Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
NAOMI
Iwent back to the house on the second Sunday in November because I needed my winter coat.
That part was true. It had gotten down to thirty-four the night before.
I'd been walking around in Tess's fleece, which had a hole in the elbow and still smelled like her dog, who'd died two years ago.
But I also needed the Moat drawings out of the flat file in my home office, my own face cream, my good boots.
I needed the reading glasses I'd left on my nightstand, too, without realizing how much I used them.
I texted Graham on Saturday.
I'm coming by the house tomorrow at 10 to get some things.
He answered in under a minute.
Okay. Do you want me there or gone?
I sat on Tess's guest bed with Frijol on my feet and looked at that for a long time.
Gone, I wrote.
I'll be gone by 9:30. Alarm code's the same. Take as long as you want.
Tess offered to come with me. When I said no, she said, "Get the coat. Get out. Don't let him make you coffee."
I pulled into our driveway at 9:58. His Range Rover wasn't there. The house looked the way it always did, gray stone, black shutters, the big oak dropping its last leaves on the front walk. The porch light was on in broad daylight.
I let myself in through the mudroom. It was quieter than I'd ever heard it, just the refrigerator humming and the oven clock saying 10:01.
The kitchen was clean, and not the kind of clean a man living alone manages when he's nervous his wife is coming over. It was clean like someone had been wiping down the counters every night. The dish towel was folded in thirds on the oven handle.
On the fridge, under the lobster magnet from our trip to Maine, was a yellow sticky note in my own handwriting.
HALLOWEEN. DO NOT EAT, GRAHAM.
I'd bought those Kit Kats back in September and completely forgotten about them.
Upstairs I moved fast, because I didn't want to be in that bedroom any longer than I had to.
The bed was made and didn't look slept in.
My stack of books was exactly where I'd left it, with my reading glasses on top.
I packed my boots, my coat, the face cream and six sweaters.
In the closet, for a second, I stood with my hand on the sleeve of his navy quarter-zip, the one he'd worn to Café Laurel. Then I let go of it.
In my office I pulled the drawings out of the flat file, and on my way out I went through the kitchen for a glass of water.
The trash can was full. When I stepped on the pedal to throw away a paper towel, the lid came up.
On top of the coffee grounds and a banana peel was a sheet torn off a legal pad, ripped in half, then in half again.
The pieces had fallen open against each other, so I could read it without touching anything. His block capitals.
SAT 11/14.
SOUP — GRANDMA'S. GRUYèRE.
SHORT RIBS — CALL ESPOSITO'S, 6 LB, BONE IN.
ROSEMARY POTATOES.
CAB — THE 2016, FROM THE BASEMENT.
LEMON CAKE. REAL. CURD.
And underneath, a note to himself: INVITE HER. JUST HER. DO IT RIGHT THIS TIME.
A line had been drawn through the whole list, not scribbled but one long, hard, straight stroke, the pen pressed down so hard it had torn through the paper in a couple of places.
I took my foot off the pedal, and the lid dropped shut.
I was still standing in the kitchen with my water glass when I heard the Range Rover pull in at 10:50. I thought about slipping out the front door, about my car sitting right there in the driveway. I didn't move.
He came in through the mudroom and stopped short when he saw me. He was carrying a bag from the hardware store on Germantown Avenue, and he set it on the bench very carefully, like it might go off.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I thought you'd be gone. I waited an hour. I can go."
"It's fine."
"I can wait in the car."
"Graham. It's fine."
He stayed in the mudroom doorway and didn't come any closer. He'd lost weight. There were a few days of stubble on his jaw with more gray in it than I'd have guessed, and he was wearing the old jeans with the dusty knees.
I'd read his message, the long one from the night before Daniel came up our office stairs. I'd read it four times since, and I hadn't answered it except to say that I had.
"Daniel had a man sitting across the street from that building," I said. "With a camera. In September."
The color went out of Graham's face.
"A stranger Daniel paid knew where you were on a Saturday night," I said. "I was in a loading zone guessing."
"I know."
"Don't say I know like it's a receipt."
He opened his mouth, shut it, and nodded once. Then he didn't say anything at all, which was worse, and was also the first right thing he'd done since I walked in.
"What's in the bag?" I asked.
"A new weather strip. For the back door. There's a draft coming under it."
"There's been a draft coming under it for six years."
"I know. I noticed last week." He looked down at the bag. "I sat out back one night. Felt it on my ankles when I came in."
I looked at the trash can.
"You were going to make it again," I said.
His eyes went to the can, then back to me. For a second he looked like he wanted to lie, and then he didn't.
"Yes."
"The whole dinner. On the fourteenth."
"I got as far as calling the butcher." He ran his thumb down the seam of the doorframe. "I had the list. I was going to call and ask you to come home for one night. I was going to make it perfect this time. Every single thing right. The soup. The 2016. The cake."
"Why didn't you?"
He was quiet a long time.
"Because I'd be doing it again," he said.
"Doing what?"
"Deciding what fixes it." He looked at me.
I didn't say anything. I couldn't.
"I called Esposito's back," he said. "Canceled the ribs."
"Okay."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry you had to see that in the garbage. I should've taken it out."
"Why didn't you?"
He almost smiled, but it didn't make it all the way.
"Truth? Because it's Sunday, and trash goes out Monday night. You've told me that every week for six years."
A laugh came out of me before I could stop it, short and cracked. He looked startled. Then for a second his face just crumpled, and he turned toward the window so I wouldn't see.
I picked up my bag of sweaters and the rolled drawings.
"The Kit Kats," I said. "On the fridge."
"Kids came. I didn't know." He was still looking out the window. "They kept asking where the lady was."
I held on to the drawings harder.
"Did you give them the whole bars?"
"All forty-eight."
"Good," I said.
When I started for the mudroom, he moved out of the doorway and flattened his back against the coats on the hooks to give me as much room as he could. We didn't touch.
At the back door I stopped.
"Graham."
"Yeah."
"Why is the porch light on? It's the middle of the day."
He looked at it through the window, embarrassed.
"I've been leaving it on," he said.
That was all. He didn't ask when I was coming back, or whether I was, or what he could do. He didn't say he loved me. He just stood against the coats with the hardware store bag at his feet and let me go.
I put the sweaters in the back seat and got behind the wheel. Through the kitchen window, I watched him walk over to the trash can and stand there looking down into it. Then he pulled out the bag, tied it off and carried it out the side door to the bins, even though it was only Sunday.
I backed down the drive. The porch light was still on when I turned the corner.