Page 90 of Is Anyone Listening?
"Would you like some tea or perhaps a glass of wine?" she asked, as she motioned me inside.
"No, I'm fine."
"What have you been doing today?" Ellen asked as I sat down on her couch.
I thought about the best way to answer that question and decided that letting her control the conversation was a bad idea. She'd unsettled me. I needed to do the same thing. "Finn introduced me to his parents, John and Katherine."
Her lips tightened. "I see. And you spoke to them about me."
It wasn't a question, but I answered it anyway. "More about my father than you. I was curious to know what he was like as a child, and I didn't think you'd tell me."
"Because…"
"You don't seem to want to talk about him any more than he wanted to talk about you."
She shifted in her seat, and I knew my strategy was working; I just didn't know how long I could keep it up, because Ellen was a formidable woman, and I couldn't deny that I found her intimidating in the same way I found my father intimidating. Mother and Son certainly knew how to shut people down with just a look.
"I don't like to talk about David," she said finally. "It's painful. You don't have children, so you probably can't imagine what it feels like when the person you spent years protecting turns on you and never wants to see you again."
"There had to be a reason why he did that."
"As I said before, that's something you'll need to hear from him. What did John and Katherine have to say?"
"They told me that my father was in some kind of love triangle with Tom Holloway and a girl named Lily, the same girl who apparently walked into the sea, leaving a suicide note behind, never to be seen again." I watched for a shift in her expression, but she wasn't giving anything away. "A lot of people disappear from this town. And you and everyone else pretend that that's normal, but it's not."
Her gaze darkened. "That was a long time ago. Lily was a troubled girl who had a hard life. It was terribly sad that she made the choice to take her own life. I wish I could have helped her more. I tried. I gave her a job here, hoping the money she made would give her some freedom. But obviously, it wasn't money that could free her from her pain."
"My father left soon after that. Did he leave because she died?"
"I think that was a factor," Ellen admitted. "He suffered two losses in a very short period of time, his father and then Lily. I'm sure her death hurt him more than he was willing to share with me, although he never actually told me he was involved with her. I found that out after the fact."
"You don't seem like someone who is easy to share anything with. In fact, you seem like my father in that regard. He has huge walls up. I've never been able to scale them."
"But he was happy with your mother?"
"I think so. He was different with her," I admitted. "He was softer, happier; he smiled more. She could get through his walls, but she seemed to be the only one."
"How did she die?"
"She had cancer. It was pretty fast, less than a year. I was devastated."
"I'm sorry."
"The worst part of it was that I couldn't grieve with my dad. He shut me out. We were like two islands of pain. It was awful."
"He was never comfortable with his emotions. I assume you had family support on your mother's side?"
"Not really. She had family in Oregon, but we didn't see them much. They came out when she first got sick and then again for the funeral."
"Has your father dated anyone since then?"
"I'm sure he has, but he doesn’t talk to me about it, and I haven't lived near him in a few years." I paused. "I thought coming here might help me understand him."
"I thought you came here because of your podcast."
"It was always about both. When I saw that Natalie had disappeared from your inn, it seemed like fate was telling me that this was the case I needed to look into. Because it gave me a reason to come here, to meet you."
"Why didn't you tell me who you were when you arrived?" she asked curiously.
