13. Jeremiah
JEREMIAH
Zelda left her stocking on the mantel.
Her name slopes upward in gold thread. She sewed it the first winter we lived here, sitting with her knees under my leg, and refused to unpick it when she noticed. She said everybody would know whose it was.
I stand in front of it on Christmas Eve and wait for the house to make a sound.
The heating clicks on. Upstairs, most of her clothes are still in the closet. She will need those. I keep coming back to that.
Last night I asked the guests to give her time to cool down. Suri had her coat halfway on and stopped putting it on. Candace tried to speak to me by the door. I sent everyone home before they could ask anything else.
Now there are containers of food on the kitchen counter. I open one, close it, open another. Zelda ordered enough to send people home with leftovers. She likes doing that, choosing what each person will want for lunch the next day.
My phone lights up.
I know you’re hurting. Do you want me to come over?
Candace.
I type No. My thumb waits over send. I delete it and put the phone down unanswered.
Someone in the kitchen would help. Someone who would pour coffee and say Zelda would be back. I can almost hear Candace saying it, and I want her here badly enough to pick up the phone again.
I call Dax instead.
“She left in the middle of the party,” I say.
“I know. I was there.”
“She could have waited until everyone went home.”
He is quiet. I press my thumb against the edge of the counter.
“Candace seems to have made the whole thing up,” he says.
“She told me before last night.”
“That’s a mess.”
I wait for the next part.
“But it doesn’t excuse Zelda turning your anniversary into a courtroom. She could have let you straighten it out afterward.”
My shoulders drop. I hadn’t noticed how high I’d been holding them.
“That’s what I said.”
“Give her Christmas to cool off. Then get her home.”
I look at the clock above the oven. There is still time for this Christmas. If I go to Hedy’s now, if Zelda will come downstairs?—
“You don’t need all of us weighing in on a private fight,” Dax says.
“You did weigh in.”
“I’m your friend. I want your marriage to survive. A public explanation will make it harder for both of you to move on.”
I don’t tell him the date Candace confessed. He hasn’t asked, and I can keep what he has just given me if I don’t make him think about it.
We agree to talk after Christmas.
For several minutes after the call I feel better. I make coffee. I take down Zelda’s mug as well as mine, then put hers back hard enough to knock it against the shelf.
In the dining room, someone has cleared around the card.
Her ring is still on the gold tree.
I thought I remembered everything about her leaving. The scrape of her chair. Hedy with the coats. Zelda saying yes when I told her what she was choosing. I had forgotten how long it took her to get the ring off.
I pick it up. There is a faint mark inside where the metal has worn against her hand.
I put it in my shirt pocket and fold the card into a drawer.
My mother sends a photograph of her Christmas table and asks when she can call us. I tell her we’re spending the day quietly. She sends love to Zelda.
I leave that on the screen.
Hedy will have given her the spare room. There is a narrow bed in there and a window that never shuts properly unless you lift it. I fixed it once. Zelda will be cold if she doesn’t remember how.
I open our conversation.
I could ask about the window. I could tell her I found her ring. But then we will talk about a cold room or a piece of jewelry, and she will still be at Hedy’s while I sit here with enough food for eleven people.
I want her home.
I type until the words say that and the other thing I cannot leave alone.
I want you home. We can resolve this if you admit that embarrassing me in front of our guests went too far.
I send it before I can change it.
Twenty minutes. I stand by the mantel for most of them, phone in my hand. Once the screen lights up and it is an email from work. I clear it without reading.
Then Zelda answers.
I’ll come by at two tomorrow to collect clothes and my pregnancy things. Hedy will drive me. Please make sure Candace isn’t there.
Tomorrow. Two o’clock. I read it again.
She hasn’t said she will stay. She hasn’t said she never will.
Upstairs, I open the drawer of baby things. The green hat is on top, its little ears flattened against the wool. I lift one with my finger. At the market she turned it toward me, the little ears sticking out, and bought it before we could make another joke.
I close the drawer. If I pack her things, she will only have to take the bag. Let her come upstairs. Let her see the room.
Let it make her remember she needs to come home.
At six the tree lights come on, exactly as she set them. Music starts with them, and I turn it off halfway through the first song. The silence is worse, but I don’t turn it back on.
I heat some dinner. Two plates come out of the cupboard. One goes back.
The cake is almost whole. I cut a slice and sit down with it, then take out my phone because I want to tell her she chose well.
There is a photograph in our old messages of a note a child left in a library book: Please send this back to my dad if he asks.
Zelda spent a morning finding the father.
When she told me about it, she was so pleased she kept interrupting herself.
I had called it a rescue operation. She sent three laughing faces.
I touch the edge of the photograph and make it fill the screen. Her thumb is in the corner, holding the note flat.
I type I miss you.
I wait, watching those three words as if she can already see them. In my head she answers that she misses me too. Then she says she’s sorry she left like that, and we have somewhere to begin.
I erase it.
The cake has gone soft under the fork. I put it in the fridge because she may want it tomorrow.
Two o’clock. She’ll be in the house. I can still make that matter.