12. Beckett
BECKETT
The house was empty.
I'd known that when I drove up the ridge. The windows were dark. No car in the drive. But knowing it and standing inside it were different things.
I let myself in through the front door.
The air inside was still. Not stale exactly. Just unused.
I stood in the entry for a moment, listening to the silence. Six years I'd owned this house and I'd never noticed how quiet it was when she wasn't in it.
I went to the kitchen first.
The counters were clean. Bare. I opened the drawer where the utensils should have been.
Nothing.
I opened the one beside it.
Empty.
I went down the line. Every drawer. All of them bare.
Then I opened the cupboards. A few glasses. A set of white plates still in the packaging. Nothing else.
I turned to the appliances.
The range still had the manufacturer's film on the control panel. So did the refrigerator. The dishwasher.
I stood there looking at the film and something cold settled in my chest.
Six years, and my wife had never once cooked in her own home.
This kitchen had cost thirty thousand dollars. Custom cabinets. Stone counters. A range I'd been told was the best you could buy.
And she'd never used any of it.
I thought about the meal she'd made me. The one she'd left on the table in my lobby three weeks ago. The one I hadn't eaten.
She'd cooked that in a break room at the mill.
On a hot plate, probably. Or in a microwave.
Because there was nowhere in this house where she could.
I'd built her a house with a kitchen she couldn't cook in and I'd called it a gift.
I closed the last drawer and stood there with my hand on the granite.
Then I walked down the hall to the workroom.
I'd never been in it before.
I owned the house. I'd paid for every square foot of it. But I'd never once stepped inside the room my wife worked in.
The door was unlocked. It had been unlocked since September. I knew that. Maris told me when I called her to get the shears back.
She'd asked if she should lock it again after.
I'd said yes.
And then later I'd realised Nell must have left it open on purpose. An open door in a locked house. She was telling me something.
So I'd called Maris back and told her to leave it the way it was.
I'd never asked what else was in there.
I pushed the door open now.
The room was small. Maybe ten feet by twelve. A cutting table under the window. A sewing machine in the corner. A chair. Good light.
Everything was neat. Organized. The way Nell kept things.
And in the centre of the room, there was a dress form with a shirt on it.
I stepped inside.
The shirt was gray. Linen. Good weight.
Cut to my measurements. I could see that from where I stood.
The body was finished. The seams were pressed. The placket was set.
The buttonholes were done by hand. Every single one.
But the cuffs weren't attached yet. They were pinned to the sleeves but not sewn. The collar was the same. Pinned but not set.
I walked closer.
The stitching was perfect. Completely even. The kind of work you can't do fast.
I touched the edge of the placket.
The fabric was soft. Good quality. She'd chosen it herself. Bought it herself. Cut it and marked it and sewn it.
For me.
I let my hand drop.
She'd made this for me.
And I'd known.
She'd told me.
She'd sent me a message in September. I made you something and I don't want to finish it alone.
And I'd written back I can't. Maybe after.
I hadn't asked what it was. I hadn't asked if I could see it. I hadn't asked when she'd started or how long it had taken or why she'd wanted me there when she finished it.
I stood there looking at the shirt for a long time.
The unfinished cuffs. The pinned collar.
She'd stopped working on it the day I sent that message.
I was sure of it.
She'd pinned the collar and then she'd walked away and she'd never come back.
And the shirt had been here ever since. Waiting.
I reached out. Then I stopped.
I turned around and left the room.
I didn't take it.
It wasn't mine.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
I went back to the kitchen and I sat down at the table.
There was a pen in my jacket. I always carried one. And there was paper in the drawer by the phone.
I pulled it out and I sat there for a minute with the blank page in front of me.
Then I started writing.
That was what I did. That was the only thing I'd ever been any good at.
Making lists.
So I made a list of every single thing I'd done wrong.
The gala. The car ride home. What I'd said about tradition.
The promises I'd made and broken. March. The message about the shirt.
The house. The plane. The seats I'd bought her four years running and sat in none of them.
The offer I'd made eleven times in six years.
The one that sounded generous and wasn't.
The one where I'd asked my wife to be smaller so I wouldn't have to be anywhere.
I wrote it all down.
Every single thing.
When I was finished, the page was full.
I looked at it for a long time.
Then I folded it and put it in my pocket.
And I called Winston.
"I need you to kill my number," I said.
There was a beat of silence.
"Kill it," Winston said. Not a question. Just repeating it back to make sure he'd heard right.
"Yes."
"The main line?" he said. "The one that's been published for twenty years?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Now. Tonight. I want it dead by morning."
There was a longer pause this time.
"All right," he said. "What do you want me to route it to?"
"Nothing. Kill it. I'll get a new one."
"Beckett—"
"I'm not asking," I said.
He went quiet.
I could hear him thinking. Working it through. What it meant. What I was doing.
Then he said, "Understood."
"I'll send you the new number when I have it," I said. "Don't give it to anyone. Not anyone. If someone needs to reach me, they go through you."
"Got it."
"Thank you," I said.
I hung up.
I sat there in the empty house for another minute.
Then I got up and walked out.
I drove into town and went to the phone store on Main Street. It was the only one open past six.
I bought a phone. Not a replacement. A new line. A number nobody had.
The kid behind the counter asked if I wanted to port my old number over.
"No," I said.
"You sure? Most people like to keep the same number."
"I'm sure."
He shrugged and rang it up.
I set the phone up in the parking lot. Activated the line. Put Winston's number in as the only contact.
Then I sat there with the new phone in my hand and I thought about what I was going to say.
I'd given up the company. The controlling shares. The title.
I'd resigned as chief executive and told Winston not to announce it.
I'd done all of that and my wife didn't know.
And I wasn't going to tell her.
Because that wasn't what this was.
This wasn't a transaction. This wasn't me offering her something so she'd give me something back.
This was me taking apart the life I'd built. Piece by piece.
The number was the last piece.
The switchboard every person on earth could reach me through.
The one my wife had to book time on.
So I killed it.
And I gave the new one to her.
Nobody else.
Just her.
I pulled out the list I'd written and I smoothed it flat on the steering wheel.
Then I opened the notes app on the new phone.
And I wrote the letter.
Nell.
I'm not going to explain anything. There is nothing to explain that would be for you.
You said three things to me in that doorway and you were right about all three. I'm going to answer them in order, because a list is the only thing I've ever been any good at, and I'd like to use it once for you.
I stood in that room and let a woman tell you your mother's life came to nothing, and I said something pleasant.
Then I got in the car and told you the tradition worth having was the one I was building.
I meant it when I said it. That's the part I can't get past. I wasn't being careless, Nell. I agreed with her.
I was going to be there in March. I wasn't. I never mentioned it again and neither did you, and I decided that meant it was fine.
You told me you'd made me something. You told me it wasn't finished and you didn't want to finish it alone. I wrote back four words. I've seen it now. I didn't take it. It isn't mine.
The house. I said what it cost to you like the number was an argument. You have never once cared what anything costs and I have known that since the week I met you.
The plane. You used it to come and tell me you wanted a divorce. That is the only thing it has ever been good for.
The seats. Four years running I bought you a front row seat at my own show and sat in none of them.
I told you that you never had to set foot in that building again, and that all you had to do was take it. I said it like an offer. I have counted. I said it eleven times in six years. It was never an offer. I was asking you to be smaller so that I wouldn't have to be anywhere.
I offered to buy your building and put the deed in your name. I don't know how you paid for it. In six years I have never asked you. I'm withdrawing the offer, because I've worked out that it was an insult, and because I think if I found out how you paid for it I would have to sit down.
I didn't sleep with her. I'm telling you once and I won't tell you again, and I want to be clear that I don't think it counts for anything. Not sleeping with someone is the floor. It is the least a man can do and I would like no credit for it.
What I did do was give her the part of me you were asking for. All of it, every hour, for eleven months, awake, on purpose. If you want to call that cheating then call it that. From where you were standing there is no difference, and I've stopped arguing about where you were standing.
I'm not asking you for anything. I'm not asking you to answer this. I'm not asking you to think about it.
I got rid of my number. The new one is at the bottom of this page. It doesn't go to an office and it doesn't go to anybody else. This is the only place it goes, and I don't expect you to use it.
Your ring is in the envelope. It's yours and it was never mine. I'm not going to ask you to wear it. I haven't earned the right to ask you for anything, and I know exactly what it means that it came off as easily as it did.
Beckett
When I was finished, I read it through once.
Then I went back to the house and I printed it.
I folded it and put it in an envelope.
Then I went to the bedroom and I opened the drawer where I kept my cufflinks.
The ring was in there. The one she'd left on my cutting table in New York.
I'd carried it back with me. Put it in the drawer. Looked at it every morning for three weeks.
It was a simple band. Gold. Nothing engraved.
I'd bought it the week before we got married. We'd gone to a jeweller in Raleigh and I'd told her to pick whatever she wanted.
She'd chosen this one.
I'd asked if she was sure. If she wanted something with stones. Something that looked like what it was.
She'd said no. She'd said this one was fine.
I picked it up now.
It was lighter than I remembered.
I thought about what I'd said to her in the car the night of the gala. About the ring. About how I'd buy her something better when I could afford it.
She'd never asked me to.
Not once in six years.
I put the ring in the envelope with the letter and sealed it.
Then I sat there on the edge of the bed holding it.
I'd given up the company. The shares. The title. The future I'd spent twenty years building.
And none of it had been enough.
Because the thing I'd been holding onto was the one thing that had always mattered.
Access.
The number. The office. The calendar.
The switchboard every person on earth could reach me through and my wife had to book time on.
That was my instrument. That was what I'd used to keep the world at the distance I wanted it.
Including her.
So I killed it.
And the new one went to one person.
I didn't know if she'd ever use it.
I didn't expect her to.
But it was the only thing I had left to give up.
And so I did.
I drove to Ardis at four in the morning.
No courier. No assistant. Nobody told.
It took forty minutes. The roads were empty. I'd made this drive a thousand times and I'd never once made it in the middle of the night.
I'd never once thought about what it would be like to drive it alone.
The mill was dark when I pulled into the parking lot. No cars. No lights except the one over the loading dock.
I sat there for a minute with the engine running, looking at the building.
It was small. Plain. Red brick. Nothing like the glass tower I worked in.
This was what my wife had built.
This was what she'd chosen instead of me.
And I'd offered to buy it for her like that would fix things.
I turned off the engine.
Then I got out and walked to the door.
The front entrance was locked, but the side door to the offices wasn't. It never had been.
Nell had told me that once, years ago, when I'd asked her if she felt safe there at night.
"It's Ardis," she'd said. "Nobody locks anything."
I'd told her she should. That it wasn't safe. That anyone could walk in.
She'd just looked at me.
"It's a sewing mill, Beckett," she'd said. "What are they going to steal? Blankets?"
I'd let it go after that.
I pushed the door open now and stepped inside.
The hallway was quiet. Dark except for the exit signs.
I could smell the floor from here. That particular smell of wool and oil and old machines. The same smell my grandfather's shop used to have.
I walked down the hall to her office.
The door had her name on it. A piece of paper taped to the frosted glass.
Nell Ivester
Owner
Not Nell Crowe.
Ivester.
Her mother's name.
The name she'd never stopped using.
I stood there for a second with the envelope in my hand.
Then I knelt down.
I slid the envelope under the door.
It disappeared into the gap. I heard it hit the floor on the other side.
A soft sound. Final.
I stayed there on my knees for a moment.
Then I stood up.
I walked back down the hall. Out the side door. Across the parking lot.
I got in the car and I sat there for a minute.
Then I drove home.
Hazel arrived at five thirty, same as always.
She unlocked the side door and walked down the hall to the break room. Put her thermos on the table. Hung her coat on the hook.
Then she walked back toward Nell's office to drop off the timesheet she'd filled out the night before.
That was when she saw it.
A white envelope on the floor. Just inside the door.
She stopped.
Nobody had been here overnight. She'd locked up herself at eight and the building had been empty.
She bent down and picked it up.
It was sealed. No name on the front. Nothing written on it at all.
Heavy paper. Expensive.
She turned it over in her hands.
Then she looked down the hallway toward the side door.
The one that was never locked.
She stood there for a long moment, holding the envelope.
Then she walked to Nell's desk and set it down in the centre. Right where Nell would see it when she came in.
Hazel didn't open it.
And when Dorcas asked her an hour later if anything had come in the mail, Hazel just shook her head and said no.