29. Heidi
HEIDI
Christmas happens in pieces.
There is Christmas Eve at Mom's, where Dash wears a paper crown too small for his head and complains that the manufacturer has discriminated against intelligence.
His wife tells him the evidence is inconclusive.
Ivy sleeps through the noise of the Christmas crackers and wakes indignantly when everybody sits down to eat.
Beau comes for the afternoon on Christmas Day. We agreed on it because I wanted him there, and I spend the morning making sure nobody calls it a milestone within my hearing.
He arrives with a cloth book for Ivy and the flowered mittens washed and folded for Mom. She refuses to take them back.
“You've stretched them into ownership,” she says.
He puts them on and accepts his fate.
At the table, he catches my eye over Dash's account of a failed attempt to assemble a toy for somebody else's child. I can see him preparing a builder's defense, and I shake my head once.
I smile at him.
Later, while Mom changes Ivy upstairs and Dash helps his wife carry dishes, Beau and I stand by the tree. There are needles on the carpet already, despite my assurance that this was a superior tree with a better attitude.
“You've been betrayed by a conifer,” he says.
“Don't enjoy it.”
“I'm grieving quietly.”
I laugh, then look at him.
“Will you have dinner with me on Saturday?”
His face opens before he answers. I have become familiar with how hard he works to contain hope. Tonight I like seeing it escape.
“Yes.”
“The diner. Somewhere we can wear ordinary clothes and disagree about the menu.”
“I can disagree in formalwear.”
“I know. You've done it at weddings.”
He grins. I hook two fingers in the front of his sweater and pull him down to me.
The tree smells sharp and green, and his mouth is warm beneath mine.
When I let go, he rests his forehead against mine for a moment.
“I'd like that,” he says, as if the dinner invitation has only just reached him.
“So would I.”
Upstairs, Ivy announces that Christmas has failed to meet her expectations. We both laugh and turn toward the sound.
On Saturday evening, Beau meets me at the Market Street diner in jeans and an old navy sweater. I wear boots, a green cardigan, and no earrings. We look like two people who came out for dinner because neither of them wants to cook.
The sight of the booth where I sat with Celeste tightens my stomach. Beau notices me stop.
“Another table?” he asks.
I look at the pastry case, the scratched tabletop, and the register where I made myself keep walking.
“No. This one has the best view of the pie.”
He waits until I slide into the booth, then sits opposite me.
The menus disagree about whether evening belongs to breakfast or dinner. Beau chooses eggs. I tell him eggs have had their opportunity.
“They remain versatile,” he says.
“That is what eggs want you to think.”
He orders a sandwich. I order soup and steal two of his fries before either plate has settled on the table.
“Does marriage offer no protection for a man's fries?” he asks.
“Not when you put them within my reach.”
His laugh loosens the knot beneath my ribs.
We talk about Ivy discovering her toes, the coat hooks at the clinic, and Mom's conviction that the newest bench needs a winter cover. Nothing in the conversation requires evidence or an apology.
When the server offers pie, Beau looks at me.
“One slice,” I say. “Two forks.”
“A dangerous concentration of agreement.”
“Don't become complacent.”
We disagree about whether the crust is better than the filling and finish every bite.
Outside, Beau holds out his hand. I take it, and we walk to the cars arguing about eggs.