Chapter 5 #3
And every Christmas Eve since she took over the floor, Connor had come to the store at five o’clock and stood with her while she turned off the atrium tree.
Every Christmas Eve until last year. Last year, he’d been in Singapore.
Or on a call about Singapore. She couldn’t remember now.
She had turned off the tree alone, and driven home alone, and he had come in at midnight and kissed the top of her head and said sorry, sorry, and gone to bed.
She had never known what that night was for him. She had never asked.
She put the bag under the counter and pressed both hands flat on the cool glass and made herself breathe.
* * *
“So his mother bought you a scarf,” Stephanie said on Wednesday night, “and told you a sad story about his childhood. And now you feel bad.”
“I don’t feel bad.”
“You have your feeling-bad face on. I’ve known that face since freshman year.”
Caroline was sitting on the pull-out bed with the red scarf in her lap. She had not put it on. She had taken it out of the box and unfolded it and folded it again about six times.
“I don’t feel bad for him,” Caroline said. “I feel stupid.”
“Why?”
“Because I was married to him for nine years, and I didn’t know.
” She smoothed the scarf flat. “I didn’t know it was Christmas Eve.
I didn’t ask. He told me once, and it was like a closed door, and I just walked past it for nine years.
And every year, I made him stand in that atrium with me and turn off the tree. ”
“You didn’t make him.”
“I asked him. I asked him every year. It was our thing.” Her voice went thick. “And last year he didn’t come, and I was so hurt, and I thought it was because he didn’t care about the store. And maybe that’s true. But maybe it was also—” She stopped.
Stephanie sat down on the end of the bed and took off her glasses.
“Caro,” she said gently. “Listen to me. Two things can be true. It can be true that his dad did an awful thing to him on Christmas Eve when he was nine. And it can also be true that he’s a grown man who kissed another woman in front of your whole town.
The first thing doesn’t erase the second thing. It doesn’t even touch it.”
“I know.”
“His mother said so herself. She didn’t come to ask you to forgive him. She told you so.”
“I know.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Caroline looked down at the red scarf.
“The problem,” she said, “is that it was easier when he was just a jerk.”
* * *
Caroline wore the scarf on Thursday morning.
She told herself it was because it was cold, and because it was the best cashmere in the store, and because it would be rude not to. She wound it twice around her neck in Stephanie’s bathroom mirror and did not think about who had bought it or why.
The store was busy from the minute the doors opened.
There was a problem with a register on the second floor, and a delivery of wreaths that had gone to the wrong loading dock, and a man who wanted to return a TV he had very clearly bought somewhere else.
Caroline handled all of it. By two o’clock she felt almost like herself.
She was crossing the atrium floor toward the elevators with a stack of Snow Ball seating charts under her arm when someone said her name.
“Caroline.”
She knew the voice before she turned.
Brittany Vail was coming across the marble from the direction of the security desk. She was in a black coat today, not the camel one. She had a leather folder in her hand. And clipped to the front of her coat, right over her heart, was a white plastic badge with red letters that said VISITOR.
Caroline stopped walking.
The people around them did not stop. Shoppers flowed past on both sides. A Santa’s elf went by with a tray of candy canes. Nobody seemed to notice the two women standing ten feet apart in the middle of the floor, directly under the mistletoe.
“Don’t worry,” Brittany said pleasantly. “I’m not staying. I’m just dropping off some papers for your father. From the Bradshaw Freight side. Legal things. Somebody had to bring them, and I was already in the neighborhood.”
“You have no access to this store,” Caroline said. “I read the email.”
“I have a visitor’s badge.” Brittany touched it with one finger. “Security was very nice about it. I’m a visitor.”
Caroline did not say anything. Her pulse was going in her neck, right under the red scarf.
Brittany looked at the scarf. Something moved across her face, quick, and then it was gone.
“That’s a pretty color on you,” she said.
“What do you want, Brittany?”
“Nothing. Honestly. I just wanted to say hello.” Brittany smiled. It was a lovely smile. It was the smile of a woman on a morning show. “And I wanted to say that I read his statement. Everybody’s read it, I guess. It’s beautiful. It really is. He writes so well when he feels guilty.”
She stepped a little closer. She lowered her voice, as if they were two friends sharing a secret by the candy counter.
“I’ve known him a long time, Caroline. Two years, every single day. I know how he works.” She tilted her head. “He feels terrible. He does something big and public so everyone can see how terrible he feels. And then, when he’s done feeling guilty, he comes back.”
She held up the leather folder, like a little wave, and turned toward the elevators.
“He always comes back,” she said over her shoulder. “Merry Christmas.”