The phone rang, startling both of them. They separated with a wet pop, Bren stumbling back two steps. For a moment they simply stared at each other, chests heaving.
Distance. Distance was a good thing. Because from this distance she could see only the man who’d been her husband’s best friend for decades. She could see only that he was hurting and struggling and reaching out.
The phone rang again, this time caller ID announcing that it was Kelsey.
Dear God, Kelsey. And surely Kevin and the new wild-night-in-Rome-maybe-bride was with her. Her children, the ones who’d trusted her for their entire lives to make the right decisions. To keep their home stable, even if they didn’t want to live in it anymore. And, for the love of God, to not cheat on their father.
Calling right in the middle of her doing just that.
Wait. Was she doing just that? Was it cheating if she was simply guilty of not pulling away? She imagined Gary might think so.
Worse, Kelsey and Kevin might think so.
Bren was suddenly filled with such shame she was nearly unable to move from her spot. The phone rang again. John wiped his mouth, but he was still leering.
Bren shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said, imagining the disappointed faces of her children on the other end of that phone line.
Why didn’t you answer, Mom?
Oh, no reason, I was just making out with Uncle John.
God, she wanted to die.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “But you’re wrong. I don’t feel anything.”
“That’s not true,” John said, and he may have even been right—it was too confusing for Bren to tell at that very moment—but then he shrugged and reached for his tumbler. Bren had forgotten all about the tumbler, as if they’d been at this for hours rather than just a few moments. Surprisingly, the band was still mutilating the same song they’d been tearing apart when John had appeared at the top of the stairs. “But okay. If you change your mind—no, make that when you change your mind—you know where to find me.”
Unfortunately, she did. But she would try very, very hard to pretend that she didn’t. She would convince herself.
The phone rang a fourth time. It would go to voice mail if it rang a fifth. As John tromped back down the stairs, Bren leapt for it.
“Mommy? I was just about to hang up.”
Bren closed her eyes, tried to steady her racing heart. “Hi, sweetie. How are you?”
There was a puff of air on the other end—a sigh. “Oh, fine, I suppose.”
Bren’s ears perked. Just fine? I suppose? Not beautiful? What happened to beautiful, beautiful Thailand and all its beautiful customs and beautiful Dean and beautiful, beautiful, oh-so-beautiful food? “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” But this was definitely Kelsey’s pouty voice. A very irrational part of Bren (and she recognized that those parts were aplenty inside her these days) worried that somehow Kelsey knew—just knew—what had been happening at the moment she called in the very kitchen where she’d eaten her first jar of strained sweet potatoes.
“Doesn’t sound like nothing,” Bren said.
“It’s just . . .” Another puff of air. “It’s just that . . . I mean, don’t get me wrong, Thailand is wonderful. It’s beautiful and the culture is so amazing and everything. It’s just so very far away. And it doesn’t feel like Christmas here.”
“Has Kevin not ever shown up?”
“Yeah, he has.” More listlessness. “And Pavlina. And she’s nice, I think. She doesn’t really speak English that much. But Kevin doesn’t know anything about her, not really, and he says he’s not even sure if they’re actually married.” She lowered her voice. “And don’t tell him I said this, but I think he’s kind of hoping that they’re not. I caught him talking to two girls at the market the other day, and later that night we had a few Singhas and he started going on about annulment practices and asking all kinds of questions about whether a marriage was legal if you did it outside the US with no license or anything like that.”
Bren scrambled for the telephone pad. Wrote down Singha.
“I think he’s really embarrassed that he did it, Mommy, but he won’t just come out and say it. Instead he’s spending all his time at the beach and leaving Pavlina here with me. And we can’t really talk, so we just sit around and watch Thai TV together. And I don’t understand a word of that.”
Bren was taken aback. Maybe this was why Kevin hadn’t included her in his wedding and marriage. Maybe he really had been telling the truth about it being a wild night in Rome. From the sound of things, one he regretted. “Well, he’s a big boy,” she said. “Nothing we can do for him. He’s got to figure this out for himself. And not get her pregnant, whatever he does.”
“I don’t see how he can. She goes to bed and he’s in the kitchen drinking with me.” She sighed again. “Not very Christmassy.”
“Well, you can’t let your brother dictate how your holiday goes,” Bren said, though she would be lying if she said she wasn’t just a little bit happy to hear that everything wasn’t going so beautifully at the moment.
“But Dean is working all the time. Like, round the clock. And since it’s not the same here, he doesn’t really feel the need to take time off for the holidays. So he’s just leaving me with this really awkward situation. And I’m tired of fish. And I want you. I want brisket and corn casserole and pumpkin pie and brownies and homemade bread. I want to come home.”
Bren nearly dropped her pencil, John all but wiped clean from her mind. Her daughter missed her. She wanted to come home. She wanted to have Christmas after all. Just as Bren did. “You can always come home,” she said, not even sure if her lips were moving in her stunned happiness.
“Not in time for Christmas,” Kelsey said. “But I was sort of hoping right after New Year’s? I talked to Kevin about it last night. I think we can both swing it. I have enough money for mine and Kevin’s tickets. He doesn’t really have the money for Pavlina’s ticket, but he says that’s all up in the air right now, anyway, so . . . Can we come home for the new year?”
Bren smiled so hard her temples hurt. “Are you kidding me? Yes! Yes, of course! Oh, how exciting! Your father will be thrilled. We’ll have Christmas dinner in January. I can send you some money. You need money?”
Truth be told, Bren would have sent her anything she asked for at that moment. Money? Boat? New car? Private jet to fly home in? Sure, consider it done!
They became a flurry of plan making. Excited chatter about who they would see and what they would do. Kelsey wanted to sit in on Bren’s cooking class, which gave Bren a pang of regret that there was now no cooking class to sit in on. She wanted to listen to Gary’s band play—Bren started to wonder how awkward that would be, given what had just transpired with John, but pushed the thought out of her head. She wanted to shop and buy lunches and visit Grandma Joan and Great-Aunt Cathy and spend a lot of time just sitting in the kitchen catching up on things.
By the time Bren hung up, she’d only written the word Singha on her telephone pad. She crossed it out, making an educated guess that Singha was beer.
In its place, she wrote January Visit = Beautiful.
And then she went upstairs to wait for band practice to be done so she could tell Gary the great news.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
It was nearly two a.m. before Gary came to bed. The music had finally stopped around midnight, but there had apparently been quite the after-party in her kitchen. She could hear voices and laughter and the sound of bottles clinking.
She’d also heard the front door open and close just a few moments after midnight. She’d gotten up and pulled back the curtains. It had begun to sleet—hard ice pellets stinging the windows—and bent over against the wind, heading toward his car, was John. Not staying for the party.
He’d looked up at the window just before getting into his car
, as if he knew he was being watched—and Bren had quickly let the curtain drop, stepping to the side so he couldn’t see her, feeling naked in her nightgown. Granted, her “nightgown” was just an old T-shirt of Gary’s paired with some beat-up running shorts that she’d only ever used for laundry day—never for actual running—but she still felt as if letting him see her in her nightwear was a little too intimate for her.
She’d already let things go too far. It was flattering, having someone want you, but she wasn’t interested. If she had lost sight of that for a few seconds in the kitchen that evening, her conversation with Kelsey had reminded her. She’d built this life. It was what she wanted. It was worth fighting for.
Being wanted for a hotel room tryst was nothing like being wanted for a lifetime, even through the good and the bad. She needed to remember that.
Over the next two hours, she watched TV, battled drooping eyelids, and listened for the front door to open and close again. It eventually did, just as she was beginning to fear that she’d lose the eyelid battle once and for all. But with the sound of a silent kitchen, she was energized again, champing at the bit to tell Gary the good news about the kids.
Gary tumbled into the bedroom, reeking of bourbon, and flopped onto the bed, facedown, still in all of his clothes. He belched into his pillow.
“Have fun?” Bren asked, trying to sound sweet and interested, not like a pestering wife. Maybe if she just eased up on him, he would come around.
He turned his head so one eye was showing. “What are you still doing up?”
“I was waiting for you.”
He blinked and then closed the one eye of his that was showing. Then turned his face back down to the pillow. “I can’t tonight, Bren. I don’t feel good.”
She gazed at him, unimpressed. Even if she had been staying awake with hopes of seducing him—which she most definitely was not—the fact that he didn’t feel good seemed to be of his own doing. A realization that was both outrageous and depressing. Turned down by a drunk guy. She tried to tamp down the irritation. “I’m not staying up for that. I have some good news for you. Are you listening to me?”
He grunted.
“Gary. Are you listening?” She shoved him in the side, making him rock like a beached whale and settle back into place.
“What? I said yes.” Growled into the pillow.
“Well, you’re not looking at me.”
“I don’t listen with my eyes.” He huffed, rolled to his back, and stared at her. “There. Happy?”
The excitement Bren had been storing up inside of her shriveled to nothing, instantly replaced with annoyance. Could he not let her have one good feeling? Any attention at all? “Not with that attitude, no.”
“What is it, Brenda?” he asked, using her full name, when he knew good and well that her mother was the only one who’d been given that free pass in this world. “What is so goddamned important that you just have to have my full attention at two o’clock in the morning? What, is it more installments in the Old Lady Above the Kitchen saga? Because I’m not going to lie. I really don’t care.”
She gathered herself up and stepped out of bed, feeling for her slippers with her feet. She knew he was drunk. Even inattentive, rude, midlife-crisis Gary wouldn’t have talked to her like that sober. But she was done making excuses for inattentive, rude, midlife-crisis Gary. She was done being patient and she was done forgiving and she was done going about her own business and she was so done begging for his attention.
She found her slippers and stuffed her feet into them. “You know what? No. I had some good news—great news, actually—but I’m not going to tell you now. You can forget it. I’m going to sleep in Kelsey’s room, and when you’ve slept it off we can talk.”
He pulled himself up to sitting. Rather than be humbled by her anger, he seemed to be affronted by it. “I’m getting damn tired of these games. I’m just trying to live my life, to have some fun, to get through my last ten years or so of working like a rat in a maze. The last thing I need is to come home to a nagging wife and have her waiting up for me just to act like I’ve done something wrong. What have I done wrong, Bren? Huh?” He wavered a little, like a plant stuck to an ocean floor, belched, and flopped back down. He rested one arm over his eyes. “Huh? What have I done that’s so wrong?”
She didn’t care that he wasn’t looking at her now. She was so filled with rage she almost couldn’t stand up straight. A part of her wanted to come to his side of the bed and pummel him with her fists until she knocked some sense into him. She put her hands on her hips, shivering with fury and cold. The ice pellets continued to knock on the window. She wanted to fling herself outside, let them sting her skin, cool her down. She wanted to do something drastic to make him notice her.
“You haven’t done anything wrong, Gary,” she said. “In fact, you haven’t done anything at all. You haven’t talked to me, or complimented me, or made love to me, or even noticed me, in months. I can’t pay you enough to listen when I have a problem, and now you don’t even care when I have something good to share.”
“I do, too, care,” he said, but he didn’t bother to take his arm off his eyes to prove it.
“Oh, sure, you care so much. About your band. About your silly hotel lobby gig tomorrow.”
That, he lifted his arm for. “Hey, it’s a good gig for a band that’s just starting out.”
“You’ll be playing for the guy at the reception desk. And yet somehow that’s more important to you than me.”
“Boo-hoo,” he mumbled. “Poor Brenny isn’t getting all the attention in the world. Can you say spoiled brat?”
She sucked in great gulps of air through her nostrils. “Oh yeah? Can you say affair?”
This got his attention. He lowered his arm and sat up. “I haven’t had any affair. Now you’re just being crazy.”
“Not you, you jackass.” She knew she’d better leave before she said something she couldn’t take back later. But still her mouth pressed on, despite her brain.
His eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to say you’re having an affair?” He snickered. “Please. With who?”
“I’m not,” she said. “But I could. With John.” She saw his face fall slack, and finally she felt the satisfaction of having hurt him. She nodded and pressed on. “He kissed me, did you know that?” She pointed out the bedroom door. “Right there in your own kitchen. He wants to have sex with me, Gary. He wants to go to a hotel and screw my brains out. What do you think of that?”
“John?” he repeated, his voice soft and disbelieving.
If Bren hadn’t been hurt, she might have seen what this new knowledge was doing to him—might have seen it right on his reddening face. But he’d drawn first blood and she was too far in now to go back, so she pressed on. “So you better start paying attention to me, Gary Epperson. Because if you don’t want to, there is at least one other man out there who will gladly do so.”
Before he could respond at all, she turned on her heel and left the room, marching right down to Kelsey’s old bedroom—which was now half guest room, half storage room—and slamming the door. She locked it for good measure.
The clock on the nightstand said it was after two thirty, but she was wide-awake now, fuming, mumbling to herself, not at all tired anymore. Where just thirty minutes ago she’d been battling the sandman, now she felt as if she’d never sleep again.
She stood, arms crossed, lights out, and watched the sleet for a little while. It had already been such a wet winter—one of the things Kelsey’d said she missed most about being away from home during the holidays. Normally, the bad weather would serve only to make Bren feel cozier. But now it just seemed cold and wet and unforgiving.
She turned away from the window, hoping maybe if she lay down on the bed she would suddenly become tired. But as she moved, she kicked a plastic bag. She looked down. It was filled with a cross-stitch pa
ttern of a dachshund, some embroidery thread, and a plain white pillowcase—things she’d bought with the intent of including them in the one-hundred-gifts project.
Yet another of her failures staring at her in the face.
She kicked the bag harder, then lay down on the bed and cried.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
By the time Bren woke up, it was light outside. Brilliant light, dazzling light. The kind of light that was torture to eyes that had stayed open half the night shedding tears. She shifted so she was looking out the window. Despite the persistent sound of it, the sleet hadn’t really amounted to much of anything. It lay like a grainy topcoat on the snow that had not yet melted from the last storm. Birds hopped around in it, foraging for whatever they could find in the melted patches, and then flitting up into the chestnut tree to take inventory and try again.
She felt sorry for them. Almost as if she could relate to them. She felt delicate and fragile, starving, cold. The world seemed so huge and unrelenting to her at that moment. So barren, as if it could turn its back on her at whim. She felt as if she were circling the same patch of yard, over and over again, just like those birds, and that she was turning up nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Just brokenheartedness and a big old question mark where her life path should be.
“Just give up, little birds,” she whispered. “Fly somewhere better than here.” But the thought of their heeding her advice was too depressing, so she shifted again, onto her stomach, letting her arm trail over the side of the bed.
Her hand grazed the same plastic bag that she’d looked at the night before, but it was as if that had never happened, or as if it had happened so long ago she had no real recollection of it. Now she fiddled it open with her fingers and pulled out the dachshund pattern. Cute.
That was the one thing she’d been afraid to say during their turmoil with that old woman, that Virginia Mash—her dog was kind of cute. Something about small dogs touched Bren, the way they looked like puppies and old men all at the same time. That woman’s dog seemed to be just as crotchety as his owner, but on him it was adorable. He had little gray eyebrows. And wrinkles around his lips. Bren had wondered how old he was—he’d already seemed to be defying the cosmic rules of a dog’s life span.
The Hundred Gifts Page 24
