Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
DELANEY
New Year's Eve in Millhaven is a potluck at Lila's.
I know this because Mags told me in November, and because Lila mentioned it the week, she came over with wine, and because by the time December arrived I was sufficiently absorbed into Millhaven's social fabric that I received the invitation as a matter of course rather than a gesture of inclusion.
Which is itself the whole thing — I went from receiving an invitation to of course you're coming in approximately six weeks, and I didn't notice the transition until I was already on the other side of it.
Cole brings something that involves several layers of cheese. Maya brings wine. Beck and Carol bring what Beck describes as a contribution and what Carol clarifies is a tart she's been thinking about since October. Mags brings herself and her opinions, which are more substantial than any dish.
Ethan brings me.
Not dramatically. He knocks on the cottage door at seven, takes the thing I've made — a cranberry situation I found in Elise's recipe book, which is becoming a reliable source of decisions — and we walk to Lila's together through the December dark, and it's the most ordinary extraordinary thing.
This is mine, I think, walking down Elm Lane with the cranberry dish and my hand in Ethan's. All of this is actually mine.
The last day of the year feels significant in the way that last days do, not because anything is different from the day before, but because humans need markers and December 31st is the most agreed-upon one we have.
I drink wine and eat things and talk to people who have, in twelve weeks, become the fabric of my daily life, and I think about the year that's ending.
October in a hotel room with seventeen missed calls and a paper bag from Romano's.
The drive to Millhaven at ten o'clock on a Monday night because I was done waiting for permission.
Gerald. The leak in the dormer. A man on my roof who waited without asking when Jason called.
Mags saying first week or first month. Lila's note on the door. The blue mug on the kitchen shelf.
Patricia Wren's office on the fourteenth floor. Do you want to save the marriage? No.
The wall was repaired, mortar visible, the pear tree pruned, the spring bulbs in the ground.
A coffeemaker named Gerald.
The Nikon loaded, the film developed, the ladder print on Ethan's shelf.
A few simple things in sequence, he said. And here I am, at the end of the year, in Lila Cho's living room in Millhaven, North Carolina, in a life that is entirely mine.
At midnight Ethan finds me where I'm standing near the window and he says hi in the quiet version, just for me, and I say hi back, and he kisses me while Cole counts down in the background and Mags says Cole, you're off by two seconds and someone laughs and the year turns over.
Happy New Year, I think and for the first time in a long time, I mean it.
Jason calls on January third.
I see his name on the screen, and I feel the thing I've been feeling about his calls for two months…
the tired clarity of something already decided.
I let it go to voicemail. I forward the voicemail to Patricia without listening to it first. I've learned, through twelve weeks of practice, that listening to his voicemails is an exercise in diminishing returns. Patricia's summary is always cleaner.
Patricia's summary this time is: He's requesting a call directly. Says he has information relevant to the proceedings. I recommend you don't engage. I'll handle it.
Handled. Thank you.
Then I go back to the Hart Creative project I'm working on — a local restaurant in the next town over, referral from the Asheville client, exactly the kind of work I want more of, and I work until noon and eat lunch and don't think about Jason's voicemail again.
Mostly. The thing I notice, when I'm honest with myself about it, is that I don't miss him.
Not the way I thought I would. I spent years planning my life around a person and that person turned out to be significantly different from who I thought he was, which should probably create a specific kind of grief, and it did — when it ended and other things began to shape.
But now the grief is about the years, not the person. It's about the decade I spent building a life that was the wrong size. It's not about Jason specifically.
That's new. That's the first time I've been able to say it that cleanly.
Dana calls on a Thursday in the second week of January.
"Patricia got the response to her counter," she says, with the voice she uses when the news is good but she's being professional about delivering it. "Jason's lawyer is moving. They want to close by end of January."
I stop what I'm doing. "End of January."
"Patricia pushed hard on the asset division and his lawyer knows she has the documentation to make this difficult for another three months. He's recommending Jason take the settlement. He's going to take it, Delaney. I think he's going to take it."
I sit down.
End of January. Not February. Not March. January.
"Are you sure?” I ask.
"Patricia says eighty percent. I say ninety." The professional voice gives way slightly. "Baby, it's almost done."
I put my hand flat on Elise's kitchen table and I breathe. "January," I say.
"Possibly. Within three weeks, if he takes it." Dana is quiet for a moment. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I need to tell someone," I say.
And then I realize what I've just said, and I realize the someone I want to tell is not Dana, because Dana is already on the phone and knows, and the someone I want to tell is the person who has been the first person I want to tell since approximately November.
"You should," Dana says. She definitely hears it in my voice.
"I love you," I say.
"I know. Go tell him."
He's at the Galveston site. I know this because we've been texting since morning and I know his schedule the way I know Mags' hours and Lila's pottery schedule and the library's Tuesday closing time — because he's part of my daily life now and daily life means knowing where your people are.
Dana called. The divorce might be done by end of January.
His response comes in four minutes.
That's earlier than March.
Patricia pushed hard on the asset division.
Dana was right. She's good at her job.
She said to tell you she accepts the compliment.
Did you tell her?
No, I'm telling you about it instead.
I'll be done here by four. Come for dinner.
I'm already planning the garlic situation. I looked it up.
What did you look up?
How to prevent garlic from burning while distracted.
What's the solution?
Lower heat. More patience. Don't let the distraction run the pan.
Another pause. Then, I can hear him saying it in the dry exact voice:
The garlic was always going to be the variable.
I laugh at my phone in Elise's kitchen.
At 4. Come early if you want.
I want.
I'm not thinking about Jason.
I want to be clear about this because it matters: on the day I find out my divorce might be finalized in three weeks, I'm thinking about January light and the Nikon and Ethan's kitchen and the garlic situation and the spring espalier wires and Dana's voice saying it's almost done, and the feeling in my chest is clean and forward-facing.
I'm not thinking about Jason. Which is why, when the notification comes at two-thirty in the afternoon, I don't see it immediately.
It's not a direct message. It's something one of our mutual Raleigh contacts posts on a photo I'm tagged in — Lila put a photo from New Year's Eve on her account, and one of Jason's friends from Raleigh, someone we both knew, apparently follows Lila because they follow me, has commented on it.
The comment is innocuous on its surface. Looks like fun! Glad you're doing well. Standard social media nothing.
What it tells me is: Jason is watching.
Not me directly, I adjusted the settings in November. But someone is, and they're reporting back, and the photo of me at Lila's New Year's Eve with Ethan's arm around my waist is the kind of image that gets forwarded.
I stare at my phone for a moment.
Then I take a screenshot, send it to Patricia with a note, and close the app.
Jason calls three times between two-thirty and four o'clock.
Not unusual in frequency — he goes in waves, two or three in a row when something prompts him, then silence. But the timing is noted. Something prompted him today.
I don't answer.
At three-fifty I get a text from an unfamiliar number:
Delaney, it's Marcus. I just want to say I'm sorry. I should have reached out sooner. Jason's been through a lot and I think he just?—
I don't finish reading it. I forward it to Patricia, block the number, then put on my coat and walk four houses down Elm Lane in the January cold and knock on Ethan's door.
He opens it in the work clothes he hasn't changed out of yet, flour on his hands from something he's apparently started in the kitchen, and he takes one look at my face and steps back to let me in.
"Hey," he says with a smile.
"Hi," I say. "He's watching."
"Tell me."
We're at his kitchen table with the pasta situation in progress on the stove — he took it off the heat when I knocked, and it can wait — and he's sitting across from me with the full undivided attention that has been the most consistent thing in my life for fourteen weeks.
I tell him about the photo, the comment, the three calls, Marcus's text.
He listens. He doesn't interrupt. He doesn't perform anger or protective posturing — he just takes in the information with the accuracy of someone building a complete picture.
When I finish: "What does Patricia say?"
"I forwarded everything. She said to document and ignore."
"That's right."
"I know." I look at my hands. "I'm not scared of it. I want to be clear about that — I'm not scared of him or what he might do. I'm annoyed. I was having a very good day, and I'd like to go back to having a very good day."