A Warm Heart in Winter(26)

And what a lie those smiles were. Their dad had intended for the vacation to lift everybody’s spirits. Instead, Elle had been miserable on all the rides, Terrie had complained about the food, and their father had spent a lot of time staring off into space.

Even though she tried not to reimagine the night before as if the divorce hadn’t happened, it was hard not to conclude that if her parents were still together, she’d still be asleep right now.

Antsy and achy, she compared the kitchen she was in to the one she’d grown up with—because even though the past made her sad, it was better than diving back into her phone. Here, the furniture was new, and the room was in a different layout. Terrie’s backpack was on the counter in the corner by the landline that no one used and probably wasn’t even turned on. There was a pair of running shoes—man-sized—next to some snow boots—little-girl-sized—over by the door out to the garage. The cereal boxes were all kid kinds like Cap’n Crunch and Frosted Mini-Wheats, and there were avocados mixed up with the apples in the fruit bowl and whole-grain bagels with everything spices were left out by the toaster.

If her mom had lived here, the clutter would have been cleaned up, the phone line turned on, and the cereals would have been organic substitutes of brand names that had no sugar added.

Elle and her sister and father had moved into this house, a two-story from the 1990s, about eighteen months ago, and the street had a lot of families on it. Just like at their old address, in the warmer months, bikes sunbathed on front lawns that were mowed by the owners, not fancy lawn services, and now that it was cold and Christmas was coming, there were blankets of red and green lights in all the bushes and twinkling white icicle strings hanging off the gutters.

So it was almost the same.

And completely different.

Funny, she’d always assumed everyone’s life was perfect on their old street. Now, it felt like everybody else’s life was perfect.

Especially after her bad choice last night.

At least Terrie was still asleep in her room upstairs. If Elle had to deal with that mouth this morning? Not going to be good for anyone.

She checked her phone for the time and worried about how much longer her father was going to be working out down in the cellar. She needed to get this conversation over before Terrie woke up. He rode that Peloton bike four times a week—just her luck, to have missed one of his three recovery days.

Tip-tap, tip-tap.

The sound of her short nails on the table made her think about family dinner. Part of the reason their father pedaled his heart out early in the morning in the basement was because he wanted to be home at six every night for family dinner: Unless he had a work function, they ate together at this four-seater table, the one unfilled seat something Elle was beginning to not dwell on so much. The only time he ever missed the meal was once a week when he was at a work-related event.

Or now, she supposed, if he had a date.

At least he’d come home last night. He’d cracked her bedroom door just after eleven and looked in while she’d pretended to be asleep. She hadn’t been ready to talk yet, the right words still ordering themselves in her head, soldiers that had refused to get into formation. Clearly, he hadn’t guessed what she’d done, the BMW having been returned to the garage just fine, and with Terrie then asleep, that mouth was on standby.

And there had been more good news as that woman in the LBD had gone home. As her father had reshut her door, Elle had watched the departure from her bed, the headlights flashing across the front of the house as whatever car the date had been driving backed out of their driveway and moved off down their street—

The creaking of the cellar stairs was soft as her father ascended on tiptoes. He was always worried about how much they slept, so he was quiet when he moved around in the early morning.

Elle flushed, her palms getting sweaty, her heart skipping in her chest.

As he opened the basement door, he was in the process of wiping his forehead with a white towel and stopped short.

“Well, hello. You’re up early.”

Basile Allaine was just over six feet tall, with thick dark hair, a face that always had the shadow of a beard no matter how often he shaved, and a now-much-less-dad-bod than before the Peloton bike purchase.

Elle tried to smile. “Just felt like getting a head start.”

“I like the discipline.” He looped the towel around the back of his neck. “If you want, we can get your sister up and I’ll drive you in? That way you won’t have to ride the bus.”

“The bus is good. I don’t want to make you late.”

Her dad frowned. “You okay, Bug?”

She’d been called Bug for so long, she had no idea where the nick had come from. And lately, it had been annoying her. She was sixteen now, and who wanted to be called an insect, anyway? Right now, though, she was hoping it meant he’d go easy on her.

Ties to her younger, cuter, much-less-likely-tojoyride-in-a-car self.

“What’s going on?” Her dad came over and pulled out a chair. “Talk to me.”

Elle spent some time looking at her nails. She’d painted them black last week, and the tips were already chipping.

“Whatever it is, we can work through it,” he murmured.

Which was what he always said.

She looked up. Her father didn’t have much of an accent anymore, but she’d been told by many who apparently knew that he looked like the Frenchman he was and would always be. And hey, he also somehow managed to smell good and be all put-together in his black nylon workout clothes even after he’d been pedaling in the basement for an hour. Which seemed French, she guessed.