Chapter 38
Even before we’ve gotten out of Boston, I feel as if I have put down something heavy.
I can feel it in the way my shoulders melt against the passenger seat of Naomi’s car.
I have gotten it off my chest. Now Stewart can stay up all night ruminating if he wants.
But that’s not my problem. Stewart left, he quit.
I loved, I opened up, I tried. I spoke my mind. I put myself first.
“I could not have said any of it better myself,” Naomi keeps saying between repeating her favorite parts. “ ‘Pathetic.’ ‘Get your shit together.’ I mean, you were in the zone.”
“Well, that part was obviously spontaneous. I can’t believe I finally said it all. We should have stormed the castle months ago.”
Rocky trills and Naomi laughs. “Here we go. I’m predicting joint pain.”
“Good Sports, this is a recorded line. How can I help you? Ah, joint pain.” Naomi laughs and I shh her.
“In your shoulders? It’s quite common.” I think of Atlas carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, just like Stewart does.
Just like I’ve always done. “You know, one solution is to just put it down. Unclip it and let it plop to the floor. Yes, the floor. And then don’t pick it up again unless you’re going to return it.
In which case you need the original packing materials, which I’m guessing you don’t have.
Okay, then, just leave it. Right where it dropped.
You weren’t meant to carry all that around. You’re welcome.”
I turn off that phone for the first time in forever, and Naomi says, “Look who’s no longer a good sport.”
With infrequent substitute teacher work and even less frequent Uber requests, I am at the fish house most days in the spring.
My dad and I are in a rhythm that feels so familiar to me, doling out the chores—mopping, selling, reordering, filleting.
We close at three on the days Gus has hockey games.
Christopher comes with us and seems to enjoy watching the kids skate back and forth as much as he enjoys watching his tree.
People talk to him, and he remembers their names.
He clings to the printed game schedule and builds his entire week around it.
I am no longer skirting around the issue of expanding.
The words he won’t let me are passive and are banned from my vocabulary.
I want a bakery counter, so I bake. Two weeks before Easter, I put three carefully wrapped chocolate cakes on the counter and they sell out by noon.
My dad pretends not to notice. The next day I bring four lemon pies.
They sell out. The day before Easter I bring an old card table from upstairs and set it up next to the fish counter. My dad shoots it a look and walks away.
“This is happening, Dad,” I call after him. “Whether you want to admit it or not.”
We haven’t discussed the online fish business either, but it’s well on its way.
Patsy is building our social media platform, and this has the unexpected benefit of putting us in contact all the time.
Patsy’s funny, something I forgot, and every time she posts a new cartoon about traveling fish with little suitcases and neck pillows, I get the actual giggles like a little kid.
I’ve been shipping fish to the Bad Teachers in Boston to see how many gel packs I need and how well it travels.
I print prepaid labels, and Christopher takes everything to the post office.
He comes with me into the store every day and waits outside on the cedar bench for jobs like this.
The more we give him to do, the more he does, and he seems clearer and more present.
I have an estimate for adding a second refrigerated counter and a bigger oven.
It’s just under eight thousand dollars, which I happen to have.
I’ve also asked my dad to let Gus and me help with his books, and as disinterested as Gus is in geometry, he is fascinated by the ins and outs of running a small business.
I have a delivery for the Whitfields in early May.
It’s warm enough that I decide to bike there.
The big black gates are open and I pass right through, past the stables and the pool and the princess chapel, straight to the delivery entrance.
I am both things now—a sometimes invitee to tea and a sometimes delivery person. This is absolutely fine with me.
I ring the bell and there’s no answer. I text Victoria that I’m there with her salmon, and she asks me to meet her in the vegetable garden.
I make my way through the formal gardens, where the dahlias have been replanted but have not yet bloomed.
I stop at the first archway of the garden and I am back in time: me picking a tomato, his almost wiping the juice from my lip, his hair against the creeping leaves.
The night air and the smell of rosemary and thyme.
I run my fingers along the bottom of my freshly trimmed hair.
I steel myself and keep walking and find her using a hand rake on the herb bed.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I say, giving my head a little shake. “Just walked through a memory. Ever happen to you?”
“All the time,” she says, returning to her raking. “Stewart?”
“Yes,” I say. “Your herbs grew like weeds last summer. I think you should add oregano and plant less basil this year, if you’re looking for notes.”
She smiles. “Send all the notes you’ve got.” She takes off her gloves and adjusts her sun hat with the back of her hand. “I talked to him.”
“Oh?”
“I mean, I talk to him once a week, but I talked to him about you. I told him that we’re friends.”
I don’t reply.
“Mention of you sort of broke the seal. He told me that you went to see him. And all about Dr. Meyers, the panic attacks. It felt good to have him open up to me.”
I remember that feeling good too, I don’t say.
“He’s made a lot of changes. He’s been trying to only work three hours on the weekends. And he’s been watching a lot of TV, from what I can tell.”
The thought of him watching TV softens me a bit. “What’s he watching?”
“Everything. All the series you can binge-watch, romantic comedies. Something with a cartoon family. I’m not sure if it’s a good sign or not.”
“It’s probably a good sign,” I say.
“He reached out to Henry and asked for help assessing a new project, which was a big step for him.”
“Yes,” I say. He would have hated doing that.
“It’s none of my business, Dolly. But would you ever give him another chance?”
I chew on this. I know she means well. “One thing I liked about being with Stewart—loved, actually.” I choke on the word. “Is that I realized I didn’t have to be the one who did everything all the time. He made me tea. More than once. He’s capable of reaching out if he has something to say.”