Ten

It was with a not-insignificant pang of guilt that Emily told Ellen that she had a meeting in the city on Wednesday. It wasn’t as if Ellen had ever said anything to Emily about dating, or not dating, or anything related to men at all, in fact. It was a subject neither woman broached. After all, Ellen was Thomas’s mother, Emily’s mother-in-law, and although their relationship was, at this point, more sisterly that parental, Emily still felt some obligation to the marriage vows that had tangentially drawn them together. She knew intellectually that Ellen would have no objection to Emily’s involvement with another man; both women knew that the legal obligations had ended three years ago when Thomas died in Forest Glen Hospital. Both women knew, though, from experience, that the emotional obligation continued well beyond the termination of the contract.

Secondarily, Emily had developed, over the course of the days and weeks since she had met Trent, a desire to ensure she did not appear to be merely a groupie, looking for involvement with a man simply by virtue of his being a rock star. A grown woman did not follow musicians around looking for action. And besides, she told herself any number of times a day, she wasn’t looking for anything; she was merely meeting a man who had invited her for coffee. His occupation, his fame, was irrelevant. He was someone who seemed to be a nice guy. End of story.

So how to explain her vague sense of embarrassment at the prospect of meeting Trent for an innocent coffee? Why was she going to such lengths as to lie to Ellen, the one person who might truly understand her motivation (what was the motivation again? she wondered). Ellen was a widow herself, and had lost her son when Emily had lost Thomas; she looked after Emily’s and Thomas’s children full-time, for heaven’s sake. She knew how hard Emily worked, how wracked Emily had been in the depths of her depression, because she had been there, in that same place, at the same time, only with age and life experience to lend the perspective that Emily was simply earning the hard way. Emily was aware of the great lengths that Ellen had gone to, to put her life back together after her incomparable losses, and that Aidan and Ava were a big part of her recovery. Emily knew that Ellen had a rich and satisfying life, and suspected she was, or had been, involved with a man in recent months. But, Ellen kept quiet, preferring to support Emily as she sought her own way through the maze of grief, to its eventual resolution, the only way she knew how: by offering unconditional, loving care of the people for whom she cared most in the world, and thereby relieving Emily of some of the burden of worry imposed by the very prospect of parenting twins without a partner, and in the presence of her paralyzing grief. Ellen’s role in the new Peterson family allowed Emily to focus her attention on her work, which had always been Emily’s solace, and the act of caring for Thomas’s children had quickly become hers.

Now that Emily had somehow begun to reach a state of equilibrium, both women knew that a beautiful, successful woman like Emily would begin looking for companionship, even if she was looking on an unconscious level, and there was neither legal nor moral impediment to entering a new relationship. Even still, Emily felt uncomfortable at the prospect of sharing any aspect of a new relationship, however innocent, with anyone, least of all Ellen, the rock who was the sole reason she had survived widowhood thus far with her family intact.

The sense of obligation, to Thomas, and to Ellen, was on Emily’s mind when, the night before her “date” (as she thought of it, complete with quotation marks) she casually mentioned her meeting in the city the next day. Emily had not planned to lie; in fact, she had given no thought at all to how she would broach the subject of her expected absence from the house on a day when Ellen would know she was not working. Instead, she found herself talking about a fictional conference that would likely keep her away until after dinner.

“No problem,” Ellen said. “We’ll manage. Don’t worry about us.”

And Emily wouldn’t worry; this was a distinct advantage of having Ellen look after her children. Never, when they were in Ellen’s care, did Emily have a second’s concern for their welfare. It was a nice position to be in, she knew. How many parents, especially single ones, could rely on a caregiver who was as reliable and loving as their child’s own grandmother?

So it was not without some misgivings that Emily found herself dressing carefully, and even applying lipstick for the first time in years. She told herself that a day in the city was a good excuse to dress up a little; any day when she didn’t need to wear scrubs called for a little attention to detail. After two different outfits, she settled on a pair of cords and a sweater, a troubled grey, which, matching her eyes perfectly, was the colour of the sky just before a summer thunderstorm. She tamed her hair and pulled it back in a clip so it escaped in wisps around her face. She knew there was nothing she could do about the freckles across her nose, so she ignored them, and applied a light dust of powder to her cheeks and a touch of colour to her full mouth. There, she thought. Nothing else I can do.

The car trip to the downtown building where the band was shooting their video was uneventful. Emily listened to their CD as she drove, and noted with a little humour that she actually knew all the lyrics by now. She parked near the warehouse where Trent had said they would be, and walked to the door.