to move things in. “I don’t have a lot, you know. My kids can sleep on air mattresses at first. I won’t get into your room until you get back.”

“Amber, thank you.”

As they set out the next morning, Paris was dripping with Christmas decorations.

Veronica had seen some around London, but here, there were trees and wreaths and garlands everywhere, all of them hung with ornaments and sparkling lights.

It pricked some underlayer of her internal body, sticking pins in at random points.

A wreath made her think of one her mother had loved, made of pine cones and red velveteen ribbon.

A shop window was hung with a set of old-fashioned glass ornaments from the fifties, which were very much the same as the ones Veronica had collected over the years.

She had not unboxed them last year because Spence and the kids had gone to Breckenridge and she’d only just managed to move into the apartment.

Obviously, she wouldn’t unbox them this year, either.

What would Christmas be going forward? This? Traveling to faraway places without any of her beloveds just to avoid the pain she felt? Avoiding the beautiful Christmas traditions she loved because the center had fallen out of her world?

Emotion swelled her throat. She didn’t know.

She didn’t know anything. Her entire future was as murky as muddy water, where before she had not liked everything she was looking at as an empty nester (the words gave her a vision of a mother bird perched on a tree branch, peering into the distance), but she’d had a general idea of how her life would look.

Now she had absolutely no idea. It seemed particularly brutal that she wouldn’t use her Christmas ornaments again; wouldn’t bake cookies with her kids and decorate the tree, then have brandy with Spence after the kids went to bed.

At least the carols were all in French, making them different enough that they didn’t pierce her like everything else did.

So she was already feeling off-kilter when they went into Angelina.

There were two lines—one for the counter, one for the dining room—and they took their place in the one for the dining room.

In contrast to the cheeriness of Christmas shoppers and the shining lights, the sky overhead was dark enough that yellow light spilled out of the upper stories of buildings across the street.

It was cold. She wished for a different coat, something fluffier and more stylish, rather than her very warm but boring performance fleece.

She’d draped a scarf around her neck and pulled a blue cap over her ears, but she still felt like she stuck out as a gauche tourist.

Henry constantly took photos, unobtrusively and obviously, of shop fronts and streets lined with trees and lights, the backs of two women in red coats holding hands, a little boy chewing on his mitten as if he were a dog.

He took photos of Mariah, who mugged for the camera, and Veronica, who only looked at him.

He smiled. “That’s a good shot. You have expressive eyes. ”

Inside, the air smelled of a heady mix of coffee and yeast and sugar.

The baroque interior had not changed a bit, and still felt ever so faintly seedy, but crystal chandeliers glittered and the tables were set for a busy day.

As they sat down, Veronica looked toward the mirrored wall and remembered exactly where she’d sat with Spence on a long-ago day, twenty-eight years ago.

She could see him quite clearly, as if he were a ghost: his thick white fisherman’s sweater sitting so cleanly on his broad shoulders; his long, blond hair curling around his neck, falling over his forehead.

He was always deeply tan in those days from being on the slopes or outside hiking; he’d been the most vigorous man she’d ever met, and had pulled her along with him, teaching her how to hydrate, how to tie her boots.

She’d tried skiing and snowboarding both, but they terrified her. The hiking, however, she loved.

It had been a wild, deep bonding from the first. They were from different worlds and yet shared a view of how life should be, filled with books and knowledge and the things that went into making a good life.

She loved his passion for philosophy, for ideas, and his boyish exuberance.

He loved her drive toward making a comfortable home, loved that she wanted to write about intellectuals and artists in history.

They had been so entwined on that honeymoon trip!

Newly married, three years into their remarkable love story.

Everyone admired them, wanted to be them.

They had a rare accord, a meeting of bodies and minds.

He was known to kiss her passionately at parties, dance in a very sexy way when the music lent itself to that.

An all-too-familiar hollow feeling filled her chest. How had that all just disappeared? Had she been mistaken about what it really was?

No. She remembered a night during the pandemic, the children gone somewhere, just the two of them over a meal they’d cooked together, dancing to a playlist, making love on the floor by the fire. So happy.

So happy.

As if the memories had turned to arrowheads in her chest, Veronica’s lungs suddenly ached. It was hard to take a deep breath, and she looked around wildly to distract herself with anything so that she wouldn’t burst into tears.

“Where is the loo, do you think?” she asked Mariah.

“Um—you have to go upstairs.”

Swamped with emotion, desperate to hide it, she managed, “I’ll be right back. Sorry.”