Crystal Sneakers

Chapter 1

It was abnormally warm for December. The spitting rain falling from the slate sky was just cold enough to remind me of the Siberian temperatures to come, but large enough in magnitude to lead local newscasters to forswear a white Christmas.

Whether or not we would have snow on the 25th was the least of my worries. As I biked down Lake Shore Drive, my eyes on the barren trees and stormy water, my only worry was timing. My father was arriving home tonight, his flight into O'Hare landed a half hour ago and I had received a frantic text from my stepmother ordering me home immediately, abruptly ending my afternoon musings of the galleries and vaulted ceilings of the cultural center.

I biked toward the Gold Coast, toward the townhouse that my father bought with Sofia after they were married. He kept the apartment in the Loop, the apartment of my childhood, for late nights and early mornings when he went to work in the Canyon, but upon his new wife's insistence we moved to the north.

That was two years ago. Since then I had adjusted to my new life and had even begun to love my home, the bright and airy kitchen and the bedroom I had covered with posters from the Art Institute. My stepmother and her daughters were another story entirely. I could not put my finger on it, but something felt off about the three of them. Sofia had become engaged to my father after three short months, and I only met her daughters, Daniella and Beatrice, after there was a rock on her finger. My stepfamily had never been unkind to me, but they had never necessarily been kind, either. We never formed a bond.

After my father married again, things became uncomfortable for me. I didn't feel replaced necessarily, but there was a greater sense of gravity placed on the wellbeing of my new family. Sofia, raised in a well-to-do German-American family, had never quite adjusted to the rough and tumble life my father and I led, a bachelor and his quiet, artsy daughter. The Loop was too crowded for her. "Too dirty," she said. According to Sofia, the expensive Gold Coast was the only suitable neighborhood for her daughters. My father would bend over backwards for her, so we left.

That Saturday I biked down Lake Shore Drive, I had been back in my old neighborhood. I needed an escape from my stepsisters, who ignored me consistently to begin with, and a day at the Chicago Cultural Center had sounded exquisite. The string of messages from my stepmother had brought a rude awakening to my moment of bliss. So there I was, pedaling down the bike path with the wind in my face to the point that I couldn't breathe, feeling the consistent buzz of my phone in my pocket and the anticipation of seeing my father again. I crossed through the underpass and turned onto my street, past the rows of manicured, gray trees and stone townhouses until I came to my new home. The house my father and Sofia bought was limestone with a dark wooden door, a front walk lined with round, evergreen topiary bushes and a black wrought iron fence encasing the property. I swung open the gate and left my bike by the front steps, launching up them and through the door, out of the damp air.

"Ava, finally," a voice called from the staircase as I stripped off my soaked jacket. "Mother texted you at least five times. Where were you?"

"Around," I called back, still uncertain as to whether Beatrice or Daniella was addressing me. "I responded after the second message, I don't really understand the need for the extra three."

Beatrice descended the staircase, tossing her blonde hair over her shoulder. "She wanted you to pick up flowers and the cat from the groomer. She has an appointment with her facialist and the pollen could irritate her skin."

How Sofia expected me to carry a bouquet and her cat while riding a bicycle and not being hit by traffic was beyond me. She knew that the cat hates me, it would sooner submit itself to a life of dumpster diving and alley-dwelling than ride on a bike with me. 

"Bea, could you pick up Lulu? You know she can't stand me." 

Beatrice rolled her eyes. "Mother asked you, but fine. Be ungrateful, it's not like your dad is coming home tonight or anything."

I ignored her subtle snub, chalking it up to little more than reluctance to run an errand. "You get the cat,  I'll grab the flowers," I settled, receiving an eye roll in response. "Ok? Ok!"

An hour and a half later, there was a bouquet of peonies on the dining room table and Lulu was skulking around the house, trying to rub off the pink bow that the groomers had placed on her head, probably out of spite. The only thing that was missing was my father. 

Sofia paced around the kitchen in her four inch stilettos, the glossy heels making a click-click-clicking noise that was enough to drive even the most level-headed individual insane. She ran her manicured hand through her blowout, clutching her iPhone until her knuckles turned white, staring at the screen with an expression of annoyance. 

"The Women's League benefit dinner is tonight and he doesn't even have the decency to come home on time," she vented to the space around her. "It's as if it doesn't matter to him."

"It doesn't start for another hour and a half, I'm sure he will make it back on time," I tried to assure her. She shot me a glare and the room returned to an uncomfortable silence, accompanied by the click-click-click of heels on the hardwood floor. After another ten minutes of eerie calm, the doorbell rang. 

'Dad has a key, that's odd,' I thought to myself. Sofia glanced at me, commanding me to answer the door with her expression. "Maybe he's locked out," I thought aloud. 

I swung the door open and did not see my father. In his place were two police officers, hats in their hands. "Is this the residence of Peter Montgomery?" The taller one questioned me. 

"Yes, I'm his daughter. What is going on?" I could hear Sofia approaching me from behind in her heels.

"What happened, Officer?" She asked, placing a manicured hand on my shoulder. "I'm his wife."

The shorter, portlier officer looked me in the eyes. He drew a breath, hesitated as though something was paining him. Then he spoke three sentences. Three sentences in an eerily calm, mechanical voice, as though he were unaware of the fact that he was about to change my life forever. 

"Peter Montgomery was killed in a car accident. He died on the way to the hospital. I am so sorry."

My heart thudded in my chest, I could hear the blood in my ears. My breath quickened as I grasped the doorjamb, trying to hold onto whatever piece of reality I had left. This could not be happening. This could not be happening. No. No. No.

My knees buckled and the room went dark.