Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Hank called the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
Sophie almost let it ring because she had spent the holiday answering concerned questions from people who had never previously asked about her marriage.
Then she pictured Hank looking at the phone in the garage, trying to decide whether to leave a message, and answered.
“I’ve got something of yours,” he said. He cleared his throat. “Well, something you should see.”
“The album?” Sophie sat on the edge of the guest bed.
“No,” he said. There was a pause. “Can I come over?”
He arrived with the garment bag over his arm. Sophie recognized the green through the unzipped side before he laid it across Kelly’s kitchen chair, and told him to close it before the sleeve caught on the chair back.
“Jesse’s seen it,” Hank said. He took a receipt out of his pocket. “He asked me to show you. The white one was bought before?—”
“I believe you.” Sophie left the receipt in his hand. Lorraine had bought a white dress and chosen to wear it; there had been a roomful of people looking at her in it. “Does Jesse believe you?”
“Yes.” Hank rested the paper on the garment bag and took off his cap. “He’s angry with me.”
“You told us you didn’t remember collecting it,” she said. “At dinner.”
Hank rubbed his forehead. “There’d been a lot going on,” he said. “I didn’t want to say something wrong.”
“Did you collect a ruined dress?”
“No,” he said at last. He looked toward the door. “No, I didn’t.”
Sophie sat opposite him. “I asked you that at dinner.”
“You and Jesse were already having a rough evening,” he said. His voice had acquired the patient tone she had heard from him at family dinners. “It wouldn’t have helped to?—”
“It would have helped me. You let her say you collected it.”
Hank began folding his cap along the seam. “We’d already had a row in the car,” he said. “About something else. I knew what would happen when you went home.”
“I had to go home with Jesse.” Sophie waited for him to answer, but he kept folding the cap until the stiff peak bent. She took it from him and put it flat on the table.
“I’m sorry,” Hank said. He rubbed his thumb along the dent in the peak. “I should’ve told you.”
Sophie got a glass of water because she needed to stand. She put it in front of him without offering coffee, then leaned against the counter while he drank.
“What did Jesse say?”
“Asked why I waited,” Hank said. He drank some water, then looked toward the window. “I told him I didn’t know the whole story.”
“You knew that part.”
Hank said nothing. Outside, a delivery driver knocked on the wrong door, and they listened to Kelly’s neighbor explain the numbering of the houses at length.
“He asked about when he was a boy,” Hank said finally. “I didn’t know he remembered some of it.”
Sophie had meant to ask what he was talking about. Instead she pictured Jesse sitting on their bed, telling her about waiting in the garage in his pajamas, and went to let the delivery driver know he wanted the next street.
When she came back, Hank had zipped the dress into its bag. He asked at the door whether she wanted him to try for the album again, and Sophie kept the door open while he explained.
“She says she’ll give it to you herself,” Hank said. He looked embarrassed. “At dinner. She’s been talking about getting everybody together before Christmas.”
Sophie stared at him. “She’s keeping my wedding album until I come to dinner?” she asked.
“I had it in my hands Tuesday,” Hank said. He tightened his grip on the hanger. “She took it back. Said she’d ordered prints and needed to check them against it.”
“You let her take it. Tell Jesse what you just told me.”
Hank nodded, though she couldn’t tell whether he meant to do it. She watched him carry the dress down the path and closed the door before he reached his car.
Jesse sent photographs of the receipt and the tags that afternoon. Sophie saved them to the folder with the wedding emails, then wrote asking when they could discuss the house.
She left the message unsent while she washed Hank’s glass. When she returned, the screen had gone dark. She woke it and pressed send before going upstairs to lie on the guest bed.