She was so exhausted she couldn’t make a list of all the things she needed to do, but was equally unable to sleep. So she left her new suitcase filled with the contents of Nan’s cedar chest at the bottom of the stairs, and hauled the larger bag containing her clothes and toiletries up two flights to her bedroom. She paused on the second floor to peer into the guest room and bath. The bed was unmade, and Daniel’s electric toothbrush and razor sat haphazardly on the counter, their charging lights blinking out of sync.
He hadn’t signed the papers, and he was still here.
Unpacking took all of ten minutes. Dirty laundry, dry cleaning, toiletries neatly put away. She showered, changed into a pair of yoga pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, then went back downstairs, ran a glass of water and went into the dining room.
She opened the vintage suitcase and took out the stacks of letters, neatly bundled and wrapped in faded ribbons, then sat down at the foot of the dining room table, facing the divorce papers. The knots in the ribbons gave way easily. She fanned them out along the length of the table, but ran out of room when she came to the head, where the divorce papers, paperweight, and pen still sat.
Very aware of what she was doing, she picked up the paperweight and stuffed it in a drawer on the hutch, but laid the papers on a chair, still near the rows of letters but no longer blocking their flow. The pen she capped and pushed behind her ear, then resumed laying out the story of her life. She studied the letters as if she were studying a note from one of the people asking for an introduction. Most of the postmarks were from school, a few with international postage from the book tour, then New York.
Nothing from Tokyo, but she now had the letter she’d written Daniel about Tokyo. She went upstairs, got the letter from Daniel’s nightstand, and tucked it in its proper place in the rows.
That was the first step, to reread the letters, starting with the most recent, and working her way back, excavating her self from these letters like artifacts on an archaeological dig.
Daniel’s key turned the lock on the front door. It swung open, hit the suitcase on the floor, which scraped over the tile. “Tilda?”
“In here,” she said, trusting him to navigate to the sound of her voice.
He appeared in the doorway in his suit and tie, his keys still in his hand. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” she said.
He braced his shoulder against the doorframe, tipped his head so it rested on the white wood. “Good flight?”
“Yes,” she said. “It brought me home.”
His gaze sharpened, then he nodded at the rows of envelopes on the dining room table. “What’s this?”
“Every letter I ever sent Nan.”
“Ah.”
He looked at her, and she’d never felt more raw or vulnerable under his gaze. “Daniel, I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” he said not unkindly. “I’m going for a run. I’ll be back later.”
“All right,” she said.
He came back downstairs wearing running shorts and a T-shirt. Before he left he handed her another glass of water.
She opened the last letter she’d sent to Nan, and read it. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry anymore, that she knew what she needed to do and would work at it until it was done, but in hindsight the letter was so superficial and stupid and false, all the lies of omission she was telling herself, walls made of words and paper fibers and ink. She neatly folded the letter, inserted it back into its envelope, the only one on the table not handled by Nan, and went upstairs to sleep.
—
She awoke to Daniel sitting on the edge of the bed. “Tilda,” he said.
In that moment she knew that she wanted to wake up every day for the rest of her life to Daniel’s voice murmuring her name. His gaze, so troubled and caring, searched her face. “I love you. Daniel, believe me when I say that. I know I haven’t given you any reason to but please, please believe me. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said. He smoothed her hair back from her face and smiled at her, so sweet and wistful and wary. What she’d done to him shamed her almost as much as what she’d done to Andrew.
“We need to talk,” she started, then sat up straighter. “Why are you in a suit? Are you going back to work?”
His hand rested on her hip, warm, anchoring. “It’s morning, Tilda. You’ve been asleep for thirteen hours.”
“I need to go into work,” she said, and started to lift the covers.
His hand tightened, not much, but enough. She felt the weight of it, weight she could have powered through a lifetime ago, before everything fell apart. “I called Penny and told her you were taking a couple more days off.”
The weight of his hand mirrored the weight of her soul, unfamiliar but pleasantly heavy and warm. Carrying that weight would take some getting used to. “I’ve already asked her to do too much.”
“She said you’d say that. She says to tell you not to short-circuit the process.”
The instinct to avoid this through work was strong, but she ignored it. “We need to talk,” she said again.
He smiled, somewhat involuntarily. “See? That wasn’t so hard,” he said before he grew serious again. “We do. But not today. Tonight.”
“Shall we meet in the kitchen?”
“It’s a date,” he said, and squeezed her hip before leaving.
Getting out of bed was a breeze because her mouth tasted foul and her hair felt lank. She showered, brushed her teeth, dressed in loose-knit pajama pants and a T-shirt, went downstairs for breakfast, popped bread in the toaster, opened the door, and pulled out the currant jam.
Then she fell apart.
Half an hour later she pulled herself off the kitchen floor, put the jam away, and had a pear and a bowl of instant oatmeal for breakfast. She sat at the table on the patio and read her email, both work and personal, called a supplier, called several personal appointments she’d missed. Slate cleared, she went inside and looked at the letters stretched out on the dining room table. Her life, in neat rows. Craving sunshine and the summer breeze, she scooped up the divorce papers and the column of most recent letters from the table, and took them into the back yard with a cup of tea.
She was still sitting outside when Daniel came home. His footsteps paused for a moment, the fridge opened, closed, then he opened the screen door and walked down onto the flagstones, a beer in hand. He took in the stacks of letters, the plates dotted with crumbs, and said, “Have you been out here all day?”
She looked up. His tie was loosened, the top button undone, and his face was lined. “Most of it,” she said. “Hard day?”
“Just long,” he said, and pulled out a chair to sit next to her. “The next couple of months are going to be hell. Ready to talk?”
“Yes.”
“The day you thought you were pregnant. Why did you call me?” he asked.
It was a good question. Why hadn’t she just taken the test and dealt with the consequences on her own? But the first thing she thought when she realized exactly, precisely, how heart-stoppingly late she was, was
Call Daniel. Now.
“I thought you should know,” she said. She huffed out a laugh. Because he was Daniel. Because he was good with women on ledges, as she well knew. Because something told her he’d stand beside her in the bathroom, and afterward. In that moment she’d wanted the sheer animal comfort of someone to sit beside her while she waited for the test to return its answer, and that moment of weakness, as always, was her downfall.
“Why did you say yes?”
“I wanted to marry you,” she said quietly. “Please believe me when I say that. I wanted to marry you. I wanted you. Wanting has never been my problem. My problem is having. Keeping what I want.”
“That’s not your problem, Tilda.”
H
e looked at her, hated how the next few minutes would hurt her, but knowing she had to go through them. “What did your mother say to you after she saw you and Andrew?”
Tilda looked down, away, then slid him a glance, half love, half amusement, all hope.
“You really don’t miss a trick, do you?” she said.
“I miss all kinds of tricks. I just try not to miss the same trick twice.”
“You ruin everything.”
He blinked, then realized she didn’t mean him.
“That’s what she said
. You ruin everything.
” She took a deep breath. “She looked at me like I was a whore, and said,
You ruin everything.
Then she walked away.”
Rage throttled him. That’s why Andrew was at the dinner party. His presence was a not-so-subtle reminder to Tilda of her past mistakes, ensuring they would haunt her for the rest of her life.
“I wasn’t sure if she meant I’d ruined her life, the trip, or her reputation. I’d ruined her chances with Andrew, certainly. Perhaps simply by being born. I have no idea who my father is, but he disappeared like vapor before I was born. I ruined that for her, too. As near as I can tell there were two men in her life she actually wanted, and both times I ruined her chance at happiness.”
He counted to ten. Then counted to ten again. He had to say something, before she interpreted his silence as judgment. “She’s blaming you.”
“Oh, I couldn’t help being born,” she said with a little laugh that sounded as harsh and brittle as his voice. “But I was trouble with Nan. Skipping school. Uncontrollable. That’s why I was sent to boarding school. I’m certainly to blame with Andrew. She wanted him. He needed her, but wanted me. I wanted . . .” She went silent again. Daniel heard nothing but the rush of blood in his ears. “I wanted to make her
see me
, see who I am, see what I could do.”
Silence. Daniel sat across from her, and waited. Something happened in Cornwall, beginning when she held a handful of Cornish dirt over her grandmother’s coffin and let it trickle through her fingers. “I didn’t want you to know this about me. You’d never do anything like that. You’re a good person, a good man.”
“Just because I wouldn’t do that doesn’t mean I judge you for doing it. You were seventeen, as alone as any child I’ve seen who wasn’t in the foster-care system. Your mother . . . your mother defies description, and Andrew . . .”
Her cheeks bloomed pink. “Still. I’m ashamed of myself,” she said finally.
“Why?” he said gently.
“What kind of horrible person does what I did—”
“A seventeen-year-old, passionate, determined person who knows she deserves better than what she’s had.”
“And what kind of pathetic person asks her husband to take her back because she’s suffered one loss and is afraid of losing someone else? You’ll think I’m here just because I’m scared of losing you and I’m afraid of being . . . without you. I’m not afraid to be alone, but the thought of life without you terrifies me.”
“That would be great, Tilda, if you were here because you were scared and afraid of being alone. Because that’s exactly why I’m here. I’m scared of losing you, of living the rest of my life without you.”
Her gray eyes gleamed before she looked away, up at the trees, down at the flagstone patio. “You bought me the bracelet because you love me. You were loving me, and I couldn’t bear to be in the room, because it wasn’t just sex anymore. It was supposed to lead somewhere I didn’t recognize, let alone know how to navigate. Sex had always led nowhere. No risk, no threat of connection. But that night at the hotel . . . you wanted it to lead somewhere. You wanted to connect it to our marriage. You were trying to make it mean something more than it had. And the bracelet. My God, Daniel. That bracelet.”
Her eyes were a mixture of disbelief and joy and terror. “Not romantic? They’re supposed to be romantic,” he said offhandedly, but he knew better. “I felt like I was losing you. I knew I was. I just didn’t know why.”
Her face grew serious. “I didn’t know how to take what you want to give. It’s a skill, you see, learning the knack of being loved, a skill I don’t have.”
“Currently. One you don’t have currently.” He looked at her, calm, not a hint of amusement in his eyes.
Her back stiffened. “I don’t want to be a project—”
“Goddammit, Tilda, I’m not a martyr. I’m not throwing myself on the pyre of your issues. I’m just better than the people who’ve left you. That’s why I stay. Because you’re amazing and I’m in love with you and I don’t fucking quit just because things get tough.”
“You swore,” she said. She was half laughing, half crying.
“Sorry.” He sat back and blew out his breath, then looked down at his clasped hands.
“I think that might be the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
Her voice was dumbfounded. “Then I’m not sorry. You did a bad thing, Tilda,” he said, without looking up. “You cut school, and got into trouble with boys, but
you
are not a bad thing, someone inherently destined to ruin every good thing that comes her way. But I can’t prove that. Life isn’t black ink on white paper, columns and numbers and script. It’s a work of art that integrates the past into the future. It’s impossible to
prove
a future in which I love you, you love me, and we never come to ruin. A future has to be lived. What you have to do is love me, and let me love you, day in and day out, year in and year out, until we die of old age, more in love than we are now.” He gave her a sidelong glance, a smile quirking at the corner of his mouth. “How’s that for a ledge?”
She clapped a hand to her mouth to muffle her disbelieving laugh. “That’s a proper ledge. And to think I thought you weren’t daring enough for me.”
“People do tend to underestimate me,” he said seriously.
“I won’t make that mistake again.” She swiped her eyes with the heels of her hands, then drew in a shaky breath. “That’s all I do? Just . . . let you love me, and love you in return?”
“That’s it.”
She picked up the divorce papers from the table, and tore them in half, then in half again. The edges fluttered in the warm breeze until she secured them under the tea tray. “You asked me once who I’d put on the list for myself,” she said. Quiet, but sure. This came from a completely different place in her, a place he’d not yet seen. That alone gave him hope. “You. I’d put you on the list for me. No one else. Nothing else. Not Quality, or a global brand. You.”
“I’m yours,” he said. “Have been since the moment I saw you, in fact.”
“Sitting on a ledge,” she said.
“Sitting on a ledge.”
He leaned forward and kissed her, his hand around the nape of her neck. “Now what?”
“Dinner,” he said, then stood and held out his hand. She put her hand in his, and squeezed his fingers when he helped her to her feet.
“Yes, please,” she said, and gave him a quick kiss as she climbed the steps to the back door. She prepared dinner, nothing elaborate, a simple meal of cheese and olives, hummus and pita, a bright array of peppers and carrots for dipping.
That night, he moved his things back to the master suite on the third floor. Tilda gave him a shy, pleased smile as they got ready for bed, but while he half expected her to turn to him in the middle of the night, or to wake him as she so frequently had with her fingers trailing down his chest to his cock, or her mouth on his thighs, she did neither of those things. She had learned to mistrust her desires, and while he wanted her to be his wife in every sense of the word, he wouldn’t rush her through that process of reclaiming her sexuality. When she was ready, she would come to him.
With that in mind, he didn’t mention a trip to Huntington to see Jessie’s soccer game. She was still so quiet inside, like she needed some time and space to read letters or look at pictures; when there was a lull in the case, while some of the parties involved vacationed in Seychelles, Daniel felt justified in taking a Saturday off.
“So you’re not getting divorced anymore?” Angie sipped her coffee and watched Jessie’s game on the field.
“No.” He didn’t tell Angie about the pictures and letters strewn over every flat surface in the house. Something mysterious, almost mythological was happening in that town house. If he had to hazard a guess, Tilda, who loved white paper and black ink, was falling in love with art. But he kept his hypothesis to himself. If he spoke of it, sent it into the wind too early, it might drift away and disappear.
“What happened?”
“Her grandmother died.”
“You went to the funeral?”
“I went to the funeral.”
Angie didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to say anything. Daniel tried to get his thoughts in order, to explain the seismic shifts of the human heart to someone who only knew bedrock.
“Mom taught us to write thank-you notes, right? Because that’s what you do when you’re a part of a family, or community. She taught us to be kind and gentle and giving. Thoughtful. But she taught us something else, too. She taught us how to be loved. Every day with the touches and the smiles and the affection, the attention, she taught us how to accept someone’s love. To trust it. No one taught Tilda that. The only person she trusts to do it was her nan. Everyone else was suspect. Now Nan’s dead, and she’s trying to find her way. I’m walking with her.”
Angie stared at him. To someone who grew up with that foundation, the lack of it was incomprehensible, like trying to explain air to a fish who’d never felt the yank of the hook. Her mother ripped big chunks right out of her soul. Andrew gave her sex, the lure of touch, the high of orgasm, with nothing underneath it. He was trying to give her bedrock.
Angie finished her coffee and tossed the paper cup in the trash can at the far end of the field. Jessie stole the ball from her opponent, only to lose it to the halfback. Her ponytail swung as she took off back up the field, her little face set with fierce determination. “She’s the spitting image of you,” Daniel said.
“My girl,” Angie said fondly.
A red cab pulled into the parking lot, an unusual sight in suburban Long Island. Heads swiveled to watch Tilda get out of the backseat, claim her bag. She scanned the sidelines. His heart in his throat, Daniel lifted his arm and waved to get her attention. She waved back and set off toward them.
“Why didn’t you two come together?” Angie asked.
“I didn’t know she was coming,” he said. His heart was pounding like it had the first time he saw her, skittering in his chest, his entire nervous system lit up like Times Square.
“Hi, Angie,” she said, a little too brightly. It was as uncertain as Daniel had ever seen her. For Tilda, asking to be a part of the family was the riskiest thing she’d ever done. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
“Not a problem,” Angie said. “We’re glad you’re here. I’m so sorry to hear about your grandmother.”
“Thank you,” Tilda said. “I miss her terribly.” Just then Jessie waved excitedly at Tilda, and Tilda waved back. “What’s the score?”
“Two to one. We’re up,” Daniel said.
Tilda greeted his mom and dad, then stayed by his side through a celebratory lunch at Chuck E. Cheese’s. The noise level was indescribable, games chirping and shrilling and blinking, like a children’s casino in hell, but Tilda gamely ate pizza, drank a beer, and played Whac-A-Mole with Jessie, before Angie gave them a ride to the train station. The rain that had threatened all day finally spattered against the train’s windows on the ride home. Her hand linked with his, Tilda watched houses and strip malls and roads flow past, then transferred her gaze from the suburbs to his face. “I understand,” she said.
“Understand what?”
“Why you go to the soccer games. You go to the soccer games because you always go to the funerals.”
“I never really thought about it, but yeah. Life’s going to come at you. You have to take the joy when you can.”
She sat in silence a little longer. “Take the joy when you can. I like that.”
“Good,” he said.
“I like that,” she said again, but more quietly, and that was enough.