Shopping with Maddie had never been something I really looked forward to. She was judgy, and more than a little rude about the pieces I usually brought to the register for purchase. I’d become accustomed to flocking to the slacks and mind-numbing rows of white and beige blouses; the kind that made you feel a little sick to touch. I’m not sure why I’d changed my style so drastically. At first, I was just playing the part I’d drawn up for myself . . . the recluse psychotherapist. She didn’t have a taste for fashion. Eventually, it became part of me, matching how I felt on the inside with my outside. Colorless, and without life.
That wardrobe was nothing if not depressing now. I didn’t want to wear any of those things—I didn’t even want to look at them. What I wanted was something that could breathe.
As if reading my mind, Maddie pulled away an ankle length, sleeveless summer dress from the rack. It was navy blue and made from several layers of sheer fabric. Around the middle was a gold woven belt.
“Oh wow, that’s gorgeous,” I cooed, pulling it up to my body. It was so soft that I lost my arms inside it.
“You, like, have to try it on. You would look like Athena wearing that.”
I didn’t argue with her, in fact, I couldn’t get it into the dressing room fast enough. It was brilliant of course, and I bought it—along with eight more outfits Maddie threw over the door while I was occupied in the small cubicle.
I chose to wear the Athena dress out, with a new pair of sandals on my feet to match the golden belt. “We look ravishing, if I do say so myself,” I said, as we piled all our bags into the back of my rental car. “And I love that little skirt.”
Maddie beamed. “Thanks,” she replied, pulling on the jean skirt I had gotten for her, paired under a hot pink tank top. She was Ellie, minus the tattoos. I guess it was good she resembled my sister so much, for it seemed a little crazy to believe that Ellie would ever have kids of her own. Especially in her current separated state. Maddie was like her stand in child.
“I don’t know quite how you pulled it off, but you look more and more like your Aunt Ellie than me every day,” I muttered.
“I’m not the one who got your eyes.”
The statement was short but piercing. I paused from where I held the key next to the ignition, but instead of slamming my fists against the steering wheel or lashing out in a voice that matched Rowena’s, I simply looked at her and nodded. It wasn’t much, but it was progress. A month ago, I would’ve bitten off her head and chucked it into the ocean for saying something like that. For reminding me of the child I could no longer see or feel.
“So,” I said, after starting the car. “We might as well get some lunch, seeing as we’re already way late. Where do you want to eat?”
Maddie scrunched up her face and acted like she was trying really hard to think about it, but I could tell that she already had the name of the restaurant on the tip of her tongue.
“Well, we are in Denver.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You want to eat at Spiked?”
“Yaaaassss! And it would be a good time for you to meet Joe. She should be there.”
I bit my lip. I’d been hoping she’d tell me we should go eat at Willow Creek. I knew it wasn’t open yet, but I thought perhaps they had enough set up that we could have a menu sampling. Or maybe I was just hoping to see Tyler. Just at the thought of him, I found myself double checking my make-up for the tenth time since we’d left the house.
“Yeah, okay. Let’s do it,” I caved.
“Sweet,” Maddie said, picking up her phone and speed texting.
A few minutes later we were there. Maddie directed me to the back of the building where the employees parked to save us the trouble of trying to park elsewhere.
“Are you sure this is okay?” I asked, worried that I was taking someone’s spot.
“Yeah, Dad usually parks here.”
“Oh,” I retorted a little too quickly.
I threw my purse over my shoulder and trucked slowly behind Maddie, who was practically skipping to the back door. She swung it open and waited for me to join her.
We walked into absolute chaos. The kitchen was alive with some sort of fog, steam, or mist, rolling over the workstations, while knives chopped so quickly it was nearly inconceivable to believe the chefs weren’t using magic. Then, suddenly, there was a whirlwind as a small figure in a chef’s jacket dove in to give my daughter a giant bear hug.
“You look so cute! Is this new?” the woman exclaimed, tugging at Mad’s new skirt.
“Yeah, we just came from shopping. Joe, this is my mom.”
Looking up at me, to where I stood ever so awkwardly off to the side, my sister’s wife held out a small paw of a hand. “Oh hey, Olivia, nice to meet you.”
I smiled plainly, accepting the handshake. This is her, I thought. This tiny little thing nearly strangled my sister to death? Oh yeah, she had to have been possessed.
“Thank you for addressing me by my first name,” I said, holding her hand in mine. “I’m sure you only know me by other, less than conventional names.”
Joe smirked. “You’re not the only woman to have been scorned by Ellie. I think you and I probably have a lot in common.” Pulling Maddie along and gesturing for me to follow, she pointed to a booth set up in the kitchen. “I cleared the V.I.P. section for you. That is unless you’d rather sit in the restaurant. I’m sure I could wrangle up a table—just take a few minutes.”
“No, this is great,” I insisted.
“Check it out,” Maddie said, sliding into the booth and pointing to a huge glass wall to our left as soon as Joe shot off in the other direction to grab us some waters. The transparent partition separated the kitchen from the restaurant, which was clearly booming.
“Oh wow.”
“Yeah, isn’t it cool? It’s because they do Molecular Gastronomy. Joe had the place designed this way so the guests could see into the kitchen.”
“What’s—whatever you just said?”
“Molecular Gastronomy? It’s like food chemistry. It makes the dishes more unique—artsy. But if you’re in the mood for something normal Joe will make it. She makes a mean burger.”
“Actually, I think I would like to try something weird,” I giggled.
Joe returned to the table with some water, then scooting in next to Maddie she folded her hands together over the red and black cloth. “You guys wanna order, or you want me to just bring whatever’s clever?”
“Whatever’s clever,” Maddie said.
Joe raised a brow in my direction. “You cool with that?”
“Yeah,” I returned, trying to sound a little cooler. Because that’s what Joe was. She was cool. I could just tell.
She slapped the tabletop and stood. “Righteous. Give me a few.”
Once she was gone, I dropped my head to my shoulder in observance of her character. “She seems really nice. Perfect for Ellie, actually.”
Maddie had her phone in her hands again and was moving her thumbs around on it manically. “They’ll get back together.”
“You’re so sure?”
“Yeah. They planned it before they even came here.”
“Came here?”
“Into their lives.”
I wrinkled my forehead. “What do you mean?” I knew exactly what she meant. When you grow up a witch, surrounded by other like-minded individuals, you get used to this sort of speak. Reincarnation, soul contracts—it was all perfectly normal to us. Maddie didn’t usually talk that way, though.
She stopped typing for a heartbeat and looked like she’d slipped her foot into her mouth. After another second or two, she simply returned to her typing. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes,” I seconded, “I suppose I do.”
Lunch was extravagant. Joe brought a ‘grazing’ for us. Between each dish was a spoonful of what looked like fish eggs, but they were in fact explosions of honey, lavender, and mint. We’d started with bruschetta, in the form of trimmed crusty bread, lying next to a whipped tomato concoction. Next was buttery steak over cauliflower rice, topped with a reddish foam that tasted of beets. After that we had a mouthwatering scallop ceviche surrounded by tiny purple flowers. Desert was a plate of spoons. I tasted everything from strawberry shortcake to s’mores, and a heavenly lemon tart.
When we were finishing up, I couldn’t help myself. Speaking through the napkin I was using to dab at the corner of my lips, I said, “I think if I were Ellie, I would have forgiven Joe a long time ago, because if you can cook like that, then what is there to hate?”
Maddie jumped at the opportunity. “Dad is just as good—oh! Speak of the devil.”
My heart instantly fell into my stomach. I froze solid as Maddie just sat there, nodding encouragingly. When I got up the nerve to turn around, I found two things I hadn’t been expecting. One, that my husband was frozen in his tracks—a look of shock painted onto his face—and two, that he didn’t look like my husband.
When I left, Tyler was nothing more than a miniature yeti. He would’ve fit the hipster vibe that all the kids were embracing these days; except back then it had been dorky, with his overgrown beard and old T-shirts over tight-fitting jeans. This man, though, this obviously dumbstruck prince, he was clean-shaven, and his clothes had been replaced by Banana Republic. He totally looked the part of a downtown Denver city dweller.
I gently laid down the napkin that was still crimped in my hand and stood up.
“Tyler.”
His eyes fluttered from where they’d been in shock, into doubt, before growing instantly guarded.
“Where the hell have you guys been?” he asked gruffly.
I began to go numb, from my toes all the way up my body. “I—we went shopping. Maddie said she told you.”
His lips pressed together for a brief second, before he retorted sharply, “When she insisted that you bring her home, I was told it would be first thing this morning. Having it get pushed around is one thing, but then deciding that you can’t deliver her after all—”
I shook my head. “No, that’s not what happened.” And although I wasn’t done taking in every physical attribute of the man I was magically bound to, I still turned and looked questionably at my daughter. “Maddie?”
She’d sucked her lips into her mouth and was biting down. A wave of nausea rolled over me as I realized what was going on. She’d set this up. Tyler had been planning on avoiding me and she was trying to get us to see each other.
Looking past my shoulders towards our daughter, Tyler gave her a disgruntled look. “You told Joe not to worry about picking you up this morning because your mother was bringing you back. You know how busy I am; I don’t have time for this right now, Maddie.”
My face grew hotter and redder by the second. I tried not to pick up on the battered energy that was shooting out from every angle of his soul, but it was nearly impossible.
“I’m so sorry, Tyler. I didn’t know—”
His gaze was so sharp it was cutting. He simply shook his head. “It’s fine. Come on, Maddie. I’ve got a meeting at the restaurant and I needed to be there thirty minutes ago.”
Maddie didn’t move at first, instead she just sat there giving my husband one of the angriest, most hurt looks I’d ever seen, and I’d seen quite a few from her over the years.
“Maddie,” I said quietly under my breath, “you should go with your father.”
Her expression changed and she looked up at me in disbelief. “But don’t you two want to talk?”
“No,” Tyler said so quickly that it slashed my heart into quarters. Gesturing to Maddie, he turned back towards the door. “Come on, Mad.” When she still hadn’t budged, he repeated himself in a much gruffer voice. “Now.”
Maddie scoffed before scooting out from the booth. Her face was beet red and she looked like she was going to cry.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” was all she said on her way out the door. “I tried.”
Those last two words of hers finished off the broken pieces of my heart.
“It’s not your job to try,” I whispered after they were gone.
I was so empty inside that it physically hurt, and with nowhere else to turn, I slumped into the booth and stared at the table. Within seconds I had tears streaming down my face. Normally I would’ve cared that there were perhaps a hundred people on the other side of that glass wall that had seen all that, that were watching as the strings holding me together came apart, but that was the last thing I cared about just then.
A second later a cold hand touched my shoulder, and I looked up out of my window of tears to find Joe. A sympathetic look covering her face.
“Come on.”
I nodded and followed her into her office. It was dim, and her desk was cluttered with invoices and the usual business details. But it was quiet . . . and private.
“Have a seat.” She pointed to a chair in the corner and handed me a box of Kleenex.
I couldn’t speak, so I simply placed a hand over my running nose and graciously accepted the tissue. I blotted my eyes and nose, all the make-up I’d cased my face in that morning coming off in clumps. When I finally could speak, all I could say was, “He hates me.”
Joe, who had taken a seat behind her desk, just nodded. It was the opposite reaction I’d hoped to get from her. Perhaps I’d been wishing for her to say something more along the lines of, ‘He’s just really busy,’ or, ‘We all have off days.’ But what she ended up saying was a little more realistic.
“We fucked up, you and I.”
A shadow moved across my chest. “We did, didn’t we.”
“Yep.”
“I guess you were right, the two of us really aren’t that different.”
She laced her hands together over her stomach as she kicked back in her chair. “Nope. You deserted your family, and I did the same thing to Ellie by escaping into my own twisted world. Nobody deserves that shit.”
“No, they don’t.” I wiped my nose again. “Maddie wanted us to talk.”
“That little witch just wants her mom and dad to get back together.”
I inhaled a ragged breath. She was right. That was all Maddie had ever wanted.
I sniffed. “She’s not really a witch.”
Joe lifted a brow. “Then how does she fly?”
“What?”
She chuckled, leaving my question unanswered as she readjusted herself in her chair, placing her hands over the desk.
Too caught up in the pain of what had just happened to even think about entertaining the strange banter, I simply looked at Joe and asked, “How do I fix it? How do I make him look at me as if I’m not some kind of monster?”
“Honey, if I had the answer to that I would be a zillionaire.”
“Right.”
“Hey. You just gotta be patient. I don’t know your deal—whether you’re just here for Arianna or if there’s more to it. Maddie seems to think you’re gonna hang out. I do know that you wrecked that man. He’s not going to be ready to look at you for a while.” My heart fell even more in my chest if that was possible. “Look, you should know that Tyler is fine. He’s fine in the sense that he has managed to pull himself out from the shit hole he crawled into after he realized you weren’t coming back. He had to clean himself up, figure out a way to live his life, because he had a daughter to take care of.” Her attention veered to the corner of the room as she said the last part. “At least though, in Maddie, you will always have a piece of your husband—even if you can’t ever have him back.”
I blotted at the moisture over my cheeks, choking down the awful thought that I might never have the chance to make things right. As I satiated over Joe’s opinions, I became struck with something else. A blaring confession that my sister’s wife either intentionally or unintentionally had allowed to escape. “You want kids.”
Her eyes twinkled in a way that led me to believe I’d just hit the nail on the head. “I want the chance to make things right. I want to be able to give someone the love I never received when I was growing up. It’s like a need I have. When I saw Ellie’s face for the first time, I saw the person I wanted to share that gift with.” Her chin dipped and she said in a softer voice, “But some things just seem impossible, you know. Especially when Ellie looks at me the way Tyler just looked at you.”
Another jab straight into my guts. “It definitely feels final, doesn’t it?”
Her fingers, which had been tracing an invisible design over an area of her desk, untouched by clutter, made their way towards a small gift box that I hadn’t noticed up until that point—the kind that might hold a ring inside it. It was wrapped in hot pink paper. Pushing it around with her fingertip, she said, “Hey, do me a favor?”
With my watery eyes glued to the box, I said, “What’s that?”
She leaned forward and pushed the box across the table. “Give this to Ellie for me.”
I stared at it for a second more before wiping my nose with the tissue. “Sure.”
She gave me a toothless grin and a curt nod. “Thanks.” Then tapping the top of the desk with her hand, she stood. “I gotta get back out there, but it was good to finally meet you.”
“You too,” I replied, taking a more in-depth study of her features as she made her way out. Suddenly I was aware that I’d seen her eyes before . . . but in someone else’s person. Who though, I couldn’t place.
Her hand on the doorknob, she paused before taking her exit. “Take as long as you need. And Olivia."
“Yeah?”
“I’m really glad you’re back; she needs you more than you know. Not a day goes by where I don’t blame myself for that coma she’s locked herself into. It’s time she returns to her life.”
I nodded. “Don’t worry, I won’t rest until we get my mother to wake back up.”
She shot me one final look before stepping out of her office. “I wasn’t talking about Arianna.”