Chapter 37
Celine
My thoughts raced as I cleaned up the kitchen, sorting homework and mail and sweeping up half-built Lego structures that I’d absolutely step on if left on the floor.
The kids were upstairs, asleep or reading.
We’d reviewed the plan for tomorrow several times.
I felt guilty, but I didn’t have a choice.
There was no way I’d drag them into a prison.
My throat tightened. I’d have to see him tomorrow. Come face-to-face with my ex-husband.
I was different now. I’d grown and healed. But I couldn’t heal what he’d done. Not fully. Not ever. Especially for my kids.
Ellie was hypervigilant and wary.
Maggie threw herself into distractions to avoid reality.
And Julian. I’d just gotten him sleeping in his own room. He was starting to get comfortable here.
I wished there was a way to go back. To intervene before all the hurt. Before the kids had to see what they saw and hear what they heard.
Nausea roiled in my gut.
I stared at my hands. Small and dainty, with a few scars. Short nails and raggedly cuticles.
I’d spotted a nail salon in town, but I had neither the time nor the funds for a manicure today.
So rather than perseverating about tomorrow any longer, I snagged Ellie’s nail supplies, which now took up a medium sized Rubbermaid bucket, from the bathroom.
While she favored black and other dark colors, there was a decent selection, plus the lamp thing that dried them.
Sitting at the table, I got the supplies ready. Cut and filed.
It gave me something to focus on. Something small and manageable.
But when I tried to apply the base coat, my hand shook so badly that I got it all over my fingers.
I removed it and tried again, bracing my hand against the table. But the difference that made was minimal.
What was wrong with me? If I couldn’t do something as simple as paint my nails, how on earth could I drive to Maine tomorrow and testify at a parole hearing?
Tears filled my eyes and I slammed the bottle down.
Half a second later, a knock sounded at the door.
Dragging myself from my chair, I wiped my tears on the sleeve of my T-shirt.
Josh was standing patiently under the porch light.
“I just wanted to see you,” he said as I opened the door.
I nodded, unable to say anything in response.
“No need to talk. I was just walking Wayne. Wanted to wish you luck.”
He’d wished me luck at the hearing no less than a dozen times. It was sweet.
His hands were shoved into his pockets.
I didn’t want to talk, to be “on,” to explain myself.
But I also didn’t want him to leave. I wanted his strong, quiet presence.
“Do you want a cup of tea?” I asked.
He nodded, following me silently into the kitchen. Wayne walked right into the living room and curled up on the floor in front of the couch.
“What are you doing?” Josh asked as I put the kettle on.
He gestured to the table, where the bucket filled with polish, files and the light thing sat.
“I was trying to paint my nails,” I said, looking down at my sad fingers. “Wanted to look professional, you know?”
“I’m sorry. I can get out of your way,” he said as if nail care was some deeply personal ritual.
“No. It’s fine. It was a dumb idea. Every time I try, I make a mess.”
I held up a hand and his eyes widened as it trembled. He reached out and squeezed it between his warm palms. I stepped toward him, looping my arms around his chest and burrowing my face against him.
He said nothing, just gently held me while I clung to him.
“Can I help?” he asked into the top of my hair.
I tilted my head to look up at him. “You want to paint my nails?”
“Sure do.”
“How much manicure experience do you have?”
“Absolutely none. But as a licensed operator of precision equipment, I think I can figure it out.”
He was so kind. But I couldn’t ask that of him.
“Will having your nails painted make you feel more confident?” he asked.
I paused for a moment, contemplating his question.
“Yes,” I admitted. It always did. I felt put together and unstoppable when my nails were done.
“Okay, then. I’m on it.”
He rubbed his big hands together and pulled out a chair at the table.
“Walk me through the process.”
“I cut and filed them already. So now we start with base coat.” I slid a bottle to him.
“Then two coats of polish and then top coat.”
He squinted, reading the different bottles. Then, with a nod, he picked up the pink polish.
His eyes met mine, and I nodded, sitting across from him.
I placed my hand in his, and rather than grip it, he waited for me to relax into his touch. Our knees brushed under the table as he positioned my hand the way he wanted it.
A long breath escaped me. Just having him here eased my nerves.
As I watched him study the bottles, it occurred to me that he hadn’t forced me to talk or offered any platitudes. It was as if he knew that the last thing I needed to hear was “it will all be fine.”
Instead, he focused on his work, providing me with a warm, steady anchor as fears stormed inside my body.
The bottle of base coat looked tiny in his farm-worn hands.
“Here.” He ran his fingertips over my palm before turning it over and placing it flat on top of a paper towel.
“How do we take it off if I mess up?”
I nodded at the bottle of remover. “I already tried twice tonight,” I admitted.
Gently cradling my pinkie, he brushed the clear base coat on gently and slowly.
He leaned forward, his face almost against my arm.
“Sorry. Just want to make sure I get it right,” he said.
“You’re concentrating like you’re defusing a bomb,” I joked.
He looked up at me, his dark eyes intense. “You know I don’t half-ass things, Matchstick.”
I bit my lip and nodded, unable to look away as he continued working.
His touch was featherlight and the juxtaposition of the tiny brush in his large callused fingers made me giggle.
But he was so earnest as he, gently, stroke by stroke, applied the polish.
“Ugh. I got some on your skin.”
“It’s okay.” I handed him the wooden stick thing Ellie used. “You use this to scrape it off.”
He eyed it like it was a weapon.
“Here.” I showed him, running the slanted wood over the side of my nail, “See? It comes off.”
He nodded, focusing on the next finger. When he’d finished my left hand, he peered up at me. “Now what?”
“I stick it under this light.” I flipped the switch to illuminate it and splayed my hand out beneath it.
“Did NASA design that thing?” he asked, eyeing the white dome-shaped LED light.
“Probably.” I shrugged.
He took my other hand and began with the pinkie.
“It’s getting cold,” he mused, carefully painting. “Random cold snaps can cause a hell of a lot of damage. Did I ever tell you about the time the sap lines exploded?”
“No.” I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. Exploded?
He nodded. “Yup. I was sixteen and Jas was twelve. Dad had us checking lines before a big storm. We forgot to relieve the pressure in one zone.
“The next day, we went out to collect the sap containers. Before long, we noticed that several of the lines had cracked and splintered. We were standing there, trying to figure out what happened at a large junction, and heard a loud snap.”
He smiled, his eyes creasing as he focused on finishing my right hand.
“The junction and the lines connected to it blew like a champagne cork. We got sprayed with sap slush. Covered from head to toe, misted with maple sap.”
He chuckled as I withdrew my left hand from the light and put my right under it.
“We smelled like pancakes for a week. Mom refused to let us go into town because she said we were attracting flies.”
I giggled, thinking of how mortified teen Josh must have been.
“But it was a lesson I’ve never forgotten.”
“I’m sure.”
He was picking up on the task at hand, smoothly painting my nails pink, only leaving minor smudges.
“We got into a lot of trouble as kids.” He shook his head. “My cousins were right next door, and we always managed to find trouble.”
“You?” I teased. “But you seem so responsible.”
“Not back then. We were good kids, but we always found a way to injure ourselves. One time, during a huge snowstorm, one of Uncle Ed’s cows wandered off.
“Gabe and I decided we’d track it and rescue it. And of course Jas had to tag along. We spent hours tracking hoofprints in the snow, around in circles, while Gabe muttered about how our rescue crew was going to need its own rescue.
“When we found the cow behind the old cider shed, Jasper got so excited he slipped on the ice and slid into the cow. She got spooked and kicked Gabe. Fractured one of his ribs.”
“Oh my God.”
He shook his head. “We still managed to rope her and bring her back. Mom made us hot chocolate and Dad was impressed. I felt like a superhero.”
“Of course you did. You were the only one uninjured.”
“Eh. Trust me, I’ve broken plenty of bones too.” We swapped hands again. “I tried to build a jump for my bike and ended up crashing through an apple tree. Broke my collarbone. Then there’s the time I tried to teach myself to drive and destroyed Mom’s rose garden.”
“Oh no.”
“Yeah. Took out most of the plantings. Snapped the trellis clean in two. Dad didn’t yell.” He huffed a quiet laugh.
“What did he do?”
“Told me to get a pair of gloves and clean it up.” He smiled at the memory.
“I spent the entire summer replanting, pruning, digging out roots, and reading books about rose care and maintenance. Mom and I took several road trips to specialty nurseries to find the rare varieties I’d destroyed.
” He examined his hands thoughtfully. “Still have scars from those thorns.”
“Wait a second,” I said, recognition dawning on my face. “I’ve seen the roses. On the far side of the farmhouse?”
He nodded. “Yes. Sixteen varieties. Hybrids, teas and English. A few heirlooms she insisted on keeping alive even when they barely survived the winter. And those climbing fuckers on the big trellis? Took four years to train them properly.” His face softened.
“But Mom wanted her storybook garden, and we got there.”
“And you maintain it?” I asked softly.
“Of course.” He shrank in on himself a little.
“With all the reading I did, I became an expert. No use in wasting the knowledge. They’ve got to be cut back at a forty-five-degree angle, above and outward, facing bud.
Deadhead in June and fertilize twice. Always watch for black spot after heavy rains. ”
He paused, and I could see the tension in his jaw.
“When she got sick, we’d sit out there and enjoy the blooms. She’d quiz me about the species, about best care practices, all of that. About how to care for Mr. Lincoln or the Black Baccara while I pretended not to notice how much more drawn she looked every day.”
My heart ached. I saw it on his face, the familiar grief. The same I’d carried with me since I was a kid.
“She knew you’d take good care of them,” I whispered.
He dipped his chin. “She used to say roses were beautiful, but they’d cut you if you forgot how dangerous they could be.”
I felt that deep in my gut.
“I think the thing that stuck with me,” he said, smoothing a glob of pink across the nail of my ring finger, “was the feeling. The security and the comfort. My parents were good people. I knew it in my bones. They loved us. They loved this land and this town. And I woke up every single day of my life secure in that knowledge.”
That took my breath away. It was the thing that kept me up at night, the fear that raged inside me when things got tough.
He reached out with his left hand and tipped my chin up. “Don’t do that.”
I blinked rapidly, worried I’d start to cry again.
“Don’t get down on yourself. Your kids have that too. I see how they look at you. I see how deeply they are loved. They know that. Deep down on a cellular level. And someday, when they are well-adjusted adults, they will tell you that.”
I sniffled. “I just worry—”
“It’s okay to worry. It’s human. But don’t doubt yourself. Or what you’ve given these kids.”
We sat in silence as he added the top coat and I put my hands under the lamp to dry.
My nails looked good. Pink and cheerful and bright.
I stared at them, processing all he’d shared with me.
“You maintain the roses for her,” I said, thinking about his mom and my own.
He held my gaze. “Yes. It’s the least I can do. She loved me so deeply I can still feel it.”
The honesty made my breath catch.
“And I’ve grown to love those fussy-ass flowers.” He leaned back in his seat. “They require patience, attention. You tend to them, even when they look dead.”
He reached out and brushed his thumb across my jawline.
“And every spring, they come back to you.”
I held his hand against my face, soaking up the sensation of his skin on mine. This touch said things my words could not.
“Roses look fragile,” he said quietly. “But they’re resilient.”
The room went impossibly still as we stared at one another, our hands connected.
He wasn’t just talking about roses anymore.
And my hands weren’t shaking.
The pool of dread in my stomach was gone.
He looked up at me with a shy smile, and discomfort along with a strange sense of contentment fizzled inside me. This was intimate. It was intense.
This man had been inside me.
But somehow, this kitchen DIY manicure felt like a bigger moment.
A step forward toward a destination I didn’t yet understand.