A Little Too Late

by Staci Hart

  “She wore you down, huh?” he asked, pushing the vegetables around in the pan with a wooden spoon before putting a lid on it.

  I smiled. “I’m not terribly difficult to convince, and she’s very persuasive. I was still finishing school, but once it was over … well, I thought traveling would be just the thing.”

  “The idea of being finished with school so early is almost unimaginable. Law school aged me ten years.” He turned and leaned against the counter, picking up his glass of wine. “What’s your degree in?”

  “Education. I’m to be a teacher.”

  He smiled, and warmth spread through my chest. I took a sip of wine to cool it down.

  “I can’t imagine a more perfect job for you.”

  I kept my eyes trained on my glass, as if setting it down required all my thoughtful attention. “Yes, I suppose.”

  His smile faded. “You don’t want to teach?”

  “It’s not that. It’s just …” I didn’t want to answer or admit the reason aloud.

  “The bakery?”

  It was my turn to smile, but it was small and pained. “It was never meant to be my dream. I could work there, I’m sure, and I would enjoy it well enough. But my parents expected me to go to university, so I did. I finished, like I was supposed to. But when it came time to look for a job, I felt … I wanted …” I drew in a breath and let it out. “I wanted to run away. I wasn’t ready to decide. My parents liken it to a holiday, I think. A little bit of wandering before I settle in.”

  He nodded, his eyes heavy with understanding. “Expectations aren’t easy. The pressure, the obligation, is almost enough to strip you of desire.”

  I took another sip of my wine to busy myself.

  “So, what do you want to do?”

  “I don’t quite know. I keep hoping I’ll wake one day and find the answer. Part of me wonders if I’m not happier in the dark. Being here is a respite, and when I go home, I’ll feel like I have to do as I’m told.”

  “Do you always do what you’re told?”

  I met his eyes. “Yes. But only because it’s not unreasonable. I do as I’m told because I don’t mind. I knew I needed a degree, that my life would be easier if I had one. I knew I would like teaching children because I love them, and I’m good at it. When my brothers and sister were little, I took care of them because I had to, yes, but also because I wanted to, because it fulfilled me and made me happy. Being helpful makes me happy. Do you understand?”

  “I do,” he said simply. And the weight in his answer was enough to explain how he felt completely. “Did you always enjoy working with kids?”

  “I did. Caring for my little brothers was like a dream come true for my teenage self. Diapers and prams and going on walks and playing at the park.”

  “Were the kids at your last job a nightmare? Is that why you left?”

  I stilled, even my heart, just for a beat. “There were a lot of reasons it didn’t work out,” I lied. There had only been one.

  His brow rose with one corner of his lips. “Let me guess; they were gluten-free?”

  “Something like that.” I laughed, anxious to change the subject. Because the last thing I wanted to discuss at the end of such a lovely day was Quinton. “How about you? Why did you choose law?”

  He took a sip of his wine and set it down before turning back to add the chicken to the pan. “The real answer? Money. I wanted to be successful, and in my peabrained, youthful mind, that meant money. I had no idea what success really meant or happiness either. Lesson learned.” He pushed the mix around for a few seconds, seemingly lost in thought. “I enjoyed school though. I love problem-solving, finding answers, fixing things. And I do a lot of that now, but it leaves me no time for anything else. I want more out of life, but I’m trapped where I am.”

  “I know how you feel.”

  He smiled at me over his shoulder. “Yeah, I think you do.” The lid was placed on the pan again, and he turned back to me. “I know this is a terribly American thing to say, but you speak English really well. I don’t know any other languages other than some Spanish. The useful stuff, like swear words and how to ask for more beer. I also have a couple of gems in my repertoire like, No me gusta la lucha libre, and Donde está la biblioteca?”

  I laughed fully at that, a little louder than manners defined. “Well, I don’t like wrestling either, and I always think one should know where the nearest library is.”

  “It’s important information. I knew you’d get it.”

  My cheeks were warm and still smiling. “Lysanne and I used to read romance novels in English when we were teenagers. Everyone takes English in school, starting around when we’re ten or eleven, and almost everyone speaks very good English. So many Americans and Brits move there, too. In Amsterdam, everyone speaks it. Where I’m from, just south of Amsterdam, most people do. Not as well—we don’t have as much practice—but Lysanne was obsessed with America when we were younger, so I think I might know more slang and turns of phrase than most. It’s no wonder she ended up moving here. I wasn’t surprised in the least.”

  “So you learned English from reading romance novels and, what? Watching MTV?”

  I nodded. “And we’d speak it to each other all the time. So, thanks to her, I’ve had a bit of practice.”

  “Do you speak it to her now that you’re here?”

  “No,” I said, chuckling. “We always speak Dutch now. I think she misses home a little. I thought she might fall to pieces when I brought her leidsekaas.”

  “Which one is that?” he asked as he stirred the food again and moved the pan off the burner.

  “The one that’s a little spicy.”

  “I almost fell to pieces over that one too.”

  He moved to the cabinet for plates, and I slid off my stool to help, taking the plates.

  “So, kaas is cheese, right?”

  “Ja.”

  He smiled and followed me with forks and napkins. “What’s chicken?”

  “Kip. Dat is een kipfilet.” I pointed at the pan.

  “That is a chicken fillet?” he guessed.

  “Ja. Goed gedaan, Charlie!” I praised. “Wat is dat?” I pointed at a plate.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Dat is een borden.”

  He took the new knowledge and held up a fork, his eyes bright. “Wat is dat?”

  “Wat is dis?” I corrected. “Dat is een vork.”

  “Vork,” he said with a smile and laid out cutlery behind me as we walked around the table. “It sounds like English.”

  “It’s very similar, yes. It’s the closest language to English in the world. The grammar is almost as complicated, too,” I joked and set the last plate on the table.

  Charlie caught up with me, still smiling, still looking at me with endless eyes. “Now I know why Sammy’s always asking you to translate for him.”

  He made to move past me—we were between the table and the window—reaching for my arms as he brushed behind me, his body against mine in only the smallest of ways, but I felt every place where he touched me long after he walked away.

  “I’ll get the kids,” I said a little breathlessly and hurried out of the kitchen before he could turn or answer.

  And just like that, nothing was simple, the lines I’d thought were between us erased with a day spent together. Because the truth was that it no longer felt like he was my boss. It didn’t only feel like he was my friend; it felt like more—much more. And that notion gave me pause, forced me back a step.

  I loved my job. I loved the children, and I cared for Charlie. And, for the first time since coming to America, I didn’t want to leave.

  If I crossed that line, I might have to after all.

  As we ate, I watched him, listened to him, laughed with him. I couldn’t deny that we’d turned a dangerous corner. When he smiled at something I’d said, the corners of his dark eyes would crinkle, and I’d find myself beaming at him.

  Charlie was beautiful. He was smart and giv
ing and charming.

  And he was beyond my reach.

  But sitting there across from each other, we were just two people in a kitchen, drinking wine and laughing. Everything about him said yes, and I found myself leaning into the word, wishing I could say it, wishing he would.

  There were so many reasons we couldn’t, reasons I used to bolster my crumbling resolve, stacking them up like sandbags full of holes.

  We were nearly finished eating when Maven’s exhaustion from the day and missed nap won over. She slapped her little hands on the table, but her fingers caught the lip of her plate, flipping it into the air with a spray of peas like little missiles.

  I moved quickly, setting my napkin on my plate as I stood and reached for her. She wailed, her face pink and mouth in a little circle, sparkling tears rolling down her cheeks as I soothed her. It was too loud for me to hear Charlie approaching, but he was at my side, reaching for her, and she reached for him, curling into him as she popped her thumb into her mouth and cried around it.

  “Come on, baby,” he said gently, rubbing her back with his big hand. “You all finished, Sammy?”

  “Yep!” he said with a pop of the P, jumping out of his chair.

  “Let me go bathe them,” I offered.

  But he shook his head. “I’ve got it. Thanks, Hannah.”

  I felt a strange mixture of pride and rejection. “Of course,” I said, my face flushing.

  He saw it and turned to me, his eyes soft. “Pour me another glass, would you? I’ll be just a minute.”

  And I smiled back, hating myself for feeling relieved. “All right.”

  Charlie walked away with his children, and I tried to clear my head by cleaning up dinner, my mind and heart colliding in my noisy thoughts.

  You don’t belong here, I reminded myself as I cleaned up Maven’s mess.

  Find a way to put the wall back up, I thought as I stacked the plates and carried them to the sink.

  You can’t have him, I tried to convince my heart as I washed and rinsed and put everything away.

  I shouldn’t have had any wine, my thin resolve too easily swayed with its aid. I should have gone to my room. I should have been smart and told myself with some amount of command to stop what I was doing and find a way out.

  But instead, I poured another glass for Charlie and one for myself. Because he asked me, I told myself. Because he needed a friend. Because everything would work out. He would never broach the boundary even if I wanted him to.

  My feet ached from the day, and the kitchen seemed too hard, too stiff. So I walked into the living room and sat, not bothering with the light. The fire was enough. I watched it crackle and burn, thinking. I was thinking so hard in fact that, once again, I didn’t hear Charlie approach, didn’t register him until he walked around the couch, looking tired himself.

  He took the seat next to me and picked up his wine, saying nothing for a moment, both of us lost in the orange and red coals of the logs and flickering flames.

  Put up the wall.

  I smiled politely and shifted to sit a little straighter. “The kids went to bed all right?”

  He nodded, his face content and soft. “They did. I like putting them to bed. Is that weird?”

  I chuckled. “Not at all.”

  His lips tilted into a smile.

  “I straightened up the kitchen. Thank you for dinner.”

  “Thank you for your company and for spending the day with us.”

  “I was glad to. It’s my job after all.”

  He turned to meet my eyes, searching them for an answer to a question I hadn’t heard him ask, not out loud. Is it? they seemed to say.

  But it was, and we both knew it.

  I took a breath, fixing the smile in place. “I should go.”

  “Where? To your room, alone? To bed? It’s not even seven.” His voice was light, but his face wasn’t. His face begged me to stay.

  When I didn’t respond quickly enough, he filled the opening with a gentle command. “Finish your wine. Sit with me.”

  And my paper-thin composure rumpled uselessly. “All right.”

  I settled back into the couch and turned my eyes to the fire once more.

  Charlie didn’t say anything for a minute or two, the two of us sipping our wine and sitting close enough that I could reach out and touch him. But I didn’t dare.

  “I can’t remember the last time I spent a whole day with the kids,” he said. “That World’s Best Dad mug is just for show.”

  He was trying to joke, but the words were heavy with regret.

  “It felt good, right, but it hurt, too. It reminded me of everything I’d been missing.”

  “But you’re here now, Charlie. You’re here now.”

  “If it’s not too late.”

  “It’s never too late to change your mind.”

  He considered that for a moment. “Sammy’s five, and Mary and I never took him anywhere together,” he started, pausing. “Well, that’s not exactly true. Once, when he was a baby, we went to the aquarium. He was too little, I realize that now, and he cried the entire time we were there. Mary was miserable. By the time we got home, we were both fried. We got in a huge fight the second we walked in the door. I think we both felt like failures, to be honest. But, in the end, we never even tried again.” He turned to me. “We never tried. Maybe that was our trouble all along.”

  His face was sad and beautiful, half cast in shadow, and I held my glass with two hands to stop myself from reaching for him.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be. Am I supposed to be sad that she left? Because I am—but because of the kids, not for myself. They haven’t seen their mother in nine months. She won’t speak to me, doesn’t seem to care about them, and I feel like I pass them off to whoever will take them. And I’ve put my own wants and wishes in a box and thrown it in the river.”

  “Do you miss her?” I asked.

  “Not at all. That’s the worst part. I was angry. God, was I angry. She …” He paused, swallowing. “Did Katie tell you?”

  “A little,” I admitted.

  He turned his attention back to the fire. “She was sleeping with my best friend. I should have known. Should have fucking known,” he said quietly. “Maybe I just didn’t want to see. Maybe I knew all along.”

  I didn’t speak, just waited, my eyes tracing the line of his profile, over his worried brow and long nose, over the slope of his lips and strong chin, shining with blond stubble.

  “When she left, I thought it would set me free. I was glad to have her presence gone from the house, not realizing just how hard it had been to be near her, not understanding how she’d affected me without my knowing. I’d been sinking, drowning. And she didn’t care—didn’t care about me, didn’t care about our children. She only cared about herself, even now. She’s never even signed the divorce papers; that’s how little she can be bothered.”

  An unwelcome pain settled into my chest.

  “She didn’t show up to the custody hearing, just let me have them. And I’m glad, as guilty as that makes me feel. It’s almost easier with her gone completely. I don’t know what kind of hell I’d have gone through if she’d fought me the whole way.”

  “What happens when someone doesn’t sign divorce papers?” I asked quietly, curiously.

  “She had a deadline to send them in, and when it passed, there was a waiting period before I can file for a default ruling. Basically, it means she’s waived her rights, and those rights have defaulted to me. But there’s still time. If she shows up, if she decides to fight, she can petition to have the default ruling reversed, and then we’ll fight for every scrap. Until it’s over, I won’t be able to breathe or move on.”

  “Do you think she will? Do you think she’ll fight?”

  “Fighting is all I’ve ever known from her. The fact that she’s been silent is the most unnerving part of it all, and it leaves me without any context for what she’ll do or what she won’t. I sometimes wonder if she’s d
oing this on purpose, if she knows how she’s torturing me. She doesn’t want me, but she doesn’t want to let me go. How fucked up is that?”

  He didn’t want a response, and I didn’t have one to offer.

  “To find out that your life is a lie, your marriage a sham … the rug was pulled, and it sent me tumbling down the stairs in slow motion. I didn’t know how to deal with it. So, I worked. I worked and worked and left the kids with the nanny and pretended like everything was okay. Some days I feel like it is. But sometimes, I feel like what I’ve done, who I’ve become, is irredeemable.”

  My hand moved to his without my permission, and by the time I realized what I’d done, it was too late to take it back.

  He turned to look into my eyes. “Hannah, I …” The words seem to jam in his throat, and he turned his hand under mine to lace our fingers.

  “It’s all right, Charlie,” I said just above a whisper.

  “Is it?” he whispered back.

  And my heart thumped painfully.

  And he was leaning, and I was leaning, and my pulse was racing.

  “Yes.” It was permission and a plea, a single word heavy with longing and wishes I shouldn’t have and shouldn’t feel. But I did.

  And he answered me with a breath that pulled me into him, millimeter by agonizing millimeter.

  I closed my eyes.

  I leaned in.

  He disappeared, and the loss was instant and sharp.

  When I opened my eyes, his were tragically sad and utterly dejected.

  “God, Hannah. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I … I shouldn’t have …”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but he was already standing, already walking away, already slipping through my fingers.

  “It won’t happen again,” he said with certainty before hurrying away.

  And I touched my lips that had almost tasted him and wished he’d whispered a lie.

  10

  No Amount of Banketstaaf

  Hannah

  I woke the next morning feeling unrested, sleep full of restless dreams I couldn’t remember. When I opened my heavy lids and looked up at the molding, my first thought was of Charlie, followed by a hot rush of shame.