Empty Arms: A Novel (15 page)

As the onions begin to warm, a sweet smell fills the air. I glance toward the den, expecting to see Paul’s head poke around the corner, but from my position behind the stove all I can see are his white-socked feet elevated on the foot of his recliner.

Determined, I open the top of the blender and drop some tomatoes and garlic inside. The plump tomatoes are reduced to chunks, splattering against the inner walls and dissolving into a smooth liquid. If the smell of the onions hasn’t tipped him off, the sound of the blender surely will. I lean back and glance toward the den, but his feet haven’t moved.

Fine. You want to play hard to get? Game on. I pour the tomato and garlic mixture into the sauce pot and warm it on the stove. I chop up some green peppers and drop them in, followed by a generous sprinkling of oregano. I dump a mountain of ground beef into the sauté pan with the mushrooms and onions. A hearty aroma rises from the steam.

In the baking dish, I build careful layers of noodles, beef, cheese and sauce. The lasagna looks like a work of art when I slide it into the oven. In forty-five minutes Paul will have no choice but to get out of his recliner and come face me. And if this culinary masterpiece doesn’t help melt his anger even the tiniest bit, I don’t know what will.

F
ORTY-FIVE MINUTES PASS
without a movement from the den. The oven timer beeps, and just as I’m balancing the scalding hot dish between my oven mitts, the doorbell rings. “Can you get that?” I call, setting the heavy dish on top of the stove.

I hear Paul’s footsteps and then the creak of the front door opening. He speaks to whoever is there and then the door closes. I inhale the smell of my hard work and wait for Paul to appear in the doorway.

When he doesn’t, I poke my head around the corner. He’s back in his recliner with his feet up. His white socks sit there defiantly, one crossed over the other, unmoving. By now, he must know that I’ve made him lasagna. Is this his way of telling me that I’m the one who needs to go to him?

Fine. I give in with a huff and make the first move. “Guess what I made for dinner?” I say, breezing into the den. I stop when the rest of his body comes into view. There’s a pizza box in his lap and a half-eaten slice in his hand. “But, Paul, I made lasagna. Didn’t you hear the blender? Didn’t you smell it baking?”

His eyes bore into mine and he takes a spiteful bite.

The emotions hit me one after the next. Shock. Hurt. And finally, fury. I turn on my heel and storm back to the kitchen. Part of me wants to throw the new cookware across the room, but even in my rage I know that it will just be a mess for me to clean up later. I grab the glass baking dish instead and dump the lasagna in the trash. So much for making amends.

U
P AHEAD
I
HEAR
playful giggles as she runs from me. I chase her through stacks of brown files piled high as trees, catching glimpses of bouncing curls as she rounds the next corner. The stacks teeter and fall over in her wake. Papers rain down around us.

“Wait!” I beg, wading through the squall.

Her chuckles grow distant until I can’t hear them anymore.

I push harder and faster, trying to catch up to her, but papers cut at my arms as I try to swim through their depths. “Emily!” I call, searching frantically.

But she’s nowhere to be found.

W
HEN
I
WAKE
the next morning, my left arm is streaked with dried blood, and scab crusts are strewn beside me. I collect them in my hand and wash them down the bathroom sink. I wipe my skin with a wet tissue, which turns a watery red in my fingers.

Outside my bedroom window, thick, gray clouds hang overhead and a fine mist collects on our windshields. Appropriate weather for a memorial service, I suppose.

I take my time showering, putting on make-up, and drying my hair, all in the hopes that Paul will be gone by the time I get downstairs. After last night, I’m too livid to even look at him.

In my closet, I rummage through dozens of scrubs, jeans, slacks, turtlenecks and cardigans. I don’t know why I’m hoping to stumble across a dress that isn’t here. The last time I wore a dress was to Daddy’s funeral. I turn my search to the end of the rack, digging past summer clothes. In the very back, I find the only dress I own. It’s knee-length black wool with a cowl neck and the sight of it takes me back to that chilly October day when I was twenty-five, standing next to Daddy’s casket with Mom standing stone-faced at my side. A heart attack took Daddy away from me, just like it stole Tommy and Maddie Rae’s mother from them.

I step into charcoal gray panty hose and pull on the funeral dress. I struggle with the zipper, arching to the side and feeling around between my shoulder blades in a pathetic attempt to grab hold of it. Under normal circumstances, I would’ve asked Paul to zip me up. And under normal circumstances, he not only would have obliged, he would’ve completed the task with a kiss on the back of my neck. But we’re far from normal circumstances.

As I hoped, Paul is already gone by the time I get downstairs. I glance in the den. His pillow is sitting on top of a mountain of sheets and blankets. I reach for it automatically, and begin to fold the pile, but then I remember the damn pizza and I throw it back into a messy heap.

In the kitchen, the coffee machine is empty and there’s not a dirty dish in sight. Even though I’m still fuming over last night, I’m curious where he went on a Saturday morning without coffee or breakfast.

I tear off the bottom of the grocery list and scribble a note.
Gone to Angel Falls for a memorial service
.
Back tomorrow
.

As I pull out of the driveway and the house disappears behind me, I feel like a fugitive escaping my prison of lies, failures, and bad memories. I look at the empty seat next me and let out a worn-out sigh. There was a time, not too long ago, when I didn’t want to go anywhere without Paul. The chores that normal couples divide, we did together, like grocery shopping and trips to the hardware store. He used to help me cook dinner and fold laundry, and I used to pass him tools and tell him if things looked level. Lately, it feels like we don’t even live together but rather alongside each other; two different people living two separate lives under the same roof. It’s a far cry from the life I’d imagined, the one filled with birthday parties, bedtime stories, and the pitter-patter of tiny feet running across our hardwood floors. The only sounds in our lives are the creaks of the house settling into its foundation, tree branches scraping against the windows, the furnace clicking on and off, and the endless supply of sporting events on ESPN.

When I turn into Mom’s driveway, my tires slip and skid as I make fresh tracks in the snow. I climb out of the car and sink to my shins. “This is ridiculous.”

Two houses down, I spot a couple of kids zipping across their property on snowmobiles. I hike across the driveway to the edge of Mom’s yard and wave my arms, but they don’t see me. I trudge farther, until they notice.

They zoom over at top speed. “What’s up?” One of them asks, lifting his face mask and revealing long stringy hair and pimply skin.

“You boys want to make fifty bucks?”

Their faces break into wide grins. “Hell, yeah,” they chime.

“All right, after you see me leave, come over and shovel my Mom’s driveway. The front walk too. It needs to be done before we get back, which will probably be around four o’clock. Think you can handle that?”

They exchange a glance. “No problem.”

“Good.” I fish my wallet out of my purse and pass them each twenty-five bucks.

“Thanks,” they say and speed off, kicking up a flurry of snow behind them.

I trek back across the yard toward Mom’s house. The front door is unlocked so I let myself in.

“Hello?” I call up the stairs.

“Be right down,” she hollers.

I kick off my snowy boots and wander into the kitchen. Mrs. Pearson’s obituary is sitting on the kitchen table. The grainy black-and-white photo shows the woman I remember: lively eyes and a cracked smile that looks like you caught her in the middle of a good laugh.
Margaret is survived by her son, Thomas, and her daughter, Madeline Rae.
Seeing their names written like that is so unfamiliar, so formal. I can’t imagine the adult versions of the dragon-slaying four-year-old boy and his lovable baby sister. In my mind, they’re still children who love to build snowmen. From the time I showed Tommy how to roll big fat balls of snow and stack them on top of each other, he was hooked and wanted to build them for the sole purpose of stabbing them with his sword and reducing them to chunky mounds. Since Maddie Rae couldn’t even walk, we built one together. I rolled the snow and built the body and guided her chubby hands as we fixed his acorn eyes and a twig nose into place. We put one of Mr. Pearson’s old hats on top of his head, and Maddie Rae clapped her hands and giggled.

“Should we make a mommy?” I asked.

“Yay!” Tommy shouted. He plunged his sword into a bank of snow and started packing a snowball while I carried Maddie Rae around the yard, collecting walnuts for the snow lady’s eyes, dried leaves for her hair, and acorns for her earrings.

When we finished, Tommy giggled at the sight of the snow couple and Maddie Rae pointed and cooed.

“I have an idea,” I said. “Let’s go inside and make hot cocoa.”

“But we’re not done,” Tommy complained. “We have to make a baby.”

“They don’t need a baby.”

“Every mommy needs a baby.” The raw truth of his words felt like being stabbed by his sword.

I study their names.
Thomas and Madeline Rae
. I wonder what they’re like now?

Mom walks into the kitchen wearing a knee-length black dress and black shoes with Cuban heels. “Do you want some lunch before we go?”

“Do we have time?” I ask, checking my watch. It’s quarter after one, but the church is only ten minutes away.

“I already have sandwiches made,” she says, retrieving two plates covered in plastic wrap from the refrigerator. She sets a plate in front of me. “Is ham and cheese all right?”

I nod and fold back the plastic. I can feel her eyes on me as I bite into my sandwich, but I refuse to look at her.

“I take it you’re still upset with me?”

“That’s an understatement.”

She sets down her sandwich with a sigh. “Catharine, you have to understand, I was trying to protect you.”

“Protect me?” My voice jumps an octave. “You ruined my life.”

“How on earth did I ruin your life? All I ever tried to do was help you.”

“By keeping James’s letters from me? That didn’t help me; that destroyed me.”

“That boy did enough damage. The last thing I needed was him coming around here putting all kinds of crazy ideas in your head.”

“But we could’ve been a family.”

“A family?” she snorts. “Catharine, you were sixteen. What did you know about being a mother?”

The ridicule in her voice is like a slap in the face. “I may have only been sixteen, but now I’m thirty-nine and I can’t have any more children. My only chance at motherhood is long gone, and you made that decision for me. You had no right.”

She shakes her head. “I’m sorry you can’t get pregnant, Catharine. Really, I am. But there’s no way I could’ve known how things would turn out. I made the best decision I could with the information I had at the time.”

“The best decision for you, maybe.”

She shakes her head. “There was no way any respectable child of mine was going to run around with a bastard on her hip at sixteen. It would’ve ruined your life, Catharine. Trust me.”

“No, it would’ve ruined yours. You’ve always been so concerned about what the neighbors will say. Sometimes I think you care more about them than you ever did about me.”

Her eyes are thick with disappointment. “Someday you’ll understand.”

“I’ll never understand you.”

She frowns and looks at her plate. “It’s pointless to argue about the past, I couldn’t change it even if I wanted to.”

“No, but you can change the future.”

Her eyebrow crooks. “How?”

“Help me find Emily.”

She shakes her head. “I’d do anything for you, Catharine. But I can’t do that.”

“You can’t? Or you won’t?”

She looks away.

“This was a mistake; I shouldn’t have come here.” I storm out of the kitchen, grab my coat, and head for the front door.

“You’re leaving?” She calls after me. “But what about the service? What about Tommy and Maddie Rae?”

“Tell them I’m sorry for their loss,” I call over my shoulder, slamming the door behind me.

As I march through the snow, I see the boys approaching with their shovels. “Forget it, guys. She’s beyond help.”

Their shoulders fall as they reach into their pockets and hold out the money I gave them.

I put my hand up. “You keep it.”

They watch with their mouths open as I skid out of Mom’s driveway and speed off. I pull into the 7-Eleven by the highway to figure out where I’m going. I can’t bear the thought of going back to my silent prison in Lowville. Then I remember the napkin in my purse. I dig it out and look at the telephone number written in blue crayon.