Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 28323 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 142(@200wpm)___ 113(@250wpm)___ 94(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28323 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 142(@200wpm)___ 113(@250wpm)___ 94(@300wpm)
Then, Betsy died and I saw even less of Nova. Sure, I sent Christmas and birthday presents every year to her dad’s house, but they weren’t much more than perfunctory gestures. Hell, I never even talked with the little girl on the phone. I just got thank you cards in the mail, and when she was little, photos of Nova posing with Santa. She was a cute thing with chubby features, blonde ringlets, and big blue eyes. I pretty much smiled at the snap and then threw it away.
But then Burt Callahan got a once-in-a-lifetime job offer in Dubai a couple months ago, and he couldn’t say no. I can understand. Dubai is a central hub in the Middle East, with its vast oil reserves. Plus, Burt’s been a chemical engineer his whole life. He explained that he could take his daughter with him, but he didn’t want to drag her away from everything she knew. As a result, he made a request: for me to house Nova for her last year of high school. It wouldn’t be a big deal. I wasn’t going to be her official “guardian” or anything like that. I was going to put a roof over the young woman’s head for her senior year as she finished up at La Salle in NYC.
Don’t get me wrong. I was going to say no. Even though I have a townhouse in the West Village with plenty of space, I’d been a bachelor for a long time by then. I wasn’t interested in disrupting my lifestyle, nor making any adjustments to my schedule. Plus, I was sleeping with a rotating cast of women at the time. Hell, it wasn’t even rotating. Sometimes, I only saw a date once before casting her aside, with no regret whatsoever. I wasn’t going to change my habits because I had a teenage girl living under my roof.
Yet Betsy’s words came back to haunt me. My dead wife appeared to me in a dream, literally. I was somewhere in the liminal space between wakefulness and sleep, a woman’s sweaty, sated body next to me in bed, when Betsy’s face appeared in my mind.
“Hunter, what are you doing?” she asked, her voice gentle.
Immediately, I was embarrassed.
“Sweetheart, this is no one,” I growled, scooting myself away from Roberta or Renee, or whatever her name was. “She’s not you. I don’t know her. I don’t want to know her either.”
My ex smiled sadly at me, her blonde hair faded and her face pale.
“No, it’s not that, Hunter. I want you to find love again. I never intended for you to die alone after my passing.”
I straighten a bit.
“Really?”
“Of course not,” Betsy says. “You deserve to find a partner in life. But this isn’t about that. It’s about my daughter, Nova. You promised to take care of her after I was gone, remember?”
A wash of shame ran over me then, my face flushing hotly.
“Yes, of course,” I growled. “I remember perfectly. I’m sorry I haven’t done more, but Nova’s been fine. She’s been living with Burt, happy as a clam as far as I know—”
“And now Burt needs to move to Dubai,” Betsy said in a gentle voice. “He’s asked you to provide a home for my daughter for her final year of high school. Can you do that, Hunter? Can you make good on your promise to me?”
I didn’t even hesitate.
“Of course, sweetheart. Whatever you want. I’ll make it happen.”
Betsy smiled tremulously, caressing my cheek with soft fingers even as she faded from view.
“Thank you, Hunter,” her voice came faintly, as if only an echo. “I’ll always love you.”
Then, I woke up, sweating and panting in the dark. I’ve dreamt of my wife in the past, but never so vividly before. I could almost sense Betsy’s presence in the room, and smell the sweetness of her perfume. But alas, it was only the rank sex-stench of the woman next to me, our sweat and body fluids combining in a toxic stew.
Clearly, I got rid of her fast. My date was gone by early the next morning, and I made good on my promise to my late wife. I called Burt immediately, and we set plans in motion for Nova to move into my house that fall, in time to start senior year. It wouldn’t be a big deal. She could live on the second floor, as I continued to occupy the fourth. We’d have an entire floor between us, and Nova was eighteen. The young woman was legally an adult, and free to come and go as she pleased, as long as she didn’t bother me.
But my plans went haywire from the get-go. It was embarrassing actually. I’d known Nova was going to arrive in late August, but she didn’t give me an exact date. So I was having breakfast with my latest paramour when suddenly, my housekeeper informed me that we had a visitor.