Page 95 of Cherry Picking

My dad won’t be awake for a while, and there are a few ghosts I need to chase before I face him. I drive past the turnoff for his neighborhood and keep going, out toward the edge of the valley where the houses start looking the same.

Her place looks wrong from the curb. Same stucco, same floor plan we picked out of a binder while a saleswoman offered us bottled water. I signed the closing papers from a hotel room in Ottawa and never actually lived in it for more than a month at a stretch.

The lawn is gone now. The whole front yard is decorative rock now, silver-green desert plants tucked into the stone and a paloverde tree staked up in the center.

Ophelia went through with the xeriscaping after all. She’d talked about it for two years while I told her that I’d pay someone to maintain the grass because I liked the idea of something green waiting at home for me.

She also painted the front door a deep, bruised mauve. It used to be sage.

I stand on the welcome mat for a long, agonizing minute. Ophelia only managed a sentence and a half in that arena hallway back in January before I walked away from her. He was going to tell you. He made me promise that—

I knock on the door.

It takes her a while to answer. But when the door finally swings inward, she’s wearing a heavy robe, hair piled up in a messy knot and her face entirely bare. It takes a full ten seconds for her to process what she’s looking at. Then her expression goes completely flat.

“I didn’t do it,” she says.

“I know.”

“I’ve never spoken to a reporter in my life, not about you and certainly not about him.” One hand stays on the door, and the other braces against the frame. “So whatever version of a speech you drove out here to give—”

“Ophelia. I know it wasn’t you.”

That gets her. She looks at me properly then, searching my face for the hook. “Then what are you doing on my porch at seven in the morning?”

“You didn’t get to finish what you were saying at the arena.”

Her hand drops from the frame. “That was five weeks ago.”

“I know exactly how long it’s been.”

“You think you can just show up at my house whenever you want? You should’ve listened to me earlier.”

“That’s fair.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t agree with me.” Her jaw tightens. “It doesn’t mean you’re actually listening.”

“I’m suspended for three games,” I tell her. “I put a kid through the boards last night because my father won’t take my calls. That’s where I am. I need to know what Ziggy made you promise, and you’re the only person left with the answer.”

She looks past my shoulder at the rental car idling in her driveway. “Fine,” she says. “But I need to make some coffee first.”

Inside, the furniture is all wrong. The sectional we fought over in a showroom is gone, replaced by a low burgundy thing with too many pillows. There’s a bookcase where the sixty-five-inch TV used to be.

I sit at the counter. There’s a real espresso machine now, a canister of beans with a date on masking tape, and six sheet pans stacked neatly by the sink.

“You’ve been busy baking,” I say.

“I’ve been working,” she corrects. “Twelve people for a rehearsal dinner tonight, a fortieth birthday on Sunday for a woman who’s changed the menu four times.”

“Since when?”

“About a year and a half.” She slides a cup in front of me. “It’s oat milk. I know how much you hate it.”

“I’ll manage.” I take a sip and wince.

“How’s your dad?”

“He’s furious. Ashamed that he spent his last real talk with Zig apologizing for me.”