Page 80 of The Night We Lost Him

The front door clicks open, and I turn to see my father’s third wife, Inez, walking in with a roller bag. She always looks beautiful, but especially tonight, dressed in a pantsuit, her makeup done, her long dark hair pulled into a low ponytail.

“Nora!” she says. “They didn’t tell me you were up here.”

She puts her bag against the wall and starts walking toward me, her arms outstretched for a hug. Inez hasn’t lived here since she and my father separated. So I’m somewhat surprised to see her here now. And yet I’m not entirely surprised. Inez and my father were still the closest of friends. Why wouldn’t he want her here whenever she wanted to be?

She gives me a hug, then pulls back, takes me in. I wasn’t particularly close to Inez when she and my father were together. Part of it was the aftershock of Sylvia. But something shifted when she and my father decided to separate—and then when I got to know her now wife, Elizabeth. I’ve spent more time with them as a couple than I ever did with Inez and my father.

“I had a dinner uptown,” she says. “I’m just staying for the night.”

“Of course, I can get out of your way.”

She waves me off. “There’s no rush. I’ll make us a drink.”

She heads over to the bar cart and starts to pour two small whiskeys.

“Luna has a stomach bug, so Elizabeth stayed home with her,” she says. “But I don’t love being here on my own, to be honest.”

She hands me one of the tumblers, and I take a long sip.

“I was feeling the same before you walked in,” I say. “It looks different in here than I remember.”

“Different how?”

“Did someone move my father’s things out of the apartment? It just feels so…”

“Depressing?”

I laugh. “I was going to say bare.”

“Well, I know he wasn’t spending a lot of time here recently.”

“Mostly Windbreak?”

She nods. “Mostly Windbreak. At least as far as I know.”

“Inez, may I ask you something?” I say. “Did my father ever discuss Cece Salinger with you?”

“Only a bit. She was quite interested in the company a while back if I’m remembering correctly.”

“But he wasn’t interested in her romantically?”

“Cece? I don’t know. I don’t think so. From what your father told me, that was all ancient history. Like when they were twenty years old. Unless there is something we don’t know. Which, I suppose, with your father is always possible.” She takes a sip of her drink. “Why are you asking?”

“I’m just trying to figure out why he was spending so much time at Windbreak. She lives out there. It feels like maybe that had something to do with it…”

“Well, I seriously doubt that had anything to do with Cece,” she says. “As far as I know, he just preferred being there. I mean, didn’t he always prefer being there? That was his home.”

His home with whom? I want to ask. And what am I supposed to learn from the fact that it’s now mine?

She takes me in, her eyes filling with concern. “You okay?”

“Sure.”

“ ’Cause you don’t seem it.”

“Was he seeing someone toward the end? Someone that I didn’t know about?”

“Your father?”