Chapter 7 No More Waiting
Lesley
I woke up in the condo on Monday morning with sunlight coming through the tall warehouse windows and no idea, for a few seconds, where I was.
Then I remembered, and I lay still and waited to feel terrible.
What I felt instead was tired, and sore in my chest where the smoke had been, and hungry in a way that meant the nausea had loosened its grip for once.
I also felt a quiet so complete that it took me a while to recognize it.
Nobody was going to call and say they were running late.
Nobody was going to promise me anything. The day was mine to decide.
I got up and made toast with the bread Heather had left in my bag, and I ate it standing at the kitchen counter looking out at the rooftops and the downtown skyline, and I cried for a while, too.
I didn’t try to stop. I had loved my husband for seven years and I had left him the night before, and grief doesn’t wait politely for you to feel ready.
When it passed, I washed my face, drank a full glass of water, and made a list.
Heather and Jo came at eleven with their SUV, two boxes of groceries, and the greyhounds, who inspected every corner of the condo and then fell asleep in a heap on the rug.
The three of us drove to the house in Washington Park.
Hank’s car was gone. I’d texted him that morning to say I’d be there between eleven thirty and one to pick up some things, and he’d replied Understood. I’ll be out. Nothing more.
I didn’t take much. More clothes, my work files, the good knives, the reading lamp from my side of the bed, the quilt my grandmother made.
I left the art on the walls and the furniture in the rooms and the ceramic key dish by the door.
At some point Jo found me standing in the doorway of the room we’d talked about making a nursery.
The walls were still the pale gray the previous owners had painted them.
I had paint chips taped beside the window in three shades of green.
“You okay?” Jo asked.
“I’m okay,” I said, and I was, mostly. I took the paint chips off the wall and put them in my pocket.
Back at the condo, Heather made tea and sat with me on the sofa while Jo assembled a bookcase with a level of concentration usually reserved for surgery.
Jo was an emergency physician at Denver Health, tall and quiet and dry as a desert, and she approached flat-pack furniture the way she approached a trauma bay: calmly, methodically, and with no tolerance for nonsense.
When she discovered that the kit was missing two cam locks, she said a single word under her breath that I’d never heard her use before, then went out to her car and came back with a small plastic box of spare hardware.
“You keep spare cam locks in your car?” I asked.
“I keep spare everything in my car,” Jo said, and went back to work.
The greyhounds, Pepper and Moose, had claimed the rug in front of the radiator and were lying on their backs with their legs in the air, snoring.
Heather had brought takeout from a Vietnamese place on Federal, and we ate it on the floor, cross-legged, because I didn’t own enough chairs yet, with the containers spread out on a flattened moving box.
It was the first real meal I’d eaten since the gala.
I had two helpings of pho and half of Heather’s spring rolls, and she didn’t say a word about it.
“I’m going to say one thing,” Heather said, “and then I’m going to shut up about it.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not going to tell you to divorce him. I’m not going to tell you to go back to him. I love you and I have opinions, obviously, but this is your marriage and your life, and you’re the smartest person I know. Whatever you decide, I’m on your side. That’s it. That’s the whole speech.”
I leaned my head against her shoulder. “That was a good speech.”
“I’ve been working on it since Aspen,” she said.
That afternoon, I called Dr. Kessler’s office and got an appointment for Thursday at nine thirty. I texted Hank the details in one message: date, time, address, and the name of the doctor, in case he’d forgotten it.
He replied within a minute. I’ll be there. Thank you for telling me.
Then, twenty minutes later, a second text. Can I come by sometime this week and talk? Whenever works for you.
I thought about it for a long time before I answered. I wanted to be precise, because I knew that once I set a boundary I would need to keep it, and I didn’t want to set one I couldn’t hold.
Anything about the baby, I’ll always answer, and quickly. Appointments, updates, questions, all of it. Anything about us, I need space for now. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to talk. Please don’t come to the condo unless I’ve asked you to.
The reply took longer this time.
Okay. I’ll respect that.
Dr. Anand had told me to take a few days, so I worked from the condo that week.
My firm had heard about the fire from the news, and my boss, Gail Mercer, called on Monday afternoon and told me to take as long as I needed.
I thanked her and told her I’d be on the Wednesday client call about the Larimer Street project, because I would be.
I knew what I was doing at work. I needed one part of my life that behaved like I expected it to.
By Tuesday, I’d started building a routine without quite deciding to.
I woke up when my body woke me, usually around six, and made decaf and toast and sat at the little table by the window while the city came up blue and then gold.
At eight I opened my laptop and worked until noon, answering email and marking up drawings and chasing the structural engineer, who had sent his revised load calculations on Monday night with a sheepish note saying he’d heard about the fire.
At noon I walked down the hill to the Italian market on Thirty-Second Avenue and bought whatever looked good, because I had no idea what I wanted to eat anymore, and the only way to find out was to look at food and wait for my stomach to form an opinion.
On Tuesday, the market had a bucket of potted pothos by the register, trailing green vines over the rim.
I bought one on impulse and carried it up the hill and set it on the kitchen windowsill.
It looked small and uncertain against the tall factory glass.
I watered it and told it, out loud, that it was going to have to get used to the light.
The Wednesday call about Larimer Street was with the developer, a man named Dale Hutchins who owned a string of car washes in Aurora and had decided in his late fifties that he wanted to build a boutique hotel.
He had a habit of adding features to the project the way other people added items to an online shopping cart. That morning he wanted a rooftop deck.
“It’d be a real draw, Lesley,” he said. “Heated. With a bar. Maybe one of those fire pits.”
Priya, our junior architect, who was on the call with me, made a small noise that might have been a laugh.
“We can look at it,” I said. “But I want to be clear about what it means. The roof was designed for mechanical equipment, not people. A deck changes the structural loads, which means the engineer revises his calculations again, which means we pull the permit submission we’re filing on Friday and start that part over.
You’re looking at a six-to-eight-week delay and a significant cost increase before anyone orders a single fire pit.
” I paused. “If it matters to you, we’ll do it right.
If it’s something you’d like to have, I’d suggest we finish this permit, get you in the ground, and design the deck as a phase two once the building’s up. ”
There was a long silence on the line.
“Phase two,” Dale said finally. “I like that. Phase two.”
After he hung up, Priya stayed on. “You just talked Dale Hutchins out of something in under two minutes,” she said. “Gail’s been trying for a month.”
“Dale doesn’t need to be talked out of things,” I said. “He needs someone to tell him what they cost.”
She laughed. Then, more carefully, she said, “Everybody at the office heard about the fire. Are you really okay?”
“I’m okay. I’m working from home this week. I’ll be in after my doctor’s appointment on Thursday.”
“I’ll make you ginger tea,” she said. “A whole thermos.”
When I closed the laptop, I sat for a minute in the quiet of my living room and noticed that for forty-five minutes I hadn’t thought about the fire, or Hank, or anything except load calculations and Dale Hutchins’s fire pit. It felt like coming up for air.
On Tuesday a courier brought a small package to the condo, forwarded from the house.
Inside was my phone, the one I’d left on the balcony table at The Summit.
It was scorched along one edge, and the case had warped, but when I plugged it in, it turned on.
There was a handwritten note folded around it on resort letterhead.
Mrs. Cavanagh, one of our engineers found this when they cleared the east wing yesterday. Evelyn Price called the front desk this morning to ask how you were doing. She wanted you to know she’s home in Boulder and her hip is fine. I’m so glad you’re all right. Tom Whitaker.
I sat on the floor with the phone and the note and laughed and cried at the same time.
Then I went through my messages. There were my two calls to Hank from the hallway, and my text.
There were forty-three messages from people I’d been too dazed to hear from in the hospital.
And there was one from an unknown number, sent Sunday afternoon.
Lesley, it’s Priscilla. I’m so, so sorry about the confusion on Saturday. I would never have said anything if I hadn’t been sure. I hope you and the baby are okay. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do.
I read it twice. There was nothing in it I could point to and call wrong. I also noticed that the word confusion was carrying a great deal of weight.
I didn’t answer it. I didn’t delete it, either. I didn’t owe Priscilla anything, including a reaction.
That same afternoon, Hank texted.
Mrs. Kowalski asked me for your address so she can send you soup. I told her I’d ask you first. Totally fine to say no.
I read it standing at the kitchen counter. It was such a small thing. He could have simply given it to her. For seven years, he’d have given it to her without a second thought, and I’d have found out when the soup arrived. I stood there longer than a text about soup deserved.
She can have it, I wrote back. Tell her thank you.
The soup came on Thursday morning in a mason jar wrapped in a dish towel, delivered by Mrs. Kowalski’s grandson, a lanky teenager who stood on my doorstep looking terrified of me.
It was chicken and dill, with a note in shaky cursive taped to the lid.
For the brave girl and the baby. Zucchini bread in August as usual.
E. K. I ate it for lunch at my desk at the office and saved the dish towel to give back.
Nancy called on Wednesday evening.
My mother-in-law and I had always gotten along, in the careful way of two women who both love the same man and have silently agreed not to compete for him.
Nancy was warm and brisk and deeply proud of her sons.
She sent birthday cards with handwritten notes inside.
She had also, over the years, said things like Lesley’s so independent, she doesn’t need Hank hovering, usually when Hank had canceled on me to help her with something.
“Sweetheart,” she said, “I’m not calling to interfere. I just want to know how you’re feeling. How’s the baby?”
“The baby’s doing well. I’m feeling better. Thank you for asking.”
“Oh, good. Good.” A pause. “Hank’s beside himself, you know. I’ve never seen him like this. He’s not sleeping. Clive’s worried about him.”
“I’m sorry he’s having a hard time.”
“I know you’ve been through something terrible,” Nancy said. “Nobody’s saying you haven’t. But surely you could come home while the two of you work this out? You shouldn’t be alone right now, in your condition. And Hank needs you.”
I took a breath. I had rehearsed nothing, but I found I didn’t need to.
“Nancy, I know you love him, and I know this is hard to watch,” I said.
“But this is between Hank and me. I’m not alone.
I have my friends and my doctor and a very good furnace.
I’m going to decide what happens with my marriage myself, and I’m not going to decide it based on how anyone else feels, including Hank. I hope you can understand that.”
There was a long silence.
“Well,” Nancy said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t upset me. I just wanted to be clear.”
“You always are, dear,” she said, and I couldn’t tell if she meant it as a compliment. We said goodbye politely.
That evening I cooked dinner for myself. Salmon and roasted sweet potatoes and a salad with too much feta, because I was pregnant and I wanted feta. I set the table in the little dining nook by the window and sat down to eat at seven o’clock exactly.
It was a small thing. It was also the first time in longer than I could remember that I’d sat down to a meal at the time I’d planned without glancing at my phone.