Chapter 14
About eleven months before, I had taken a rusty saw from an old toolbox that I’d found under Kolter’s front porch (it was the same place I’d found the hammer that I’d used to try to fix the broken furniture).
I had walked a little way into the woods behind his house, afraid of both bears and nature spirits, and then I’d found a skinny, sad little tree that was growing at a bad angle.
According to what I had recently studied about math, it had been at least thirty degrees away from straight up and down.
I had sawed its trunk for a while, not because it was thick but because my tool hadn’t worked very well for cutting, and then I’d carried it back to the house and set it in the stand I’d gotten at a garage sale.
I’d decorated it with the ornaments I’d made and a few that I’d bought, and I had thought it was so pretty.
Then Kolter had gotten mad and ruined it.
My life had changed a lot since then.
“What do you think? Do we need to hang more bulbs?” Nolan asked me.
I looked up at the tree we’d brought home together, which was so tall that we’d also had to bring home a large ladder.
We had gotten a lot of strings of white lights, too, since the ones stored in his attic hadn’t come on when we’d plugged them in.
But we had plenty of ornaments because his grandparents had always put up a huge tree in their home.
Actually, they hadn’t done it themselves.
“The housekeeper handled the tree,” he’d explained. “She and one of the maids decorated every room. It was like walking into a Christmas storybook.”
We had done this tree ourselves. And as for what I thought about it?
“We don’t need anything else. I’ve never seen anything prettier than this,” I told him.
He smiled at me and climbed down the ladder. “I have.” He tugged one of my braids. “I like these.”
He was always a big fan. I was thinking I might grow my hair, so they would be even longer.
It was nice that he only said things like that, compliments, rather than pointing out when I was wearing something with a hole or mentioning that I looked fat in my winter coat.
And when I thought about my boyfriends, I realized that had been another trait they’d shared.
They had all liked to say anti-compliments—mean stuff.
Nolan didn’t do that, which was just another sign that this was the best relationship I’d ever had. Ever, including parents and siblings.
He had headed to the kitchen but I stayed for a moment, breathing in the pine aroma and admiring the pretty ornaments that his grandparents had collected. They’d liked to buy one as a souvenir from every place where they had traveled, so their Christmas tree was a record of their exciting life.
“We could get ornaments like that,” I suggested as I joined him at the stove. “We could start our own collection.”
“It took years for my grandparents to get so many.”
“Well, yeah, unless they went a different place every week. But neither of us can do that, since I’ll be working at your cousin’s car dealership and you’re going to start classes in January.”
He looked over at me and his wooden spoon halted its sweep through the sauce on the burner.
“We don’t have to,” I said. “There are plenty of pretty things to hang already. I could make some, too, even though I’m not as artistic as Cadence.”
“Sure,” he answered. He sounded distracted. “This looks done. I should take it off the heat.”
We had guests coming tonight for dinner, his old friend Beau and the baby.
They got to have Christmas Eve together so we’d decided to make a big meal to celebrate.
Then Nolan had thought that we should have a tree, so we’d gone out to buy one, and we’d started in on the lights, the ladder, and the ornaments.
While he dealt with his sauce, I went to check the dining room, which we’d prepared with flowers, greenery, and his great-grandmother’s china and crystal.
It looked beautiful under the chandelier that his cleaning ladies did such a good job dusting.
We had three place settings and an area on the table for Finley’s bouncy seat.
“Viv?” Nolan called. “There’s someone at the door.”
It was the front door, the one we hardly ever used because we hardly ever had guests. I went fast, since it was snowing and the person out there was probably freezing.
She was. “Cadence, come on in,” I said, and I grabbed her arm when she didn’t move. “I didn’t know that you were coming over.”
“I have a big problem,” she told me. She was shivering and I could see that she’d been crying, because both her nose and her eyes were red.
Her hair, which she’d just gotten cut by the same stylist who’d done mine, was almost totally straight.
It told me that there had been a lot of curl tugging today.
“Come into the kitchen,” I offered. It was the warmest room of the house and I thought that it was also the coziest.
“Hi, Cadence,” Nolan greeted her when we entered it.
“Hello.” She took the paper towel I gave her and rubbed her eyes. “I’m sorry that I’m interrupting you, but I didn’t know where to go.”
“That’s ok. Tell me what happened,” I encouraged.
“My mom and I just got into the most terrible argument. It was awful and I think she’s really doing it this time. I think she’s going to change the locks!”
“She probably won’t be able to find a locksmith on Christmas Eve,” I said soothingly. “What happened?”
It wasn’t just today’s fight. There had been a whole lot of things, some of which I knew about and some I didn’t, and it had all been going on for years.
For example, her mom hadn’t wanted her to major in Library Sciences and take her current job.
“She planned for me to become a bookkeeper like she is, but I’m so much better with words than numbers,” Cadence explained.
Before that, her mom had been angry about how she’d played volleyball in high school.
She hadn’t liked that Cadence had wanted to get a driver’s license and had snuck out to go to the prom.
“I bought my own dress. I had to hide the money I was saving for it!”
“I used to have to do that, too,” I said.
“I have to hide everything from her,” she told me, “including my feelings. I spend a lot of time trying to act and talk in ways that I know will manage her moods and prevent her from getting mad. It makes me tired and I’m always anxious.”
That was something else I understood.
“Why do you live with her?” Nolan asked, and Cadence looked at him and took up a piece of straight hair to twirl.
“It’s hard to change stuff like that,” I filled in when she didn’t speak.
“I mean, it’s what you’re used to and it feels normal, so you don’t think about doing things differently.
I keep having to remind myself that I don’t have to be scared when I hear you coming, like, I don’t have to hide anything or worry that you’re going to blame me for what happened to you during the day. ”
“I understand how habits can control you,” he said. “Before, when I walked into the house, I immediately went to pour a drink. Now we talk about our days and make dinner. It’s hard, but you can break out of your patterns,” he encouraged Cadence. “First, you have to want to change them.”
No, the first thing was to have the means. Lots of people were stuck in lives that weren’t their choice and that they had no control over. But she had resources, like a job and a car, and she also had me. “I’ll help you,” I told her.
“Thank you. I’m already doing things differently,” she said. “I bought new clothes and she hated them and told me I was wasting money. I got my hair cut. I opened my own bank account and put my paycheck into it, instead of into our joint account. It all made her furious.”
“That’s all very normal,” he said. “Those are regular, adult actions that she should be pleased about. Beau is very happy when his son takes a step.”
“Not a real step,” I added. First, Finley would have to sit up without toppling and then he’d probably crawl.
“He’s another problem,” she sighed.
“Finley? Your mom hates the baby?” I asked, shocked. He really was so cute.
“No, it’s Beau,” she answered. Then she turned as red as I’d ever seen her. “She overheard me talking to him—actually, she put a drinking glass to my door and listened, and I hadn’t even known that she could go up and down our stairs without help because of her toenail problems!”
“But he’s your client,” I said. “Why would she get upset about a business call?”
It was hard to believe, but she did turn even redder. “We don’t talk only about the painting. He’s a very nice person,” she informed me. “We chat. I look forward to it every day, and he sends such funny texts, too.”
“Beau does that? Beau Gowan?” Nolan clarified. “He’s funny?”
“He’s sweet,” she said, bristling. “I like him a lot! Why shouldn’t I?
I’m almost thirty years old. Thirty! I should be able to wear what I want, to talk to a man, to have my own money.
But everything I own is at the house. All my painting supplies are there.
So is my ID badge for work! We never use them, but someday I might have to.
I have a picture of my dad hidden under the closet floor, too, and she’ll burn it if she finds it.
” She sighed. “My father is what set all this off today.”
Cadence explained that the breaking point had been that her dad had called, which he always did at this time of year.
“She asked me if I had spoken to him and when I said yes, she lost it. She can’t believe that I would have contact with him after he left us.
But he keeps telling me that she threw him out and that he always wanted the two of us to have a relationship…
I don’t know. I understand that child custody is hard but I’m an adult now, and if he wanted to see me, he could. I’m almost thirty!”
“First, you’ll turn twenty-nine. It’s funny, the thing about your house,” I pointed out.