Lighting Candles in the Snow (10 page)

He held up his hands in that annoying way he had when he thought I was overreacting. “Whoa, calm down, little lady.”

That infuriated me, like I was the one with the problem.

The end result of this ridiculous argument was that he would go to the addiction recovery group only once a month instead of twice a week, as he had originally promised. Maybe he
would
change. He seemed to want to overcome his problem and be a faithful husband. He just couldn’t handle the religious overtones. I guess I could understand that. I knew how it was, myself being raised a Baptist preacher’s kid. I loved my parents but everything had to relate to religion with them. I knew from experience how tiring that could get. I couldn’t argue against Jeremy’s resistance to the spiritual bent he sensed in the addiction recovery groups.

He stayed true to his commitment to attend once a month and assured me it was helping. Maybe it did for a time. He seemed to be staying off the porn sites. I hoped that he was cured of his sex addiction. Little did I know, it’s not that easy to get over. For those three years after the Incident, I had foolishly believed he was cured. Until the night of our anniversary, when I finally realized what a sucker I’d been.

After I finished the cottage cheese, I went to get my sweats on. In the bedroom, I tidied up before settling in for the evening with my popcorn and movie. Jeremy’s dresser was still in its place in our bedroom. After I kicked him out, he had moved in with a friend and said he didn’t need the furniture.

I dusted the top of his dresser, kept clear except for a few framed photos of us together. I normally kept them in the top drawer, face down, but sometimes I would pull them out. I had left them out since the weekend, thinking the dresser top seemed bare without them, at least until I could find some décor to replace the photos. I picked up the one of Jeremy and me up at Bear Lake, standing in front of the condo, our arms around each other, happy and relaxed.

I slammed it face down on the dresser. I gathered the rest and shoved them into the top drawer. I should keep them somewhere I wouldn’t be tempted to look at them. Maybe later I’d box them up, or throw them away. I should just toss them out like trash.

But I did like having them available to peek at every so often. What harm could it do? It helped to remind me that at one time I had been blessed. Jeremy and I had been happy together. Life hadn’t always been like this.

And one day I’d find joy again. This I had to believe.

Mrs. Rahimian’s Curry Comfort Potatoes

2 tablespoons corn oil

6 large baking potatoes

Juice of 1 lemon

1 teaspoon turmeric

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon cayenne

1 teaspoon ground coriander

2 teaspoons cumin

1 tablespoon mustard seed

Peel potatoes and slice about ⅛ inch thick. Heat the oil in a large sauté pan and add the mustard seed. When mustard seeds start popping, add the rest of the spices and fry for about half minute. Do not overdo since spices can burn easily in high heat. The spices are fried well when you can smell them. Keep the heat on medium high and add the potatoes. Stir so all the potatoes are coated with the oil and spices. Reduce heat to medium and fry for 5 or 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

When the potatoes are brown and crispy, add the lemon juice and cover the pan. Reduce heat to medium low and cook for another 15 minutes stirring occasionally. The length of this stage varies a little depending on the type of potatoes.

Serve as a side dish with misery lamb barbecue.

Chapter Eleven

I
 couldn’t seem to stop myself from wasting mental and emotional energy re-hashing the past. While Jeremy, on the other hand, had most likely moved on to the next woman and the next without a backward glance in my direction.

“You have to move on, Karoline,” Suz told me for the millionth time.

We were at the park, a chilly March day, with the sun shining and the vast, beautiful sky that vivid blue I’ve only seen in Utah. The Wasatch Mountains with their snowy peaks looked crisp and close-up. It would be long after the snow melted in the valley before the mountains would lose their white blanket.

“I know, and I’m trying,” I whined like a child. “But I keep going over the same old things. I can’t help myself. Why this, why that, what if I’d never let him move in, what if I hadn’t pushed for marriage. What if I hadn’t worked all that over-time?”

I searched the mountains for an answer. They seemed solid and wise, unmoving, forever in the landscape, as silent as God.

“You never should have let him move in with you,” Susie repeated. She couldn’t let that one go. “That was it right there. It sealed your fate.”

We watched Josh run over to the toddler equipment. With no other kids around, he seemed a bit lost. He turned back to his mom. She waved him forward. “Climb the slide, Josh. It’s okay. I’m watching.”

“Suz,” I began, “do you think I might have abandonment issues?”

She wiped Liam’s face and sat him back down in the grass at our feet. She pulled a new toy out of her huge designer baby bag to keep him occupied while we discussed major life problems.

“Why would you say that?”

Suzie seemed puzzled by my question when it was obvious to me: Jeremy; my parents traipsing around Europe while I go through a divorce; Suzie leaving home during my teenage years when I needed her most.

“Well, Jeremy for one. . . .” I waited for a response while Suz checked her phone.

“A text from Lexie,” she said. “Sorry. She’s going to her friend’s house after school. Wait, just let me tell her that it’s okay. I like to give positive reinforcement.” Suzie punched in a brief reply.

I have got to get some other friends, I thought. Or maybe a therapist.

“Sorry, Karoline.” Suzie dropped her cell phone in her bag. “Josh! Put your coat back on,” she called out. “It’s cold outside.”

I needed to pull myself together and quit trying to psychoanalyze everything. Leave the past in the past. That had always been Jeremy’s philosophy, and he was no doubt doing great while I wasn’t. I couldn’t take this anymore. Something had to change.

“Suzie, listen. I’m ready to be set up with snowboarding guy, or whoever else you and Rob know who might be half-way decent-looking. And why not try for someone older, too? I wouldn’t be averse to meeting an older man.”

She grinned and gave me an air high five. “Yes! Good news! This is an excellent decision.”

“Only here’s the main thing,” I warned. “He’s got to be a nice guy. Not some slezoid who wants to hop into bed with me because I’m a non-Mormon divorcée who he figures is desperate for it.”

Suzie shook her head. “Oh, I understand. I totally agree with you. There are too many creeps out there, and I wouldn’t think of hoisting one off on my little sister. You don’t need to worry about that for a second.”

Josh stood by the plastic slide chewing on his finger. He didn’t climb the stairs to slide down but didn’t walk away either. He wanted to go on the slide, you could tell, only he couldn’t bring himself to do it. That was me, obsessed with Jeremy and my relationship, but unable to do anything besides stare at it while chewing on my finger. I was in a state of paralysis. Maybe meeting someone was exactly what I needed to get me out of this rut.

Suzie, always the cheerleader, alternated between cheering Josh on and cheering me on.

“Good! That’s the take-charge attitude I’m used to hearing from you,” she encouraged. “How about this weekend if we can swing it? Maybe Saturday night?”

Sometimes my sister made me feel like I was still in middle school, another one of her daughters. I hesitated. This weekend was only three days away. I would be committing myself with little time to prepare. Still, what did I have to lose? Quiet nights alone in my apartment thumbing through old journals? No. That exercise had gotten me nowhere. I would box up the journals and stuff them in the basement storage unit. While I was clearing out, I’d throw in those framed photos, too.

And the next time Sheila corralled me into meeting her Wyoming nephew I could tell her I already had a date.

“Sure, let’s try for this weekend,” I agreed with more enthusiasm than I felt.

When I got home from the park I sat in my living room staring morosely at the stack of journals on the coffee table. They needed to disappear, to go into storage. I would meet Rob’s friend, this Zac Kline guy, and maybe we’d hit it off and who knows what might happen. Not that I was ready for a new relationship but a man to go out with occasionally would be a welcome diversion.

I picked up one of the journals. I had written about my job, Jeremy’s book deal, about hanging out over at Suzie and Rob’s house. My sister and my husband never hit it off but Jeremy and Rob did. They’d play pool in the basement game room while Suzie and I talked. Jeremy and I frequently ate dinner over there, spent holidays with them and attended the kids’ birthday parties. In my journals I had recorded extensively the goings-on in Suzie’s family, my apparent attempt to vicariously experience normal home life.

I had hoped for a baby, and then Jeremy and I could start our own family traditions. It began one particular weekend, when we decided to start trying. After Jeremy snagged the agent and got his book deal, he wanted to celebrate. He rented a condo for the weekend at Bear Lake, a two-hour drive north of Salt Lake.

We drove up Friday after I got home from work. Having checked into the unit late, we slept in the next morning. I went for a run before breakfast while Jeremy planned to stay and write notes for his next book idea.

When I came back an hour later, I smelled bacon and eggs.

“You cooked breakfast?” I asked in surprise.

Jeremy wasn’t one to cook.

“Bacon, scrambled eggs, toast and orange juice,” he announced with pride, gesturing for me to sit while he served up our meal. He had set the table and left the food on the stove, covered with lids to keep it warm.

“This is a nice.” I took a piece of crispy bacon. “I didn’t expect breakfast. What happened to you wanting to write?”

“I decided to surprise you. There’s a little market down the road. I drove over and picked up the food while you were out.”

That weekend was like a second honeymoon for us. We didn’t go anywhere or do anything but hang out at the condo and enjoy being alone together. We talked about having a baby and whether I’d keep working or not.

He seemed excited about the idea and so full of plans he could barely talk fast enough.

“You could keep your job if you wanted to, because I can set my own hours. I’d stay home with the baby during the day while you worked.”

“Theoretically yes, but what about you not being able to focus at home? That you need to get away from the four walls to write?”

“I’d make the sacrifice for our baby. If I didn’t get enough done, I could go out and work for a while evenings after you got home. Dee’s Restaurant is open all night, and they’re okay with customers settling into a booth for a few hours, as long as you order coffee or something.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep working. I could get pretty obsessive about work, a tendency that worried me with a baby. “Maybe I’d quit my job and stay home. You could write at the library during the day like you do now, and we’d have our evenings together like a real family.”

He wrapped his arms around me. “A real family? Will that be us? Because you know, Karoline, I have no idea what a real family is. It’s a mystery to me. I wouldn’t get how to act. You’ll have to teach me.”

“Okay,” I said, laughing as he steered me into the bedroom. “You’ve taught me a few tricks. I guess I can teach you about having a real family.”

He pulled off my top and unfastened my bra. “Let’s make a baby, Karoline. Let’s make a whole houseful of babies and have a nice big family.”

That had been a good year. We spent a lot of time together trying for that elusive baby. We thought it would be easy for me to get pregnant. We had sex every chance we got. Jeremy always had a huge appetite for it, same as me once I got started, and now that we wanted a baby, it felt like our job to do it.

I didn’t get pregnant, however. Not until much later, and by then it was too late.

What was Suzie’s secret? Children had come to her and Rob fast, almost too fast. They had their first five one after the other, a new baby girl practically every fifteen months. What was wrong with Jeremy and me? By the end of that year, we felt discouraged, like we had failed.

Jeremy went back to sleeping late in the mornings then leaving to go write for hours into the night while I stayed home alone. It wasn’t a schedule conducive to a close and happy marital relationship.

I liked to run in the mornings, shower, eat breakfast and pack a lunch. Jeremy would be asleep when I left and gone when I arrived home in the evening. We would go for days without seeing each other awake. He’d come in at two or three in the morning and sometimes, if I woke up, we’d make love and he’d tell me how many words and pages he’d written. I could smell the alcohol on his breath.

“Why do you have to go out drinking?” I pestered him. “Why not come home when you finish writing?” I understood he needed to wind down but it hurt that he was more interested in hanging out at the bars than being with me.

“Babe, you know how I get after working. If I didn’t have a few drinks to relax I’d be lying here too wired to sleep.”

“The only time we see each other anymore is between two and three in the morning. And I have to get up in a few hours.”

We stopped talking about a baby. Some nights I pretended to be asleep when he came in. I was angry about the drinking and for keeping this crazy schedule. He could write during the day and be here in the evening when I got home. We could eat dinner together, watch a little TV, get a decent night’s sleep.

I couldn’t change him. Jeremy would never change. He’d been right about not understanding how to have a real family. He had absolutely no clue.

I took the journal lying open on my lap and tossed it across the room with a sense of victory. I picked up another and threw it. All right! One after the other, I pitched them, hitting the walls and slamming into the door. I aimed toward the bathroom and it sailed into the sink. I tried for the toilet but missed.

I heard a knock at the door and Mr. Rahimian calling, “Karoline, Karoline! You okay?”

Normally I was the quietest tenant imaginable, not even turning my music up loud. I opened the door to reassure him. “I’m fine, Mr. Rahimian. Sorry about the noise.”

He ventured a look around my apartment from his vantage point in the hall. “Did something break? It sounded like maybe pictures falling off walls.”

I gestured vaguely. “Oh, no, nothing’s broken. I was just, um, throwing these books around.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Throwing books? Why you throw books?”

I couldn’t think of anything to tell him but the truth. “They were journals that I wrote in when I was married to Jeremy, and I had been reading through them lately, too much. They made me mad and I threw them. I lost control. That’s what you heard. I’m sorry if it disturbed you.”

“Aha. I see. Yes, I understand.” He patted my arm awkwardly. “You’ll be fine, you’re strong woman. It will turn out right in the end. You’ll see. Don’t worry.”

I felt tears spring up in response to his kindness. I wished I could believe his reassuring words. I wasn’t convinced that I’d be all right, and I certainly didn’t feel strong. “Thank you, Mr. Rahimian. I hope so. I hope you are right.”

He nodded and turned to go. “I don’t want to bother you more. I go now, but if you need anything, you come down and see me and Mrs. Rahimian. She can fix you some nice Persian food. You a good girl, we’re your friends.”

When he left I cried for a long time, letting myself grieve over lost dreams and love gone wrong. I sat on the floor sobbing about my lack of a real family and my tough luck in hooking up with a guy like Jeremy, who had never wanted normal. I was alone and jobless and pathetic. I had turned my apartment into a mess with journals everywhere, my written record of the past six years turned into so much debris.

When the tears ended, I fixed myself a sandwich. I put butter on one slice of bread, chunky peanut butter on the other and filled the inside with peach jam. It weighed about half a pound, with the jam oozing out the sides. I ate it over the sink, the best meal I’d had in a long time. When it came to comfort food, broiled chicken breast and asparagus had nothing over a peanut butter and butter and jam sandwich on thick white bread.

I washed it down with a glass of skim milk, all I had. It tasted like water, white water at ninety calories a cup. What I needed was Oreo cookies, the kind with extra filling. I seemed to remember having hidden a package away when I realized how much weight I had gained after the divorce. But if I couldn’t find the Oreos, I could whip up a batch of Chocolate No-bake Cookies, perfect for when you crave sugar in a hurry.

I pulled a chair over to the pantry and searched the top shelf. Aha, Oreos! There in the back, half a bag left. I sat down at the table and laid them out. Ten should be enough. I took the tops off and made them into five double-double-stuff Oreos. I ate them one by one. Five felt like nothing. I set up six more and combined them into three, poured another glass of milk, and then I ate the left over plain tops. I finished the few cookies left in the bag using the same system. Take off the tops, make double doubles, consume them first, then the tops.