Page 7 of Cakewalk

“Not empty? I thought the weird kid moved out?” There was a mock ignorance to his tone, and Holden barked out a laugh.

“Am I at least on speaker so that Mom and Dad can hear this too? Wouldn’t want you to relay bad information,” he teased, knowing that his parents were probably no more than ten feet away. After retiring from Dartmouth where he’d been a literature professor, Holden’s father had found the perfect golf community in Florida where they could while away their days. Not surprisingly, since the two men had been joined at the hip since they became roommates in college, Caulfield had joined them six months later, buying a condo in the same building.

“Hi, honey!” his mom’s voice called.

“Hi, Mom.”

“How are you? Mrs. Welch mentioned that a sweet young lady moved into the carriage house. I didn’t think you were planning on renting it out again after her nephew.”

“I wasn’t. But Gigi just moved to town after losing her husband and needed a place to stay,” he told them, trying to keep it as simple as possible.

“She’s a widow? Oh, poor girl. But it gives you two some common ground, which’ll be nice.”

“I don't need common ground with her, Mom. She lives above the garage, that’s all.”

“Son, would it kill you to have a friend?” his father chimed in.

Holden sighed audibly. Did everyone still have these kinds of calls with their family? He would have figured that by the time he turned thirty-nine they would have been over this, but apparently not. Apparently even though he was pushing middle age, his parents still felt the need to talk to him about the importance of friends like he was in kindergarten.

“I have friends, Dad. I just like being alone.”

“Son, this isn’t what Hannah would have wanted.”

“Leave her out of this,” Holden snapped.

“Enough, Heath. Go get us beers, let me talk to him,” Holden heard Caulfield say. A moment later, after some shuffling, Caulfield’s voice came back on the line, much clearer than before. He must have taken him off speaker. “Holden, listen to me.”

“I’m listening, old man.”

“I know you miss Hannah and the life you were supposed to have together. Just like I miss your Aunt Viv. But you can’t stay hidden away in that old house forever.”

“Aunt Viv had an aneurysm. She wasn’t murdered.” Moving his laptop to the ground, Holden stood up and started to pace. His emotions were going to get the best of him if he didn’t somehow take control of everything he was suddenly feeling flow through him.

“She was still taken from me unexpectedly. I still found her body in the garden. It still ripped my heart out of my chest and made my world come to a halt.”

Holden thought back to the phone call from his mother letting him know that Aunt Viv had passed. She’d been not too far from where he stood now, tending to the flower gardens in the front yard closer to the carriage house. Caulfield arrived home from a run to the hardware store to find her lying there among her beloved tulips, already gone. Prior to Hannah’s death, it was possibly the hardest moment of Holden’s life. But for as heartbroken as Caulfield had been, a few short weeks after her death, he was back to his old routine and already talking to his publisher about his next book tour.

“Viv would have my balls if I didn’t go through with this book because of her. Last thing I need is to get to heaven and have her waiting to bitch me out about it,” he’d said when Holden had asked him why so soon. But it wasn’t the same for Caulfield. He wasn’t the reason his wife was dead.

“That’s different.”

“How? Explain to me how it’s different,” his godfather pushed back.

“You weren’t the reason an artery burst in her brain.”

“And you weren’t the reason Hannah was stabbed.”

“I need to get back to writing.”

“You mean back to staring at years-old notes and a blank page? It’s been six years, Holden. Your muse won’t return until you forgive yourself and let yourself move on from Hannah.”

Holden hung up without saying goodbye. He didn’t need this lecture again. His family had made it perfectly clear how they felt about things. The reminder that it’d been as long as it had without any kind of inspiration really only added more salt to the wound. Because Caulfield was right—his muse was gone.

She had died right alongside his girls.

4

Gigi