Epilogue. Callan
EPILOGUE
Callan
I strike a match to light the tapered candles in tarnished brass candlesticks and step back to admire the overall effect.
A harvest garland spills over the mantle, a burst of indoor color to contrast the twiggy gray trees that overtake the hillside every November.
Above the fireplace, a pair of portraits hang in gilded frames, their yellowed lacquer reflecting the candlelight.
As much as maintaining this house takes money, Lenore couldn’t bring herself to sell the portraits. The corporal looks stoic in his regimental coat, staring down the viewer from behind his cluttered desk, a quill poised in hand.
The portrait of Abigail is more evasive: Her head turned to her left, revealing the slender line of her throat and the ruffle cap at the back of her ruddy hair.
The corner of her mouth is tilted in the faintest suggestion of a smile, like she has a secret.
Maybe it’s my imagination working overtime, but I see a hint of Lenore in that expression. Always holding back a smile.
At least that’s how I tend to picture her, but over the course of the past year, Lenore’s smiles have come easier.
“I don’t understand”—there’s a sharp hiss from behind me, and I turn in time to see a hot pie tin clatter to the stove—“how anyone cooks more than one thing at a time.”
Lenore shucks a well-worn oven mitt shaped like a turkey and examines her finger where the heat seared through the quilted fabric.
“Run your finger under cold water,” I say. “I told you those things are hanging on by a thread.”
“It’s tradition,” she says, pinching my ribs with the mitt like it’s a sock puppet. I flinch away, ticklish. “Gran wore them every year.”
The house is decorated for Thanksgiving, but the kitchen is a disaster. The acrid smell of the charred pie crust mingles with the savory aroma of the turkey roasting in the oven.
Lenore sticks her finger under the tap. “So much for apple pie,” she laments.
I wander up behind her, my hands finding her waist and drawing her body flush against mine. “You go get ready,” I mutter into her hair, which smells smoky, like the kitchen. “I can take over in here.”
She shuts off the tap and twists around in my arms to face me. “Are you sure?”
I nod. Her hands cradle my face, and she pulls me down for a lingering kiss.
It’s meant as a simple thank you, but I can’t resist her.
My hands slip beneath her soft cashmere sweater.
I grasp her hips and use the leverage to back her into the counter.
A can of cranberry sauce clatters to the floor, startling us apart.
Lenore steps aside, but I’m not ready for her to go. I pin her against me in a bear hug, and she laughs as she squirms out of my grasp. Her hair is rumpled, dark eyes shining with mischief as she backs away. “I need to go shower,” she says breathlessly.
I groan. “Don’t tell me that,” I call, my hand chasing after her as she disappears into a neighboring room.
I can hear her grin when she shouts back, “Have fun picturing me naked!”
I’m tempted to chase her into the bathroom, but there’s too much that needs to be done in the kitchen. I rake a hand through my hair, trying to organize my thoughts around something that isn’t my girlfriend’s glorious, soap-lathered body. No small task.
I start by piling dirty pots and pans in the sink, letting hot water run over them.
After a few minutes, I’m more or less on autopilot.
My hands doing one thing, my mind doing another.
I’m almost done cleaning up and debating whether there’s still enough time for shower sex when a knock at the door dashes my hopes.
I wipe my hands on a dish rag and go to unlock the door. Duke stirs from where he was lying on the rug in the living room, nails clicking on the pumpkin pine boards as he moseys over to greet our guest.
Dad is already doffing his coat as he steps over the threshold, hanging it on a hook in the mudroom.
“Smells like snow,” he says by way of greeting.
I look past the door at the gray sky, the dormant woods blanketed in silence.
If you listen hard, you can almost hear the last exhale of autumn before the season turns.
For years, snow meant going into hibernation, shirking my responsibilities around the farm until the muddy season rolled around in late spring.
Last year, everything changed. I’m still the groundskeeper on paper, but I’m also so much more than that.
Now, snow means waking up at five in the morning, bundled in a puffer jacket and all-weather boots to push the snowblower down the long driveway so that Lenore can get out safely.
It’s checking the heating oil in the basement at regular intervals to make sure she doesn’t run out.
Sometimes, it’s burrowing under the blankets and letting her put her cold feet on me to warm them up.
I shut the door and follow Dad into the keeping room. He’s stooped over to scratch beneath Duke’s collar. “You burn something?” he grunts, wrinkling his nose.
“Ah, yeah. It was a pie.”
“Well, the rest of it smells good.” His eyes fall on the easels propped in the corner, crinkled paint tubes and frayed brushes littering the coffee table. “Lessons going well, I take it,” he says.
I nod. “She’s up to six students now.”
It started with Avery. In her typical fashion, Lenore had offered to give lessons for free, but Shelby and Jesse wouldn’t hear it. Word spread, as it tends to in small towns, and eventually other parents were contacting Lenore about lessons for their own children.
It’s maybe not the artistic career she had envisioned when she moved to New York ten years ago, but I think it’s proven a fulfilling one. There’s the coffee shop, too. They’ve started selling prints as well as originals to keep up with the demand of tourists who roll through in the autumn months.
These days, Lenore is painting more often than not.
Within the hour, we’re seated around the dinner table. Damien and Katie drove up from Connecticut. They brought their bernedoodle, Gregory, who’s so far spent the evening using his endless well of energy to harass an exhausted Duke.
We swapped out the captain’s chair at the end of the table for a high chair, which Eloise—who’s been walking since she was about ten months—refuses to sit in, so everyone takes turns passing her around the table while trying to eat, with varied results.
As soon as she’s handed to me, she tries to wriggle to the floor, kicking her feet, screaming until she’s purple in the face. Damien hoots with laughter.
“Babies can smell fear, you know,” he says. “So basically, she’s telling you that you’re a coward.”
Eloise pulls a move that resembles a crocodile death roll. Katie fidgets for a minute until she can’t watch any longer and rises from her chair to relieve me of baby duty.
“I’m pretty sure it’s dogs that can smell fear,” Dad says, either oblivious to the fact that Damien is ragging on me or too literal to care.
I shrug. “Well, Greg doesn’t seem to smell anything.” Both dogs have taken up residence under the table, waiting for scraps.
“To be fair,” Lenore says, pointing her fork with turkey skewered on the end, “I’m not sure that Gregory counts as a dog. I think he’s more like a human who committed an egregious sin in a past life, and was sentenced to live out this life in a dog suit as punishment.”
“No, actually”—Katie holds the baby up and sniffs—“I think she just needs a change.”
Basically, it’s utter chaos, but it’s family.
Lenore’s hair is still damp from the shower, and I catch the scent of her tea tree shampoo every now and again when she leans close to ask me to pass the gravy.
I’m torn between wanting to get her alone and wanting to soak up every minute that we’ve got everyone gathered around the same table.
Maybe I’m feeling sentimental this year, but there’s a lot to be thankful for.
After we’ve let dinner settle, Lenore gets up from the table and turns out the lights.
“What are you doing?” I ask, twisting in my chair to watch as she rounds the counter into the kitchen.
Her apologetic smile is lit from below by a flickering candle, stuck in the middle of the charred apple pie. “I didn’t exactly have a backup pie, so we’re going to have to use this one,” she says, carrying it to the table. Everyone stumbles into singing “Happy Birthday.”
“It’s not until next week,” I shout over their tone-deaf singing, even though I can’t help but grin.
Lenore slides the pie onto the table in front of me. “It’s not every day that we’re all together to celebrate,” she says as the song tapers to an end.
“You have to make a wish,” Katie reminds me.
I raise my eyebrows. “I’m going to be thirty-one.”
“Make. A. Wish. Make. A. Wish.” Damien slaps a hand on the table to punctuate each word, rattling the dirty plates and silverware. Everyone joins the chant but Eloise, who looks alarmed by all the sudden cultlike singing and chanting.
“All right, I’ll make a wish,” I say, laughing and holding up my hands in surrender. “Just give me a minute to think.”
Everyone falls silent, expectant. My eyes find Lenore’s in the dark, glistening in the candlelight. Sometimes, it feels impossible, the way she looks at me. I have no clue what I’m supposed to wish for when I already have everything I’ve ever wanted.
Well, almost everything. Absently, I reach into my pocket beneath the table to fidget with the velvet ring box.
I took the emerald ring to a jeweler a few weeks ago to have it resized.
Ever since, I’ve been keeping it on me, until the moment presents itself.
As great as this moment is, it’s still not the right one.
Lenore has an exhibit opening at a little gallery in Burlington in December. Maybe I’ll do it then.
I squeeze my eyes shut. I envision proposing, our wedding, the rest of our lives together in this old, creaking, crooked, glorious farmhouse.
I can see it all—our future. I open my eyes and lean toward the pie.
Toward Nore. Our eyes find each other in the dark, and she smiles wide, like she can see it, too.