Chapter 19
ETHAN
That Sunday afternoon in November, my father asked me to turn on the lamp by the window.
I’d only just sat down, my coat still across my knees.
My mother had gone out to meet someone, leaving the two of us in the living room.
He opened an envelope that had arrived in the mail and took out several old photographs.
A friend had found them while sorting through his study and thought my father should have copies.
The top photograph showed the old dock. A small white boat was moored beside it, and I immediately recognized the hat my father had often worn when he was young.
“Look at this,” he said.
I leaned forward, expecting him to hand me the photo. Instead, he picked up his phone first, took a picture of the boat, and sent it to Lucas.
“He asked me last time what became of this boat. I couldn’t remember then.”
I set my coat beside me and sat a little straighter. “I remember it being sold.”
My father nodded and looked down to add a line on his phone. Then he smiled. Lucas had probably replied quickly. I couldn’t see the message and didn’t ask.
I used to get those pictures first, mixed in with work messages. Sometimes I’d barely answered, assuming we could talk at dinner.
“That was the day you taught me to tie knots,” I said, pointing to a bit of red sleeve at the edge of the photograph. “I think that’s me.”
He glanced at it. “Was it? So long ago.”
I drew my hand back and asked if he’d been sleeping well lately. He said well enough, then mentioned my mother’s complaints about leaves left in the yard. I glanced out the window too and added a remark or two. When I left, he asked me to close the door. He was still holding the photographs.
I said I’d come see him again on the weekend. He acknowledged it.
Outside the driveway, I pulled over beneath the nearly bare trees.
I took out my phone, wanting to ask Claire how her day was going. We hadn’t made plans to meet. She’d said she was going to a secondhand shop with a colleague that afternoon, and Nora would be back at her place that evening.
I typed, “A little busy tonight,” looked at it for two seconds, then deleted it.
She hadn’t asked for a report on my evening. It just sounded easier than “I’m sitting in my car and don’t want to go home.”
I started again: “I went to see my father today, and I’ve been feeling low since I left. Could you keep me company for a while? I’d like to take a walk with you.”
After sending it, I laid the phone facedown on my leg, then turned it back over, feeling like a child waiting to be picked up. I almost added that I was fine now, but her reply appeared first.
“Yes. My colleague and I aren’t finished browsing yet. I can be at the café by the river at 5:30 p.m. Does that work for you?”
“It does.”
“See you in a bit, then. Remember your scarf. It’s very windy today.”
I had more than an hour to wait. I ate, then browsed a bookstore, still sad but no longer replaying my father’s face. Claire was with her friend. I would see her at 5:30.
When she arrived, she had a cloth bag over her shoulder and a cardboard box holding a small ceramic bowl in her hand.
“Two minutes late,” she said.
“Enough time for me to think of a complaint.”
“Let’s hear it.”
I took the box she handed me. “Why didn’t you pick one out for me?”
“Because you’d ask if it could go in the dishwasher. I did ask. The seller wouldn’t guarantee it.”
She slipped her hand into the crook of my arm, and we strolled along the river.
It was already growing dark, and the lights beneath the bridges were coming on one by one.
She didn’t ask what had happened as soon as we met.
First, she told me she planned to use the bowl for her door keys, then asked if I’d eaten.
Only after we passed the first little bridge did I tell her about the photograph.
“I know it sounds ridiculous,” I said. “I’m in my forties, and I still care who he thinks of first.”
Claire stopped to let a bicycle pass, then fell into step beside me again.
“Is that what you wanted to tell me?”
“No.” I watched the wavering reflections of the lights ahead. “I wanted to say I really want to make him happy. I still do. I thought after all these months I wouldn’t feel like this every time I left him.”
She took my hand, her fingers a little cold. I cupped them in my palm, but she covered mine with her other hand too, as if to warm it along with hers.
“I don’t regret staying,” I said. “I like being able to take Nora to school, see you, have evenings of my own. But sometimes, when I walk into that living room, I still wait for him to ask how I’ve been doing.”
I stopped there. Admitting I was still waiting was harder than I’d expected.
“I don’t need him to give anything back. Lucas is doing his job, and the position is his.” I looked down at our hands. “I just want him to think that maybe the life I have now is a good one too.”
Claire’s thumb moved over the back of my hand.
“You must have been hurting when you left today,” she said.
I nodded, my eyes suddenly a little hot. Someone walked past from behind us, and I turned toward the water. She kept holding my hand. Only when I turned back did she ask if I wanted something hot to drink.
With hot chocolates in our hands, we sat on a bench sheltered from the wind. She wedged the box between us. Several times I wanted to move it, until finally I had to ask, “Does the bowl have to sit here?”
She looked at me, smiled, and moved the box to her other side, then sat a little closer.
“How’s that?”
“Much better.”
I spread my coat over her legs. Warming her hands around her cup, she told me she’d nearly lost her nerve before returning to the library. She’d been afraid of questions everyone else could answer.
“But I went,” she said. “Once, I forgot something I’d practiced over and over. My colleague showed me again and asked if I wanted to write it down.”
“Was she annoyed?”
“I thought so. Then I saw all her own notes.”
She smiled. “I still ask questions. I just don’t want to grab my bag and leave every time.”
“You didn’t tell me then,” I said quietly.
She turned to look at me. After a moment, she said, “I didn’t want to bring those things to you then.”
I tightened my hold on the paper cup and nodded. She hadn’t softened her answer, and I didn’t want her to apologize for it.
“Now I want to tell you.” She nudged my leg with her knee. “I almost didn’t buy that bowl this afternoon either, because I was afraid I’d misjudge it. Then my colleague bought one that was more expensive and more crooked.”
“At least one of you asked about the dishwasher.”
“Yes. And which side was crooked.”
At last, I laughed enough for my shoulders to relax. She smoothed my collar where the scarf had pushed it up and mentioned our first date, when I’d mistaken the restaurant’s staff entrance for the front door and told someone carrying onions that we had a reservation.
“I remember you backing out of the kitchen and still holding the door for me,” she said.
I looked down and laughed. She’d been doubled over behind me then. I’d almost thought the dinner was ruined already.
“I was trying to make you like me.”
She leaned over and kissed my cheek. “It worked.”
Our paper cups slowly emptied. She took out her phone to check the time, then showed me a concert poster. A female singer I’d heard in her car was coming to a small theater in town in January.
“I’ve always wanted to hear her live. I only found out tickets were on sale when my colleague mentioned it today.” She enlarged the image. “It’s small. We should be able to see well even from the back.”
I glanced at the date. The second Friday in January, 7:30 p.m.
“Let’s go,” I said.
She looked up. “You want to hear her too?”
“Yes. Last time you played her in the car, we got home halfway through. I never heard the end.”
“She might not do that song live.”
“Then play it for me on the way. I’ll pick you up that evening. How about 6:15 p.m.? We can get something to eat first.”
She smiled and agreed, choosing seats with me. We picked a row near the middle, a little to the left. I watched her change the number of tickets from one to two. After buying them, she turned the screen to show me again.
I walked her to the street leading back to her apartment. Before we parted, she hugged me and asked if I felt a little better. I lowered my face to her hair and said I did. She patted my back and went home with her ceramic bowl.
I was still standing under the streetlight when the concert information she sent arrived.
I replied, “I’ll go with you that evening. I’ll be downstairs to pick you up at 6:15 p.m.”
Then I opened my calendar and kept the whole evening free. In the notes, I wrote that I was going to hear music with Claire. I read it over and saved it, along with the empty time on either side.