Twenty-Six #2
Later, I sit outside on the patio, hearing the bed creak against the wall, willing the cold to shock me back into myself.
At work Ginny is a puzzle to me. Each time I see her on the floor, I’m seized by nerves, but she’s calm as can be.
She doesn’t ignore me, she doesn’t flirt.
She says hello when our eyes meet. Sometimes she’ll inquire over the weekend that just passed, listen in a way that shows she cares about the answer but doesn’t hint toward anything else.
I have no idea if she wants me anymore. I can’t tell if she thinks of me when I’m not right here, in her presence.
I avoid the upstairs coworkers’ lounge—frequented mostly by managers, mostly men—until I discover that the window in the corner looks over the parking lot.
Sometimes, when her shift is over, I go to see who she leaves with. She almost always leaves with someone.
One afternoon she makes her way through the parking lot alone.
She turns. She leans against the driver’s door, fixes her gaze on the window where I’m standing, and waves.
My cigarette slips through my fingers and I’m bending over to pick it up, making sure no embers are on the carpet, and a Production manager slides his hand across my behind and a few men chuckle and I flush with anger and humiliation, but I’m most concerned with hurrying to the exit and down the stairs and outside, to where Ginny is still leaning against the car, her head tilted skyward, sun on her face.
“I didn’t mean to spy,” I say.
“I’m pretty sure you did,” she says, not looking at me.
“I guess you’re right,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
“No need.”
It’s just after Thanksgiving now, our house peaceful, just the three of us with Felix on the train.
“When will we get our Christmas tree?” Nathalie asks.
“Whenever we want to,” I say. “Should we get a pink or a blue one, like Auntie Adele’s and Auntie Claire’s? Or should we stick to the real thing?”
“The real thing,” Clément says. “I like having a piece of nature in the living room.”
Nathalie agrees.
“I drove past a lot the other day,” I say. “It wasn’t too far. Should we go? We could surprise Daddy with it when he gets home.”
They both jump up. Yes, yes, yes.
At the lot we drink hot cider out of little paper cups and a group is caroling. They sing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and Nathalie listens in the careful way that she does when a song moves her. “I like the sad Christmas songs the best,” she says.
“I do, too,” I tell her.
And then Clément is behind us. “I found our tree,” he says. “Come see.”
I pay for it and the men working there help us tie it to the top of the car.
Nathalie sings on the drive back home, her voice more beautiful than anything on the radio, anything I listen to in the booth.
We clear a spot for the tree in the corner by moving my chair by the fireplace.
I start a fire and we put on a Bing Crosby Christmas record.
We pop popcorn to string for garlands and melt butter for a second batch to eat.
And then we’re tired, we’re happy, a casserole is in the oven and we’re lounging in the living room with the fire burning and our tree glorious and adorned.
There’s a memory tugging at me, inviting me in, and I let my mind go to it—and here’s Cyril.
We’re in his bed in the Laurent house. In just a few hours, he’ll be reporting to Shreveport for duty.
He sits up, leans against the headboard.
I sit up, too, in my nightgown, study him.
I memorize the slant of his nose, the angle of his jaw.
His hazel eyes, his throat as he swallows.
He says, “It’s about time for me to face the day.
” Kisses me, softly. When he pulls away again, he has a hopeful look.
“What is it?” I ask. He tilts his head to the side.
He says, “Do you think we made a baby while we were away?”
Clément looks so much like him, sitting on the living room floor in front of our tree.
And Nathalie’s hair falls loose like Delphine’s as she’s lifting a record, turning it to its other side.
And I have another memory, hazier, of Delphine and me as little girls at Christmas Mass, holding hands in red velvet dresses as the choir sings.
I go to my bedroom, reach into the closet for the two gifts I’ve stowed there. “I have presents for you,” I say.
Nathalie’s skeptical. “It isn’t Christmas yet.”
“I know. Daddy and I will get you others. But I’ve been holding on to these and I can’t wait.”
I hand Clément his, heavy for its size. I hand Nathalie hers, flat and delicate. Nathalie waits while Clément tears the wrapping. He holds the brass paperweight in his hands. “C.L.,” he says. “My initials. But it looks so old.”
“It was your father’s,” I say. “Those were his initials, too.”
He clasps it to his heart. Nathalie hesitates with her gift. “Go ahead,” I tell her. “You won’t be disappointed.”
She peels off the paper. Cocks her head at the framed drawings in her hands. “What are these? Why are the noses in the wrong place?”
“They’re contour drawings. Delphine and I made them, before you were born.
I drew this one of her. She drew that one of me.
” Clément and Nathalie study them. “Your two mothers,” I say.
Firelight from the hearth. Opening notes of “Silver Bells.” Their faces, close together.
I leave them in the living room to check the casserole.