Pinch of Love (9781101558638) (19 page)

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Authors: Alicia Bessette

BOOK: Pinch of Love (9781101558638)
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“It's only been a year,” I sort of hiss at her.
“A whole year,” she says, “and four whole months. And look: You're still not dead.”
My eyes fill up.
She bites her bottom lip and puts her hands on my shoulders as if to brace me. For half a minute we face each other at arm's length. I stare at the reinforced toes of her neon yellow ski socks.
“I'm sorry,” Gail says. “It's just that I've been reading all these books on grieving, to try to help you, to
understand
you. And they all say that the process—the really raw part of the process—is over after the first year. And here it's been
more
than a year, and you're still, well, raw.”
I try not to cry. I really do. But before I can help it, tears spill over.
She's right, of course, and I suppose that's why the tears come now—because it
has
been a long time, and I
am
still raw. And Garrett's the most likely candidate for romance, and even with him, it felt too soon.
“Hey, hey, I love you,” Gail says. She wells up, too. She gives me a Gail hug—a quick pump. She smoothes my bed-head hair, heavily, the way you pet a draft horse. “What I meant was, you're still
alive.
” She offers me a tissue box, but I wave it off.
“Listen,” she says. “This Garrett seems like a nice guy. He loves his daughter, and so do you. Plus he has ambitions, and he's intelligent. And you like being around him. Maybe you should . . . think about him. He could bring you out of your shell a little bit. You know. Get you over the hump. Maybe a temporary arrangement?”
I come close to confessing last weekend's kiss and the confusion it stirred in me. But I know Terry and Mom and Dad are all listening, even though they're pretending not to. So I swipe my tears with my sleeve and say, “I—I'm fine. I'm sorry.”
Gail pets my hair again. “For what?”
“I don't know.”
“Stop apologizing. You apologize too much.”
“Sorry.”
We both giggle through our tears.
“Oy!” calls Terry, no doubt sensing the intensity lift. He claps his hands once and rubs them together. “Who fancies hitting the slopes, then?”
“You all go on ahead,” Dad says. “I'll stay behind with Tasha.”
And now Dad and Gail fake argue, because she wants him to stay behind but she won't admit it. Instead she insists that Dad ski, even though everyone knows Dad doesn't really enjoy skiing anymore because he's too old and creaky and his reactions are slow. But they finally agree that Gail and Mom will ski, Terry will snowboard, and Dad will watch Tasha, who's too young for Okemo's Little Stars ski school.
“Did you bring your gear up with you?” Terry asks me.
They're all silent. Since Nick died I haven't skied at all, not at Mount Wippamunk and certainly not here, at Okemo.
“I think I'll stay behind.” I sip some wine. “I thought I'd finish the bathroom, actually.”
“Are you sure?” Terry says.
“Oh, thank God,” Mom mutters.
Gail shoots her a venomous look. “No one's rushing you to finish it, Zell,” she says. “It can wait. It's only a bathroom.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say. “But I don't want it to wait. I want to finish it.”
“In that case,” she says, “everything is as you left it. I didn't move anything.”
“Good. Great.”
Terry steadies himself with one hand on the kitchen table and does a few deep knee bends to limber up. “You can borrow Gail's old gear if you want to come skiing instead.”
“Nah,” I say. “But thanks.”
“Don't worry, Zell,” Dad says from the table, in between “Trot-Trots” with Tasha. “I'll stay out of your hair.” It's a funny thing for him to say because Dad's never in my hair anyway. He doesn't really talk to me to begin with, not since Nick died. And besides—these days, he has eyes for only Tasha.
“Well,” Gail says. She collects all the wineglasses except mine and puts them in the practically bathtub-size sink. She goes into the foyer, gets two pairs of skis and poles from the closet, and leans them next to the front door.
“Zell, honey, did you notice Gail's new countertops?” Mom asks.
“They're Corian,” Terry mutters. His inexplicable asparagus breath hits me as he steps into his purple one-piece snowsuit.
“They're Corian,” Mom says. “Gail's designer chose green to suggest the out-of-doors. Aren't they just
amazing
?”
“I did notice them,” I say, even though I didn't. “They're nice. Really nice.”
Gail fastens the chinstrap of her glassy black helmet.
I hear my mother's back crack as she touches her toes a few times. “Your father's promised to stay out of your hair,” she says. “Right, Dick?”
“Trot-trot to Boston,” Dad coos, “trot-trot outside, stay outside all day so Auntie Zell can con-cen-
trate
!”
Tasha's upside down again. Her cropped black locks just clear the floor. She squeals and claps. “Again!”
Mom smoothes the Velcro band over the zipper of her jacket. “If my granddaughter cracks her head open on Gail's new ceramic tiles—”
“Let's go, Patty,” Terry says. He gathers his snowboard and ushers Mom out the door.
“Keep Ahab off Gail's mohair couch, please,” Mom says.
“Have a good time,” Gail says. “Toodles!”
I watch out the window as Mom, Gail, and Terry clunk and waddle down the snowplowed walkway to the ski trail. There they put on the rest of their equipment and float away on Sachem, under lightly falling snow.
Dad does “Trot-Trot” a few more times; then he scoops Tasha in his arms and stuffs her into a fuchsia snowsuit. She screeches and flails her arms and legs. “We'll be outside in just one sec-
ond
!” he chants, putting his coat on and carrying her outside. I hear him clank around in the garage for sleds and shovels. I watch out the window as Dad, in his big duck boots, half drags the now-content Tasha down the driveway to the tallest snowbank.
I imagine what
our
kids would have looked like. Our soccer team. They would have had Nick's gray eyes and my unruly hair. They would have played so nicely with Tasha. They would have skied
and
snowboarded. I imagine our closet lined with little snowshoes, little hiking boots. Little soggy mittens spread on the radiator to dry.
Balls.
I sit on the couch. Ahab curls into an oval in front of the fireplace. His tail and ears twitch in his sleep. As the logs pop, I mentally rehearse what will happen when I pull open the French doors to the guest bathroom and stand under the snow-covered skylights and vaulted ceiling. I'll peel the envelope from where it's taped to the vanity. My eyes will refamiliarize themselves with the photograph inside the envelope. The photograph Nick took after he set up his travel tripod in the snow.
I'll finish the g.d. mural. There's not that much left to do, if I remember correctly. Shouldn't take me longer than a weekend.
I approach the guest bathroom and swing the doors open. The air in here still smells of acrylic paints and recent construction. Of new caulk and new pipes. Dust coats my box of tools, which sits on the floor between the toilet and the vanity.
I glance at the wall. I turn my whole body and look, full on. At the mountains, and the empty spots against the mountains.
I can't do it. I just can't.
Double balls.
I whirl around. I rush for the kitchen and grab my purse and Ahab's leash. Tears threaten to spill onto my cheeks, but this time they stay put and blur my vision.
“Let's roll, Ahab,” I say.
He startles awake. We're out the door. Ahab vaults into the passenger seat, comes as close to sitting as his long, arthritic legs allow, and, with a horselike snuffle, thunks his face against the slobber-smudged window.
As I turn the key in the ignition, Tasha waves from the wall of a snow castle in progress. “Bye-bye, Auntie Zell.”
She doesn't understand that I shouldn't leave. She hardly understands anything, because she's developed no g.d. understanding, no g.d. memories. She's a clean slate, pure, like the wall
before
I painted it.
Dad's head pokes up from behind the snow wall. He pulls back the furry flap that covers his left ear. “Zell?” he calls. “Everything all right?”
I back down the driveway. I roll down my window and cup a hand around my mouth, to lift my voice over the car's engine, over the buzz of the chairlift a hundred yards through the trees, over the plinking of falling snow. “Fine,” I call, half choking on the tender bulge in my throat. “Just tell Gail to paint over it.”
“Huh?” Dad says.
“Tell her to paint the bathroom a nice ecru or something.”
“Bye-bye, Auntie Zell!”
“Where are you going?” Dad asks.
“Home.”
“Zell, wait!”
February 17, 2008
 
 
Dear Nick,
 
I went up to Gail and Terry's today. First time since you died, if you can believe that. Didn't go so well.
 
On the way home I took the shortcut behind the old Indian burial ground, over the Worcester Providence Railroad tracks. And who do I pass? Chief Kent, strolling behind his three-legged golden retriever.
 
And I thought about the attic, and the present that Ingrid carried up to the top of the steps. And I thought about how I asked both Russ and Pastor Sheila if they knew what it was. And I decided I'd stop and ask Chief Kent the same thing, find out if he had any inkling whatsoever about what the hell is knocking around inside that singed cube. Because maybe it will be easier—better somehow—if I know what it is, or think I know what it is. Maybe I won't even have to open it. I can give it away, give it to someone who'll appreciate it. Or put it out with the trash. No offense. But maybe someone will trash pick it. You loved trash picking.
 
So I pulled over and rolled down the window and watched Chief in the mirror as he trotted up to the driver's side. Ahab strained for the golden retriever, who hobbled around old Mrs. Dawson's lamppost and didn't pay Ahab any attention.
When Chief caught up to the car, we exchanged pleasantries.
Then I said, “So what's in the cube, Chief?”
 
He looked at me blankly. “The cube? You mean the present in your oven?”
 
I nodded.
 
He whistled for his dog, who totally ignored Chief and kept on digging a hole by Mrs. Dawson's lamppost. I don't know if you've ever seen a three-legged dog dig a hole, but it's pretty freaking bizarre. Snow and eventually dirt flew up between her hind legs and piled in the street.
 
“I have no idea, Zell,” Chief Kent said.
 
“Nick never mentioned it?” I said. “On The Trip?”
 
“No. Nick never mentioned it. Daisy! Stop! Sorry—hang on a second.”
 
And he trotted over to his dog and yanked her collar until she stopped digging and sat, ducking her head. He scolded her, and Ahab started whining and panting, so I waved and drove off.
 
So.
 
So how's heaven? Hope you're having fun up there.
 
Love,
 
Pants
EJ
 
Their last morning in New Orleans, Nick drove the interfaith van, and EJ rode shotgun. They picked up Charlene at her café. She approached the van slowly, carrying a tray of coffees and a bag of what turned out to be cheese Danishes.
“She's a keeper,” Nick said as EJ watched her, admiring her hair, black and shiny in the sun.
“Help her open the door, dude,” Nick said. “Southern chicks like that stuff.”
EJ hopped out and slid open the door. Charlene pecked him on the cheek and climbed in.
“Good morning, Nick,” she said, handing him a coffee. “I'm so glad you came. Keep going straight and turn left up there.” She talked a bit about her new church and how it was being constructed to look like Noah's ark.
“Can't wait to see it,” Nick said. “I'd like to learn more about carpentry and stuff. I'm thinking EJ and I should build something together when we get back to Massachusetts.”
“Oh yeah?” EJ said. “Like what?”
Nick slurped his coffee. “Like a Man-Shed or something.”
“A Man-Shed?
“Where we go to be men. You know. A place to drink beer and play poker.”
“We don't play poker.” EJ took a huge bite of Danish.
“Not yet we don't.”
Charlene laughed. “Every man needs a Man-Shed.”
Nick grinned into the rearview mirror. His plan, he said, was to erect a Man-Shed in EJ's backyard, by the pond, next to his tool shed. “Russ can help us,” Nick said.
“Why my backyard?” asked EJ. “Why not
your
backyard?”
“Because my backyard's the size of a postage stamp. Whaddya think, Silo?”
EJ blew on his coffee. “I think that's the first good idea you've had since marrying Zell.”
“Take a right here,” Charlene said. “It's not far.”
“These Danish are perfection,” EJ said. They really were.
“Thank you, sugar.”
Charlene listened, fascinated, as EJ told her about the freestanding sauna his great-uncle and grandfather built in the 1930s, on the shore of Malden Pond, not far from where his house is now. “The men of my family have a great tradition of sweating their balls off in a sauna for a half hour or so, then running to the icy lake and jumping in,” he said.

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