“I wish Ellie was here, Dad. You should send her a picture of that guy’s hat.”
Obligingly, I lifted my phone and snapped a photo, but I didn’t send it. It’d been like this all day, the kids bringing Ellie up every other minute, demanding I send her pictures so she didn’t miss out.
I knew Olivia was pushing for us to get together, but I’d assumed it was more horse-based than sincere affection.
Clearly, I’d missed something. It was actually Ethan, more than Olivia, who brought her up today, and his demands for the photos. He’d been pretty upset when I let them know Ellie wouldn’t be meeting us, but the promised horseback ride smoothed things over immediately. Ethan declared his intent to ‘help’ Ellie again, and Olivia watched me with eyes that were far too knowing for a nine-year-old.
Oktoberfest was fun with the kids, but I couldn’t help sharing their sentiment that it would be more fun with Ellie. Something in her brought out a side of me I didn’t know existed. Like the guy who dressed up in tiny shorts and a fake mustache for an eighties costume contest, just to make her laugh. I hadn’t done something like that since my enlisted days, but when I looked at the bar’s website, I assumed Ellie was dressing up, too. I didn’t want her to keep seeing me as a ‘stuffed shirt’, so I went all in. It was fun, and later that night was even more fun. Even though Dad brought me back to earth with his little chat, and we were cautious at work, it felt like I’d been floating for the last week.
This minor disappointment brought my feet solidly back to the ground. Ellie had a lot of obligations with Aspen Ridge, and that sometimes included nights and weekends. I knew that. I also knew that there was plenty about Ellie’s life before I arrived I didn’t know.
After I got the kids home and in bed, exhausted from their day of festival excitement, I sat on my couch and ignored the tv. Surely, if there was a charity golf game going on, there’d be some news about it, right? Maybe I could just get a glimpse of what she was up to. There was no harm in it.
I pulled up a browser on my phone and searched ‘Aspen Ridge golf’ to discover the only golf course within two hours was at Snowshoe Ridge Resort. So I searched ‘Snowshoe Ridge charity golf’ and started scrolling through the results.
Sure enough, there were plenty of articles to choose from. Clicking on the first one, I found a cache of photos, along with a short write-up of the event. Ellie hadn’t lied. It was a charity golf tournament played by local business owners to raise money for a housing subsidy program. I flipped through the photos until I found one that made my heart drop to my stomach.
In it Ellie and JJ stood on a stage with two men, obviously father and son. The two older men held up a small trophy with a gold-plated golf ball on top, and Ellie and the younger man leaned into each other, their bodies pressed close, smiling happily at the camera. I scrutinized the guy; he was tall, good-looking, and held Ellie possessively against his side. The caption read, “Isabelle and James Tremont, Jr., owners of Aspen Ridge Resort, and Zachary and Brian Grafton, owners of Snowshoe Ridge Resort, celebrate their ‘Biggest Loser’ win at this year’s Snowshoe Charity Golf Tournament. The prize is awarded to the team with the worst score of the game.”
These were clearly people Ellie and JJ knew very well. Probably worked with on more than one occasion, given that they were in the same business. Their clear familiarity in the picture made it easy for my brain to jump to all sorts of conclusions. In fact, now that I thought about it, I’d heard JJ mention the Graftons once or twice. I was pretty sure he’d talked about golfing with Brian, mentioned his son. I just hadn’t picked up on any sort of relationship between the son and Ellie. Was there something there?
I scrolled through the rest of the photos, but aside from one showing them all at the same hole together, there was nothing else of Ellie. I clicked through the rest of the articles, but found nothing from this year.
Heart pounding, I started digging through older articles. It looked like they both played at last year’s tournament, but they hadn’t been on the same team, so there were no photos of them together.
I knew what I was about to do would only hurt myself, but I had to know.
Tapping on the search bar, I entered ‘Isabelle Tremont Zachary Grafton’ and hit search.
A host of entries popped up, including some dating from Ellie’s time in high school. A photo of a young Ellie in a puffy dress with a tiara on her head, her arm linked through the arm of a young Zach, who sported a tuxedo. “Aspen Ridge’s Prom Queen, Isabelle Trenton, with her date, Zachary Grafton.”
Clearly, small towns had nothing better to report on than local high school news. There were tons of articles about Ellie like she was local royalty, and I finally landed on one that cleared up any doubts. It was a photo of Ellie in a cheerleading uniform, ‘AR’ on her chest and ribbons in her hair. She stood next to the tall, imposing figure of young Zach in a football uniform with the letters ‘SR’ on the front. “Despite supporting the opposing team, Isabelle Tremont said she’s rooting for boyfriend, quarterback Zachary Grafton, to lead his team, the Snowshoe Ridge Grizzlies, to victory.” Ellie stood tucked into Zach’s side in nearly the same position as the photo from earlier today.
With a hint of worry swirling in my stomach, I closed the window and set my phone down. Surely she wouldn’t be seeing me if there was something going on with that guy.
I needed to give Ellie the chance to tell me for herself before I jumped to conclusions. There could be a lot of reasons she hadn’t told me yet.
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