Chapter 42 #2
socks in here. Boxer shorts. Ties he never wore. A little Mickey Mouse watch that his mother had given him, stored in an acrylic
box.
Cherry felt sick and tried to slam the drawer shut. It got stuck. She rammed it closed, catching her little finger, and yelped.
A minute or two later, while Cherry was sniffling and still rubbing her hand, Stevie shuffled into the room. The baby gate
was open all the time now that Stevie could manage the stairs—and now that she was allowed to sleep in the bed. Cherry had
surrendered to having dog hair all over every inch of the house.
Stevie sniffed at Cherry’s stomach and headbutted her thighs. Cherry held on to the dresser so the dog could shove through
her legs. “Are you here to rescue me?”
Stevie didn’t like it when Cherry shouted or cried out. (She used to bark from downstairs if Cherry was being too noisy during
sex.) Cherry tried to think of a situation where Stevie’s gentle mauling might actually rescue her . . . Maybe if she fell
asleep in the bath, Stevie could rouse her.
Cherry leaned over to rub the dog’s flank. “You’re not very helpful, but you’re very sincere.”
Stevie looked up into Cherry’s eyes, as intent and person-like as ever. Like someone in a fairy tale trapped in an animal’s
body.
Cherry sighed. “God, Stevie, I feel like you’re going to spend your whole life trying to tell me something, and I’m never going to know what.”
The cold settled in. Cherry went to get her goose-down coat out of the hall closet and realized that all Tom’s coats and boots
were gone, and all of his scarves and wool hats. Would he need them in California?
He’d left the umbrellas.
Russ called. Not all the time. Three times over as many weeks. He texted Cherry: “I’d really like to talk to you. I’d really like to see you.”
“Not yet,” Cherry texted back.
She missed him. She was still angry with him. But those feelings had soaked into Cherry’s larger feelings of loneliness and
anger. They didn’t feel specific to Russ at the moment. When she thought about him, she sat up taller, like she was trying
to pull herself tight.
“Are you mad at me?” Stacia texted.
“No.”
“Do you want to talk about Russ?”
“Definitely no.”
“I’ve decided that, if something happens to me, I’d WANT you to hit on Jim.”
“That is weird and gross, but I think you’re saying it from a place of love.”
“I am.”
“I love you, too.”
Winter had arrived. With freezing temperatures and afternoon flurries. Every time it snowed, everyone who worked in Western
Alliance’s seventeen-story glass office building would stand at the walls and look down at the street to see if it was sticking.
Meg Jones stopped in Cherry’s office around three one day, on her way out the door. There was a blizzard coming. It was a few days till Christmas. Cherry was standing at her window, looking out into the whirling white.
“You should get out of here,” Meg said. “Beat the traffic.”
Cherry hated driving in the snow, even though she was fine at it. “Maybe I’ll wait for everyone else to plow a path down Dodge.”
“You’ll be here till midnight. I heard they’re closing the interstate to Lincoln.”
Meg left, and Cherry left right after her. The office was already empty.
Cherry’s fifteen-minute drive took an hour and a half. Bumper to barely visible bumper. She lived at the top of a hill, and
tonight she had to rev her engine at the bottom to power up the unplowed street to her house. The car rolled back the first
time she tried it.
It was a relief to finally pull into her driveway just as the sun was setting. Cherry had forgotten her snow boots at work,
and her dress shoes—very cute tasseled oxfords—were full of snow by the time she got to the porch.
There were fresh paw prints in the yard . . . It looked like Stevie had been rolling around. Stevie loved snow.
Cherry trudged up the front steps and inside the warm house, finally letting herself relax. Stevie didn’t come running. She
and Tom must still be on their walk. Stevie was lucky that Tom was around—Cherry never would have taken the dog for a walk
in this weather. Stevie was too hard to manage when it was icy. She’d drag Cherry down the block like a sled.
Cherry took off her wet shoes and flipped the light switch. The lights didn’t come on. She tried it again. Then walked into
the kitchen and tried that light, too. Was the power out? It could just be a fuse . . . The house was old and glitchy.
The fuse box was out in the garage. Cherry glanced out the window. Maybe she could just wait for Tom to take care of it . . .
No.
She could do this.
She’d done it before.
She didn’t have extra snow boots, so she put on rubber rain boots and carefully made her way back down the front steps. The
boots were slippery, but they kept her feet from getting even wetter.
When she got to the garage door—not the big door, the side door—it was already open.
She peeked in.
Tom was standing in the shadows holding a snow shovel. He was looking down at his phone.
“Oh, hey,” Cherry said. “I thought you guys were still on your walk.”
“We just got back.” He tucked his phone in his pocket. “I was going to shovel the front sidewalk before I go.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“It won’t take long,” he said.
“But it’s just going to keep snowing.”
“It’ll make a dent.”
Cherry shrugged.
Tom frowned at her. “Were you coming in here for the shovel?”
“No. I came out to check the fuse box.”
“Is the power out?”
“Maybe. At least on the main floor.”
Tom set the shovel down and tried the garage light. It was dead. He opened the fuse box. Cherry stood behind him. “I think
the power must be out,” he said. “Probably ice on the lines.”
“Hopefully it won’t be out all night.”
He lowered his eyebrows at her. “Is your phone charged? There’s a camping battery in the basement.”
“It’s charged. I’ll be okay. You should get home—see if your dad has power.”
“Yeah, maybe I will.” He shut the fuse box.
“You won’t miss blizzards in California, huh? Though I guess they have earthquakes . . .”
“And wildfires.”
“And landslides, right?”
Tom was giving her a serious, squinty look, like he was still worried about something. “Cherry, I’m . . .”
Cherry waited.
“I signed a lease,” he said. “In Pasadena.”
“Oh.” She nodded. She reminded herself (again) that this wasn’t a surprise. She knew that Tom was moving away for good; it was the only reason he came home. “I thought
you were looking in Los Angeles.”
“It’s a suburb. Basically.”
“Oh. An apartment?”
“No. A house. I wanted a yard for Stevie. If I like it there, maybe I’ll buy something.”
Cherry furrowed her brow. “For . . . like, for when Stevie visits? Do you want Stevie to visit?”
Tom narrowed his eyes further. He looked confused. “No, I mean—I can take her now. When I go. I got a place that allows dogs.”
Cherry clenched her teeth. She felt her nostrils flare. “Tom. You can’t take Stevie.”
He shook his head. “What?”
“You can’t just take Stevie.”
He shook his head some more. “Cherry, you were mad that I didn’t take her before.”
“No, I was mad that you left me with her!”
“It’s the same difference.”
“It is not!”
Tom tried to run his fingers through his hair. He was wearing a wool hat. “You told me that she was too much to manage on
your own. You said that you hadn’t even wanted a dog—you said that a dog isn’t a baby.”
“A dog isn’t a baby!” Cherry half shouted.
“You said you were glad that I was back to walk her every day—you act like she’s a huge hassle!”
“Tom, she is a huge hassle!”
He threw his hands up. “So, why are we even arguing?”
She pointed at him. “Because you can’t just take her away from me! You don’t get to take everything!”
Tom leaned toward her with his big barrel chest. His arms were still out. “I didn’t take anything! I’ve been living out of a suitcase for a year!”
“You took everything!” Cherry was shouting. Maybe she was screaming. “You took everything!”
Tom looked speechless. He took a step back.
Cherry’s lungs were heaving. She tried to catch her breath. “You don’t get to take her,” she said. “Stevie!” Cherry looked around. “Where is she?”
“She’s inside,” Tom snapped.
“She’s not inside. She’s—Oh my god.” Cherry ran for the garage door. She slid when she stepped out into the snow.
Tom was right behind her. “What’s wrong?”
“I left the front door open.”
“Cherry, slow down.”
“I left the door open!”
There were new paw prints on the front steps. New snow angels in the yard.
“Tom, she got out!” Stevie was a runner.
“Let’s check the house.”
“I thought she was with you.”
Tom passed Cherry on the steps. The front door was still open—Cherry had thought she was only stepping outside for a minute.
She hadn’t wanted to grab her keys.
Tom raised his voice—“Stevie!” He was already inside the house.
Cherry followed him. “Stevie?”
Tom clomped up the stairs to the bedrooms. Cherry checked the main floor. The cellar door was closed.
“Stevie!” she heard Tom call.
Cherry went to the bottom of the staircase. “Tom, she’s not here! Didn’t you see the tracks in the yard?”
He was coming down the stairs. “I’ll go look for her.”
“I’m coming, too.”
“No. You stay here.”
“I’m coming.”
“Cherry, you’re wearing a dress.”
“I’m wearing wool tights.”
He shook his head and raised his hands again, this time like Cherry wasn’t his problem. She wasn’t.
She followed him out onto the porch. “Should I leave the door open in case she comes home? Or is that crazy?”
“That’s crazy,” he said. He cupped his palms around his mouth. “Stevie!”
“Stevie!” Cherry shouted.
They both waited. If you’d asked Cherry what Stevie sounded like, she wouldn’t have been able to tell you. But now she was
straining to hear the dog’s tags jangling and her heavy pant.
“We’ll find her,” Tom said. “She left a trail.”
They followed Stevie’s paw prints down the sidewalk. Down the block. Out into the street, where they disappeared under tire
tracks.
“I think she went this way,” Tom called from the other side of the road.