Page 72 of The Starfish Sisters
“Fell in love with a big director.”
Dmitri. My soul gives a little wail. “Yeah. We were together nearly twenty years. Until he died.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “COVID, right?”
I nod. “The worst was that he was alone in the hospital. I hated that so much.”
“Same with my mom.”
“I’m sorry. I hadn’t heard.”
“Thanks.”
“No kids?” I ask, and then wish I hadn’t.
“Only the one,” he says. “You?”
“Same.” An old pain rustles. I see her dark hair, her newborn blue eyes.
“Did you”—he leans on the table, hands steepled tightly—“see him? Her?”
“Her.” I swallow hard. “Yeah. For a very short while. She had a lot of hair, and a beautiful little mouth.” A lot of memories are blurry, but not that one. After so long, the memory no longer brings tears, but thinking of how Joel never even had that glimpse of her brings a fresh swell of sorrow. I bow my head, touch Yul Brynner’s long tail.
Joel closes his eyes. Breathes. Then: “I am sorry you had to go through all of that alone, Suze. I really am.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Still.” He straightens, picks up his cup, and it’s empty. “Mind if I help myself?”
“Not at all.”
We can’t stay in that place of darkness.Ican’t. When he comes back, I ask, “What were the lost years?”
“Ah.” He wipes his clean-shaven cheeks. “Just ... the usual bullshit. Fights, bad jobs, bad relationships. Looking for something I didn’t know how to find.”
“What pulled you out of it?”
“My first wife, Ella. I met her in Seattle. Solid as granite and didn’t put up with nonsense and self-destruction.”
“Good for her.”
He nods, looks toward the sea. “I broke her heart, though—I couldn’t be the guy she wanted.”
“We all do that when we’re young, don’t you think?”
“I wasn’t that young by then. Almost forty.”
“Oh.” I allow myself a smile. “That’s a few lost years.”
“Mmm. Did you?”
“Have lost years?”
“Break hearts.”
“Of course.” I’d had my share of tempestuous relationships. “The difference is, my peccadilloes were fully documented by the paparazzi and the tabloids.”
“Well, that would suck.”
