Lighting Candles in the Snow (3 page)

Chapter Three

T
hat was in June. By January, when I had imagined the two of us lying on a Jamaican beach, it was over. It happened quickly yet seemed like ages ago. I faced the beginning of a new year while struggling to find closure for the past.

We got divorced fast and easy. He took his clothes and books; I kept the furniture and the apartment. When I married Jeremy, I thought it would last forever. My parents were married over forty years. I suppose my big mistake was choosing a man who was so much less than my dad in every way.

Reading through my old journals became my therapy for the broken marriage. In them I searched for cause and effect, still puzzling over when it began to go wrong. Jeremy and I used to be in love, crazy for each other from the moment we met.

It was his fault. He cheated on me! Never mind. It was over, leaving me a free woman—an independent, divorced woman. I tossed my journal aside. I had wasted the better part of a Saturday poring through it. Spending my weekends wearing a permanent depression into the sofa cushions didn’t help the weight problem either, the twelve pounds that crept up after he left.

I went to the tall living room windows that looked out over the street. Sheila pulled up to the curb, and I watched her open her trunk and gather an armload of shopping bags.

My apartment was on the second floor of an older home that at some point in its long and varied history had been divided into four units. Sheila, a forty-something divorcée who lately had been threatening to move someplace without stairs, rented the apartment across the hall. A legal secretary, she liked to shop on her days off. I wouldn’t call us close friends, but we were good neighbors. I had invited her over to dinner a few times for company when Jeremy worked late, back in the day.

I considered popping out to say hi and help her with her bags, see what she bought. Sheila would shop the sales racks and then rave over what good deals she found. I decided against it, returning instead to my comfortable place on the sofa.

My neighbor had a strong dislike of husbands in general and hers, or rather her two ex-husbands, in particular. Since she occasionally entertained men in her apartment, I knew it wasn’t men she hated, only husbands. After my divorce, she’d invited me out for Saturday lunch and shopping. I had gone a couple times before finding excuses not to. I couldn’t keep endlessly bashing ex-husbands with Sheila, something I did well enough on my own. The last thing I needed was more encouragement in that arena.

I missed my mom. She and Dad were in Europe for at least another four months. They sent postcards back with pictures of the Eiffel Tower, the Basilica, the German forests, Buckingham Palace. Who knew where they were now; I couldn’t keep track. Mom had started a blog of their travels but rarely updated it.

After years of scrimping and saving and investing, my parents had the money to travel and enjoy their retirement. Last fall, about the time my divorce was final, they had set off. Selfishly I wished they were here for me instead of somewhere overseas, out of close communication range.

Missing my mom, feeling depressed about the journals that had no answers, discouraged about the weight gain and not wanting to give in and make brownies, I rang up Suzie for moral support.

“Suzie, I won’t use my miserable break-up as an excuse to indulge in brownies and cookies.”

I leaned back against the pillows on my comfy sofa, lately my favorite place in the world. I was turning into a real couch potato these days. Weekends used to be when I’d head out to the canyons for hiking, biking, or skiing, and enjoy the varied seasons of the Wasatch mountain range.

“Good for you!” Suzie encouraged. “Don’t give in. Be strong.”

“I’m feeling kind of down today. Really glad you picked up, Suz.”

“No problem. I’m just cleaning up after my last haircut. Talk away.”

Suzie had a salon in the finished basement of her home. She didn’t need to work for financial reasons but she loved doing hair. All the neighbor women came to her. She charged five dollars for a cut and twenty dollars for highlights and perms, ridiculously cheap. Even the bargain chains charged ten dollars for a cut, no shampoo. Suzie could ask thirty for a haircut and get it, easy. Her business strategy seemed to work since her customers paid big in tips.

“I want to eat, but I just had lunch. I can’t still be hungry,” I whined. “I only
think
I’m hungry. It’s my empty heart that’s talking.”

I tucked the blue and green afghan around my legs, the afghan Mom had knitted for me in my favorite colors when I went off to college. Only a decade ago, that era seemed like the fuzzy memory of someone else’s past.

“Oh, baby! I’m sorry that you have a hungry heart,” Suzie murmured sympathetically.

“Yes, it’s true. My heart is craving love that is real and sweet and kind and good. In other words, the opposite of Jeremy.”

“He wasn’t good enough for you,” she shot back.

Suzie, my older sister, never did like Jeremy. Although during our marriage, she kept her dislike at bay. Since the divorce, she hadn’t held back much on her true feelings.

“I really do like cottage cheese and canned tuna, Suz. My body does, anyway. It’s my soul that wants brownies, the kind with fudge icing and one perfect walnut half on top of each delicious, fudgey square.”

Listening to myself raving about brownies, what I really needed was to get off this couch and go running.

“Mmm, now you’re giving
me
cravings,” she said.

Suzie could eat an entire cake and not gain an ounce, the one thing I disliked about her. Well that, and her extreme bossiness. Plus the fact that she always thought she was right. Either my way or the highway—that was Suzie. Still, she was my sister and best friend. I could tell her anything.

“My cupboard is stocked with healthy food, no brownies. Yes, I can do this! I will not give in to a binge.” I squeezed the little spare tire above my pants for emphasis. It needed to disappear.

“Don’t give in, Karoline. You’d just hate yourself afterward. You’ve worked too hard to lose the weight, don’t throw that away.”

Bossy yes, but she told me what I needed to hear—most of the time, anyway.

“I think I’m craving sugar because my metabolism is down,” I said. “It’s freezing in this drafty old place.”

Outside my living room windows, I could see the sky white and promising snow. The wind had picked up and the temperature was dropping. This apartment had charmed me when I first discovered it eight years ago. And it was still charming, when the winter gales didn’t blow frigid air through the cracks around the window frames.

“Turn your heat up,” said Suzie. “Are you wearing layers? Put on a bulky sweater or a sweatshirt and be sure you have socks on.”

“I should have made Jeremy stay here,” I mused, not meaning it but since I hadn’t said anything bad about Jeremy for a few minutes I figured I was due. “I should have moved instead of kicking him out. Leave
him
to pay the electric bill every winter.”

“Why didn’t you? I never understood that. You should have been the one to go, Karoline. You could have moved in with Rob and me. You still can!”

She said that last sentence like it just occurred to her, as though she hadn’t been suggesting I live with them ever since I moved to Utah nine years ago. Suzie, Rob and their seven kids inhabited a massive home on the East side. It had a zillion bedrooms and bathrooms. But twenty-nine, divorced and living with my sister?

“I can’t bear the thought of sorting and packing,” I said, which was true. Suzie didn’t need to know the whole truth—that I’d rather die than move in with her.

“Regardless of who left who, I’m proud of you, Karoline. You needed to get rid of him.”

Suzie had never liked Jeremy, especially after he moved in with me. You’d have thought our subsequent marriage would have pleased her, since she didn’t believe in couples living together beforehand. But no, not really. She couldn’t stand the guy.

“The brief and painful interlude that was Jeremy and Karoline is over,” I stated in a grand manner as though announcing the final act in a play. “All that’s left is newly single Karoline London, who’s trying not to be bitterly negative.”

“It’s not getting any better?” Suzie asked in her most concerned Mommy voice.

I could hear screaming in the background. Probably Josh, who had lately developed a yelling/crying/screaming technique impossible to ignore, like a baby monkey on crack.

“Today I’m a little down, although I do feel better since giving up the post- divorce binge-eating,” I added quickly, feeling guilty about keeping my sister on the phone when her kids obviously needed her attention.

I could hear one of the girls repeating, “Mom! Mom! Mom!” I should let Suzie go. Maybe I’d drop by their house later and hang out. It would be fun to see the kids, something to distract me from my pity party.

But I wanted to get this one last thought in. I said, “At least we never had any kids. Otherwise our relationship would exist forever in some form through them.”

“Very true. The divorced couples I know with children are still tied to each other, and with a lot of the same drama,” Suzie agreed.

We hung up soon after and I said a quick thank you prayer to God for ignoring all my prayers for a baby
.

You clearly knew what you were doing, God. Thank you for not sending a baby to me and Jeremy. Or it would never be over.

After hanging up with Suzie, I trotted over to Sheila’s apartment. I didn’t feel like being alone today, just me and those awful journals.

Sheila answered her door with a yogurt in her hand. “Oh, hi, Karoline. I’m eating lunch. Want a Yoplait?”

“Do you have blueberry?”

“Of course. I know it’s your favorite and I come prepared. Hang on. I’ll get it for you.” She gestured me in and went to get my yogurt.

“That’s your lunch, Sheila? No wonder you stay so thin.”

Sheila handed me the blueberry yogurt and a spoon. “Hey, want to see what I got today at Gateway? They were having great sales. I made such a haul.”

“Sure,” I said, taking a seat in her living room, which was very much like mine except for the many knick knacks, doo dads and country chic items from places like Hobby Lobby and Taipan Trading.

Jeremy and I both liked a clean, spare look. Neither of us enjoyed shopping or collecting stuff. What we liked was working. And being together. Except for the last few years when it had just been working.

Sheila showed me her purchases, seasonal outfits that she got for a song at the post-Christmas sales. Afterward, she sat down next to her loot piled on the couch and eyed me seriously.

“Okay, Karoline. Spill. You are miserable, I can see it. What’s going on?”

I blinked at her a couple times, not sure how to answer. “Am I miserable, Sheila? How can you tell?” The best way to respond to a question you want to avoid is with another question.

She patted my knee. “Come on, kiddo. We’ve been neighbors a good long while. I’ve been around since before Jeremy, remember? You two were mad with young love and now look at you—divorced and unhappy. Something’s not right with this picture. You’re supposed to be miserable before the divorce, not after. After is when you figure out what’s next. Sure, it’s tough, and not the easiest transition in the world, but still better than being stuck in a bad marriage. I’ve been through it twice, you know, which makes me somewhat of an expert.”

I shook my head and forced a smile. “I’m okay, Sheila. It’s the adjustment process. We were together for eight years, married for six. I can’t act like that never happened. It’s taking some getting used to, that’s all.”

With everyone sympathizing and trying to get me to talk about it, I’d never get over the divorce. Good thing my mom was out of the country after all, or she’d be murmuring her sympathetic noises, asking me countless questions and wanting me to share my feelings. What I needed was to forget the whole thing and go find a hobby, something to distract me when I came home late to an empty apartment, and to occupy the endless weekend hours when I restlessly longed for Monday.

Sheila’s hobby was shopping. That wouldn’t do for me. I was too conservative to spend money impulsively and besides, shopping bored me. My mom had taught me how to knit and crochet, but then needlework allowed my thoughts to wander. Sure, my hands might stay busy, while my head would ache with trying not to think about Jeremy.

I liked to bake, which I had done with a vengeance since the split. My weekend cookie- and brownie-baking sessions were to thank for the extra twelve pounds.

Reading was an option although I hadn’t been able to focus on novels. And the self-help books I’d picked up at the library lectured me like a string of predictable afternoon talk shows.
Learning to Love Again
.
Love Yourself First and Last. Forgiving and Forgetting. You’re Hot and He’s Not. Healing the Heartache. Back in the Sack in Thirty Days or Less.

I should get back to running, maybe train for a marathon. Lately I’d been sleeping in instead of going for my routine jog. Well, not just lately—pretty much since Jeremy left. I’d sleep as long as I could before forcing myself to get out of bed. I used to wake up before six and run for an hour, then eat breakfast, shower, and head off to work. That had been my routine since college. For some unfathomable reason, I stopped exercising once I became a single woman again. Stupid, stupid.

Sheila watched me, probably waiting for me to burst into tears and tell her that yes, I still loved Jeremy and I wanted him more than I could ever say and couldn’t imagine being with anyone but him.

“Okay, Karoline,” she finally said, “whatever you say. I don’t believe a word of it. You miss him, don’t you? You still love him, I can tell.”

“No, Sheila, I don’t still love Jeremy,” I insisted. “I hate him worse than anything. In fact, that’s why I don’t want to talk about it. Because it would be me ranting about how much I loathe Jeremy London and who needs to hear that.”