2. Delia
DELIA
I told the six a.m. group on Wednesday that my husband was coming to watch Thursday’s session.
I said it at the boards, after I’d run them through edges.
Maya asked if we’d have the good ice and I said yes, we would.
I’d texted Walt Tuesday night and asked him to dial it in, and he’d said he would.
The kids lit up the way kids do when something ordinary becomes something else, and I felt it too. Thursday was going to be different.
Roz was there, leaning against the boards with her coffee. Her daughter skates in the ten o’clock group but she comes early sometimes, just to sit. She smiled at me when I said it. “That’s good,” she said. “He should see what you do here.”
I didn’t say anything back. I just nodded, and I think she saw something in my face because she squeezed my arm and didn’t push.
I went home and put a coat out for him. The heavy one, the black parka he wears to job sites in January.
The Ashbury runs cold in the morning and he hasn’t been inside the building in over a year.
I thought about where he’d sit. Probably at the far end, by the penalty box, where the sun comes through if there is any.
I thought about him watching me teach, about looking up and seeing him there.
My phone buzzed while I was folding towels. Walt.
Plant’s running warm again. Third time this winter. I’ll nurse her through the week, no problem.
I texted back. Thanks Walt.
I thought nothing of it.
Grant came home at eight. I heard the car, then his keys, then his footsteps in the hall. I met him in the kitchen and he kissed the top of my head without stopping, phone already in his hand.
“How was your day?” I asked.
“Long,” he said. He set his bag down and opened the fridge. “Yours?”
“Good. I reminded the morning group you’re coming tomorrow.”
He paused. Just for a second. Then he closed the fridge and looked at me.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
“Thursday. Six a.m. You said you’d come.”
“Right.” He nodded, but his face had that look. The one that means he’s running numbers in his head, checking something against something else. “Delia, I’m not sure Thursday works.”
I felt it drop. That small stupid hope I’d let myself carry for two days. “You said Thursday. At the party. You looked at me and you said Thursday, six a.m., one hour.”
“I know I did. But I didn’t put it in the calendar, and I should have checked before I said yes.” He reached for his phone. “The Memphis node closes on the sixteenth. That’s thirteen days. I’ve got the contractor call at seven and there’s a site walk at nine, and I can’t move either of those.”
“You could do the call from the car.”
“I could, but I shouldn’t. This is the close, Delia. There are eight people on that call and three of them are in Dallas waiting on my answer about sequencing. I can’t be distracted.”
“I’m not asking you to be distracted. I’m asking you to sit in a building for one hour.”
“And I’m saying Thursday is difficult.” He said it gently. Patiently. “Could we do Friday? Or next week?”
“I already told people you were coming.”
“Then tell them I’ll come next week. They’ll understand.”
I looked at him. This was reasonable to him. I was being inflexible about timing when he’d promised and forgotten, and somehow I was the one being difficult.
“You didn’t put it in the calendar,” I said.
“No. I should have. But I’m telling you now, and I’m asking if we can move it. That’s not unreasonable.”
I didn’t answer. I went back to the towels.
“Delia.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Do your call.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make it sound like I’m choosing the work over you. The node has a date on it. I can’t move the date.”
“I know.”
“Then be a little flexible. Please.”
I folded the last towel and set it on the stack. I didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say that I hadn’t already said.
“One minute,” he said, looking at his phone. “I just need to answer this.”
I waited. The minute didn’t come.
I went upstairs. I heard him on a call in the kitchen, his voice low and sure, the way it always is when he’s working. I sat on the edge of the bed and I thought about the kids tomorrow morning, about the empty seat, about having to explain why he wasn’t there after I’d told them he would be.
I thought about texting Roz. I didn’t.
When I came back down an hour later, he was standing in the living room with his laptop open on the coffee table. The television was on. Not a show. A video call.
Corinne was on the screen.
I stopped in the doorway. Grant saw me and shifted, just slightly, turning the screen a few degrees away. One movement. He didn’t say anything about it.
“Delia.” Corinne’s voice came through, warm and bright. “I didn’t know you were there. I’m so sorry, we’re just finishing up.”
“It’s fine,” I said.
“No, really. Grant said you had a quiet night planned and here I am, stealing him.” She laughed. “Your home is lovely, by the way. I can see the kitchen from here. Those counters are gorgeous.”
“Thank you.”
“Is that marble? It looks like marble.”
“It is.”
“It’s beautiful. You have wonderful taste.” She smiled. “And that building of yours, the Ashbury. I was looking it up after the gala. Nineteen twenty-six, right? That’s incredible. A real piece of history.”
I didn’t say anything.
“How do you manage the upkeep on something that old? I can’t imagine what the systems cost to maintain.”
Grant glanced at me. I could feel him waiting for me to deflect, to say something vague and polite and small.
I didn’t.
“The city holds the property,” I said. “I lease it. Thirty-year term, signed nine years ago, option to purchase at the city’s assessed valuation, which is currently three hundred and ten thousand.”
“The building clears sixty-eight thousand a year between the carnival, the hockey camps, and the learn-to-skate program. The plant costs forty-two to run, which includes Walt’s salary and the utility load. I net twenty-six before I pay myself.”
There was a pause. Just a beat.
Then a man’s voice came through, someone else on the call I hadn’t seen. Older. Plain.
“That’s a good operation,” he said. “Tight margin, but good. You know your numbers.”
“I do,” I said.
“Frank Ostewig,” the man said. “I’m Corinne’s boss. It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Falkner.”
“You too.”
Corinne’s face had smoothed. She was still smiling, but it was thinner now.
Grant straightened. “Delia’s being modest. The building’s been underwater for years. The city was going to condemn it before she stepped in.”
I blinked.
“Frank, I’m going to need your read on the Memphis numbers by Friday,” Grant said, still looking at the screen. “The team’s waiting on your approval before we commit the timeline.”
And just like that, I wasn’t there anymore.
Corinne said something about sequencing. Frank said something about lead time. Grant leaned forward, his hand on the back of the couch, and the conversation moved past me like I hadn’t been standing there at all.
For forty seconds Frank Ostewig had respected me, had heard someone who knew her numbers and ran a tight operation. Then my own husband started talking about Memphis.
I stood there for another minute. Maybe two. I wasn’t sulking. I wasn’t waiting for him to notice. I just didn’t know what to do with myself in my own living room while my husband talked Memphis with a woman who’d smiled at me like I was a child showing off a school project.
I stepped toward the side table for my water glass. Grant reached past me for his charger at the same moment and put a hand on my arm to move me aside. He didn’t look at me.
I picked up the glass, rinsed it in the kitchen, and went upstairs.
The call ran on. I could hear Grant’s voice through the floor, steady and technical and certain.
I sat in the study with the door open and tried to read email.
I couldn’t. I kept hearing Corinne’s voice, the way she’d pivoted from the counters to the building, warm and interested and designed to make me feel exactly the way I felt.
An hour later, Grant came upstairs.
“You didn’t have to leave,” he said.
“You were working.”
“We were almost done.”
I didn’t answer.
He sat on the edge of the bed. “You’re upset.”
“I’m not upset.”
“Delia.”
I closed my laptop. “You talked over me.”
“I didn’t talk over you. I moved the call forward. Frank doesn’t have time for building tours.”
“He wasn’t asking for a tour. He said I knew my numbers. And you said I was being modest, and then you said the building was underwater.”
“It was.”
“And now you’ve told Frank Ostewig that I run a building the city was going to condemn. That’s what he’s going to remember. Not that I know what I’m doing. That I took over something broken.”
“You’re reading things into this that aren’t there.”
I looked at him. “You turned the screen away from me.”
“What?”
“When I came into the room. You turned the screen. You didn’t want her to see me.”
He shook his head. “That’s not what happened.”
“I saw you do it.”
“I adjusted the angle because the light was bad. That’s all.” He stood up. “This is what you did in the car. You’re taking something that didn’t happen and building a case around it.”
“I’m not building a case.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“I’m telling you what I saw.”
“And I’m telling you you’re wrong.” His voice was still calm.
Still kind. “You’re tired, and you’ve been alone in that building too much, and now you’re seeing things that aren’t there.
Corinne was being polite. That’s all she was doing.
And I was moving a call forward because Frank had another meeting at nine. ”
“She wasn’t being polite.”
“Yes, she was. And you’re being paranoid.”
The word landed between us. Clean and sharp and final.
“I’m not paranoid,” I said.
“Then stop acting like it.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I know the commute’s hard. I know the hours are hard. And I’ve been thinking maybe we need to do something about that.”
“Do something.”
“Move you closer. There’s a building two blocks from the tower. New construction, good light. You could walk to me in five minutes.”
I stared at him.
“It would solve the commute,” he said. “You wouldn’t be driving forty minutes each way in the dark. You’d have time in the morning. We’d see each other.”
“I don’t want to move.”
“I’m not saying tomorrow. I’m saying we should think about it. You’re running yourself ragged for a building that’s barely breaking even, and I’m saying maybe there’s a better way.”
“The building is fine.”
“The building is a drain, Delia. You just said it yourself. You’re clearing twenty-six. That’s not sustainable.”
“It’s sustainable for me.”
“For now. But what happens when the plant goes? Or the roof? You don’t have the margin for a crisis.”
“Then I’ll deal with it.”
“Or you could let it go and do something else. Somewhere that doesn’t cost you sixty hours a week.”
I looked at him. Moving me closer to his tower, folding me into his radius, solving me the way he solved everything else—he offered this as kindness.
“I don’t want to do something else,” I said.
“Fine. Then we’ll talk about it later.” He kissed my forehead. “Get some sleep. You’ve got an early morning.”
He went into the bathroom. I heard the water run.
I didn’t get ready for bed. I sat there, on the edge of the mattress, and I thought about Corinne on the screen in my living room. I thought about Grant turning it away. I thought about him talking over me, and then coming upstairs to tell me I was imagining things.
I went to bed. He didn’t. I heard him go back downstairs around eleven.
I woke up at three and the bed was empty.
I came down. He was standing in the kitchen. The lights were off. He wasn’t on his phone. He wasn’t doing anything. He was just standing there, in the dark, looking at nothing.
“Grant,” I said.
He turned. “Did I wake you?”
“No.” I stepped into the room. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. Just thinking.”
I waited. He didn’t say anything else.
“Why do you do this?” I asked.
He frowned. “Do what?”
“Stand in the kitchen in the middle of the night. You’ve done it for years and I’ve never understood why.”
I’d asked once before. In the first year, maybe the second. He’d given me nothing then. I’d stopped asking.
He gave me nothing now.
He looked at me for a moment. Then he said, “It’s late, Delia. Go back up. I’ll be there in a minute.”
That was all. No explanation. No door opening. Just a wall with a kind voice.
I nodded. I didn’t push. I went back upstairs.
I didn’t go back to bed. I went into the study and I closed the door. I turned the lock. It was a small lock, the kind that comes standard on an interior door, and it had never been used. I’d never needed it.
The room was mine. The desk, the file cabinet, the shelf with the binders.
The lease was in the top drawer, the accounts in the second.
The carnival plans were in a folder on the left side of the desk.
The savings file, the one where I tracked what I’d put away toward buying the building outright, was in a notebook I kept in the bottom drawer, under the tax forms.
I locked the door and I sat down at the desk. I didn’t open anything. I just sat there, in the dark, in the one room in his house that was mine.
By six the next morning I was at the rink. The ice was perfect. Walt had nursed the plant through the night and dialed it in exactly the way I’d asked. The surface was glassy and hard and fast, the kind of ice you get maybe three times a season if you’re lucky.
The kids started arriving at quarter to. Early, because I’d told them someone was coming.
Maya came in first, already laced, her bag slung over one shoulder. “Is your husband here yet?”
“Not yet,” I said.
She nodded and headed for the ice.
Two more came in. Then four. Then the rest of the group, all of them earlier than usual, all of them looking toward the far end of the boards where I’d said he’d sit.
The seat was empty.
At six I started the session. We ran edges. We ran turns. I called corrections and watched the clock and didn’t look at the door.
At six-thirty, one of the younger ones, a boy named Connor, skated up to me at the boards.
“Is your husband still coming?” he asked.
I looked at him. His face was open and hopeful and entirely without guile.
“No,” I said. “He’s not.”