Blake jolted awake as the plane skidded into LAX. Sunlight flared through the streaked window. He squinted to look out at the tarmac. Home.
He pulled out his cell, turned it on, and looked at the rolls of texts and missed calls. Ashlee. Ashlee. He closed his eyes because he stupidly realized that the only reason he looked so quickly was because he had hoped that one name would pop on the screen: Ella. But she would only text his second, Hunter Adderman phone. And really, why would she text him at all? He made sure, in his own self-destructive way, that she would never speak to him again.
He does this. He breaks things into so many irretrievable pieces that what he wants, what he really wants, he will never get. If he really wanted Ella to call or text or even just say good-bye, he wouldn’t have done what he did.
He was the first to stand when the jet bridge bumped into the side of the plane and the cabin door opened with that airtight swoosh. The baggage claim was packed and people were hugging and grabbing bags and “going to get the car.” He stood alone and rubbed at his face. He was exhausted but he had something he needed to do before he went home to shower and shake off the weirdness of the last few days.
L.A. traffic wasn’t any better on a Sunday and after the freedom of wide open roads, these clogged highways seemed interminable. When he finally arrived at his old house, Marilee’s house, his throat was tight and his eyes itched for sleep.
* * *
The gate was closed to the driveway of the Tudor-style house where his ex-wife lived. Blake lowered the driver’s-side window and pushed the code to get in. Waited. Nothing. He tried again. Nothing.
He pushed the button on the lower left side and a voice came over the speaker. “May I help you?” A male voice, smooth and cultured like he’d been taught how to answer in some intercom-answering class.
“Yes, it’s Blake. Open the gate.”
“Let me check with Marilee.” His voice distant as he hollered into the well-padded house. “Honey?”
Her voice echoed back. “What?” Blake knew that voice, that irritated what-the-hell-are-you-bothering-me-for-when-I’m-working-out voice.
“Blake is at the gate. Can I let him in?”
“Shit. Why not.”
A long screeching sound and then the gates swung open. Blake drove around the circular drive to park directly in front of the house. His lawyer and his ex-wife had both warned him not to act as if he owned the house, although he did own the house. So, he’d told them, if he wanted to act like he owned it, he would.
The front door opened and Marilee stood in the doorframe as if she were posing for a photo, which is what she’d done most of her life. “What are you doing here?” she asked in her spandex outfit.
Blake put on his best face, a smiley one. “I’m here to see my daughter.”
“You look like hell,” Marilee said.
“Thank you, darling. You look radiant yourself.” He’d been warned about this—the sarcasm. The petty meanness, which displayed his lesser self (according to his overly therapied ex-wife).
She rolled her eyes, a habit she’d passed on to their daughter. “She’s still asleep.”
“It’s eleven in the morning. Could you please get her up? I want to see her.”
“You know I let her sleep in during the weekend. She works so hard during the…” Marilee’s voice trailed off because Blake walked toward her, and then around her and into the house. His house. The one he’d lived in when he’d believed in love and family. Before he turned into the villain in one of his own movies—the bad guy instead of the love interest.
One mistake, that’s what he kept telling all his friends (the ones that remained), and his lawyer, and anyone who would listen. All it takes is one mistake. Granted, a big one.
“Amelia,” he called up the staircase. Marilee stood behind him and he turned to her. “So, how are you?”
“I was great until you walked in.”
“Sounds like a country song.”
“God.” She rolled her eyes again. “You make everything into a song or a story or some shit. Can’t you just see life as life?”
“You know, darling, you’ve asked me that before. Sorry, I can’t answer it yet. I’ll still keep trying, though.”
“As long as you don’t try here.”
“Who had the smooth voice on the intercom?” Blake waved his hand toward the kitchen, where he assumed the body that went with the voice resided.
“None of your business.”
“Fair enough.” He nodded toward the top of the stairs. “Will you please go wake our daughter?”
“Why don’t you?”
“Okay. Will do.” He took two steps up before Marilee stopped him with her voice, that tight voice of anger.
“And Blake?”
“Yes?”
“She likes to be called Amelie now. You know, like the French movie. She wants you to pronounce her name that way.”
“Her name is Amelia.”
“I’m just telling you what she wants.”
Blake turned away from his ex and walked upstairs. Some of the art had been changed, and he wondered, only briefly, where the old photos had gone: the ones of their wedding and the family reunion, the ones at the fundraiser—he in a tux, she in a gown. These framed photos might be piled up in the attic, spiders crawling over them and wrapping their photo faces in webs, dust, and dead bugs.
“Amelie,” he called out as he knocked on her door. He would do anything to repair this brokenness with his daughter. What had Ella said? Just be with her.
Ella.
Blake closed his eyes. She needed to be just a character in a screenplay.
He knocked again. “Sweetie,” he called. “It’s Dad. Can I come in?”
“No. I’m sleeping. Go far, far away.”
He laughed, and opened the door. Her room was pitch-black, not a hint of light to let her know that she was missing out on the day. The blackout shades were pulled tight and Blake snapped the strings, one by one, letting the California sunlight pour into the room, spill onto her bed, and across her cheeks. Amelia buried her face into the pillow. “Dad!” she said. “Stop. It’s Sunday. I can sleep all day.”
“Why would you want to miss a day like this?” he asked. “It’s almost perfect out. The beach. The pool. Your friends.”
“My friends?” she mumbled into her pillow. “They’re all asleep and I hate them anyway.”
Blake sat on the edge of her bed and touched the back of her head, her soft bleached hair. He loved her natural auburn color, but she insisted on the platinum. “Want to go to Egg-Land for breakfast? You can get a stack of pancakes with whipped cream.”
She groaned. “God, I’m not five years old anymore.”
“No,” he said. “You’re not. But that doesn’t mean pancakes aren’t the bomb-dot-com.”
She lifted her face and looked at him through squinty eyes. “Oh, God, Dad. Don’t say that ever again. Please. At least not in public.”
“Okay, I promise I won’t say it if you get up and go out to breakfast with me. Otherwise I will walk around mumbling ‘the bomb-dot-com.’”
He swore she laughed but he couldn’t be certain.