Chapter Forty-Two #2
Lynn and I grinned at each other, and I returned to the kitchen. Macon gave me an extremely grouchy look, which made me smile even bigger.
“The walls look good,” Lynn called out. “Pretty table, too. And I like the red chairs.”
“Ingrid helped with all of it,” he reminded her.
“Obviously,” Lynn said, and I laughed.
“You need curtains, though,” she added.
I nodded at Macon like See? as we loaded our three plates with roasted turkey, rosemary stuffing, grilled corn, mashed potatoes, butterhorn rolls, and cranberry sauce with candied ginger and orange zest.
“Oh!” Lynn said.
He stilled. “Everything okay in there?”
“I forgot you have a cat now.”
“He won’t hurt you.”
“No, I know. I’m fine. Bonnie used to have a calico, do you remember? Used to run around here. She took it with her when she married Jim.”
“Snickers,” he said.
“That’s right.”
A shadow fell across Macon’s face. I placed my hand atop his and let it rest. He and Lynn had been arguing recently about Bonnie’s memorial service. His mom, unsurprisingly, wanted to hold it in Ridgetop. But Bonnie’s life had been in Durham.
When we entered the dining room, Edmond was sitting upright in one of the empty chairs. Macon tossed a piece of turkey to him.
“Did you remember to turn off the grill?” Lynn asked.
Macon sighed. “Yes, I turned off the grill.”
“Look at that.” She buoyed again at the plate set before her. “You’re such a good cook. Isn’t my son the most talented chef?”
“He is,” I said.
“Ingrid helped, too, Mom.”
I smiled and made a gesture to Lynn that said, Only a little . “I’m better at decorating— Oh!” I sprang back out of my seat. “Your present.”
Macon started to protest, but I bounded off and fetched the bag from where I’d hidden it in Edmond’s room. “Happy birthday slash Thanksgiving.”
“I told you—”
“Hush and open her gift,” Lynn said.
He did. It was a pair of candlesticks made by the same ceramicist who made the mugs for Bildungsroman and two spiraled beeswax tapers dipped by a local chandler.
“I like them,” Macon said, sounding surprised.
His mom and I laughed, and I lifted his chin and kissed him.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Special occasions require candles,” I said, dimming the lights and producing a matchbook from my pocket.
“Careful with those,” Lynn said.
“Mom,” Macon said. But after blowing out the match, I ran it under the tap to show her that I was safe and trustworthy.
The meal was delicious, the tapers honeyed the air, and Lynn turned out to be a lively conversationalist. She was sharp and curious and well read, and I was relieved we didn’t run out of things to talk about.
It was easy for me to imagine all the meals and matches and candles that we might burn through together at this table.
I hadn’t forgotten about her probably needing to move in with Macon someday.
There was room for us both here, and I hoped he saw it, too.
Everything was going well until dessert. Macon and I were in the kitchen. I was plating the pumpkin pie, and he was whipping the cream when his mother announced that she needed to use the bathroom. I was surprised when he tensed.
“Macon,” she said again, anxiously.
“I heard you. That’s fine.”
I set down the pie server (Macon owned a pie server!) and went to her. She was wavering on the threshold to the living room with large and frightened eyes.
“Lynn? May I escort you to the bathroom?”
She didn’t answer, so I placed a gentle hand on her arm. I tried to guide her forward, but her limbs were stiff. When I tried again, she shrieked.
Macon hurried toward us. “It’s okay. It’s the same house it always was.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t.”
“The bathroom is just over there.”
“I can’t! I want to go home.”
“You can do it,” he said. “I’ll walk you there.”
“Take me home! I want to go home!”
Tears were rolling down her cheeks, and I backed against the wall as she flew into hysterics. “Mom, it’s okay,” he said.
“Take me home,” she screamed.
“I’m taking you home.” He glanced at me frantically, and I bolted for his keys and wallet.
She shrieked again, perhaps because I had crossed into the empty space.
The bare branches of the towering cat tree threw sinister shadows across the walls.
“Wait,” he called after me. “I still have them in my pockets.” And then, “I didn’t put them down, Mom.
Just like I promised, okay? My keys are right here.
” As he led her out of the house, he coached her breathing.
“Do what I do. We’re going to make our exhalations longer than our inhalations. ”
I flashed back to sobbing on the library’s restroom floor, Macon crouched beside me.
How many times in his life had he spoken those exact words?
When had it started? Still in shock, I scraped our plates and loaded them into the dishwasher.
I pictured him as a child, how scary it must have been—and then how humiliating once he grew older.
I thought about his aunt again, better understanding the support and freedom she must have provided for him.
When he finally returned, I was sitting at the table with two slices of pie.
“Happy birthday,” I said quietly.
“One night.” He slumped into the chair beside me. “I was hoping we could get through one night.”
“You got her here. We had a wonderful dinner. That’s a good start.”
“I knew the living room would freak her out.”
“You said that, and I didn’t believe you,” I admitted. “But we’ll get a couch. And we’ll fill the shelves. We’ll fill the whole room up and invite her back.”
“I miss Bonnie.”
My heart broke. “I know.”
“I wish you could have met her.”
Edmond sprang onto my lap, and the candlelight flickered.
“It’s not like she would have been my Bonnie anyway. That Bonnie was already gone.” Darkness weighted his shoulders. “My mom is all I have left now.”
I lifted one of Edmond’s paws and waved it at him. “Not all.”
He took us in. A smile almost cracked through.
“I’m sorry I made it worse,” I said, speaking in a voice and lifting both front paws to gesticulate like a hand puppet. “But I’ll learn how to help. I’ll read up on it, and you can teach me.”
Macon didn’t laugh. “That’s not necessary. And you have nothing to apologize for.”
I think he was trying to absolve me from any responsibility, but it deflated me.
If we were to all live here together someday, I needed to be able help her.
To help him. It suddenly felt as if I was trying to push my way into his life, as opposed to both of us moving forward together.
Yet this was also exactly where I wanted to be—with him, in this house.
Edmond had also wanted to belong to Macon and get inside this house. As he yanked his paws out of my grasp, I tried to hold on to him— engulfed my whole body around him—but he squirmed off my lap and tore across the room.
It was only confusing because all of this was new, I assured myself. Once I settled in, everything else would feel settled, too.