by Reiss, CD
I disentangled myself to go to the bathroom, still naked and aware of Harper's footfalls in the hallway on the other side of the door. As I swung my legs over the bed, my foot hit a dusty, desiccated cardboard box. The flaps weren’t sealed or puzzle-locked. I had a feeling I knew what was inside before I even peered in. From above, in the dim light, it looked like a box of garbage, but it didn't take long to see the angled seams of envelopes.
My letters.
I'd written them. I bought the paper, the pens, paid for postage. I'd licked the envelope flaps with my spit after dumping all of my heart’s desires onto the pages. And yet I didn't feel like I had the right to look inside. They were Catherine's property. My heart, on a page, delivered to her. A moment in time that I thought was my own was now her possession.
When I got out of the bathroom, she was roused a little, half sitting up but still so drowsy that her body was limp.
“Good morning,” I said, getting on the bed with her.
“Good morning.” She put her arms around my neck. “I hate to bring this up, but I haven't really thought about it. And I think I have to.”
I knew what she was going to say before she even said it. “I'm a free man. I could be somewhere else, but I don't have to be and I don't want to be.”
“No one is in New York waiting for you?”
I kissed her. “They’ll send out a search party at some point. Did you ever want to go to New York?”
She didn't exactly push me away, but she didn't get closer either. “I can't just run off to New York.” She smiled, and a little laugh escaped her throat. “That's ridiculous. I can do whatever I want. People still need me here, but they won't for long. I was thinking, just a week ago, that I can go anywhere and do anything. I was going to go to London. The places I've never been. And I don't know why I'm hesitating with you.”
She was so honest with herself and with me. I could love this woman if I only knew who she was. And I was sure—positive—that she would love me too.
“We have a gap,” I said. “A big gap to fill where our lives have been. We have to string ourselves across it.”
“Christopher Carmichael, I didn't know you were such a lyrical man.”
“Didn’t I talk some shit about flying monkeys?”
“You were a poet in the making.”
“Then let me grind these rusty gears back to life.”
She shifted to her side, propping herself on her elbow. “I’m ready.”
I knew what I wanted to say, but not how to say it. No matter what I came up with, it was something I’d heard before or was too small in scope. I wanted to draw around us with permanent marker and show her the beauty of everything inside the line.
“We were destined. I don’t want to make the mistake of saying that there’s a now us and a future us. We were always in the stars, and for the past thirteen years, we were just waiting for the planets to catch up.”
“That’s not bad for a hedge fund manager.”
“I’m not a hedge fund manager anymore.”
“Really? What are you?”
“Yours.”
Chapter 35
CATHERINE
The counter was too crowded. I couldn’t fit a Dixie cup between the pots and bowls. Mrs. Boden arrived. She was over ninety and wore bangles on her wrists every day of the week.
“I can take two.” She held out both her hands. I put a bowl in each.
“You got it?” I asked.
Behind me, the screen door slapped. It was Reggie, still bandaged.
“I have it, young lady,” Mrs. Boden said before going out.
I should have been nervous to be alone with him, but I’d known him so long, I couldn’t find fear. “Reggie, good morning.”
“Morning.” He jammed a hand in his jeans. “I brought the truck so I could take the big stuff.” With his free hand, he indicated the food everyone had dropped off for the soup kitchen.
“I can give you a hand.”
“I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I called you a lie, and I knew it was a lie, but I said it anyway.”
“Okay.”
“And I had no business getting in your face. My feelings are the same, but I have to be a man. Just be a man about it. You’re a woman of your own mind. That’s the end of it. We’ve been friends for a long time and that’s all I want from you if that’s what you have to give. I’m upside down thinking I spoiled that.”
I picked up the heaviest stock pot, and he rushed to relieve me.
“Thank you.”
He turned and kicked open the screen door.
“Reggie.”
He stopped with the door half open.
“Things are changing and you sensed that. You reacted to it. You didn’t spoil it. We’re still friends, but like I said… things are changing.”
“Yeah.”
“But not what I think of you. That hasn’t changed. We’re still friends.”
“I appreciate that. I couldn’t live with myself.”
I put my hand on his arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You’d better get that out or everything’s going to be cold.”
As he walked across the back porch and I went to the kitchen to get another pot, Harper barreled down the stairs in her yellow polo.
“You’re working?” I asked. “I haven’t made you lunch.”
“Don’t worry. I got it.” She yanked the plastic tail of the bread bag off the top of the fridge, spinning it in the air before catching it.
Mrs. Boden came back in. “Got room for two more.” She cradled two bowls in her arms and headed out.
Harper leaned into the pantry for a jar of peanut butter.
“Are you all right?” I asked my sister.
“Fine.” She snapped a shopping bag from under the sink and dropped the jar of peanut butter and loaf of bread into it. She tried to leave, but I put my hand on the door. “What?”
“You’re not fine.”
“I’m going to be unfine and late.” I knew the warehouse shifts as well as she did, and she wasn’t late. When she realized I wasn’t budging, her shoulders slumped. “I’m as fine as I need to be.”
“Taylor?”
“That’s over. He needs to have his life. I’m not going to hold him back.”
“That’s awfully mature of you,” I said through a haze of disbelief.
“Whatever.”
I took my hand off the door and wedged myself between her and it. “How are the college applications going?”
She shrugged. “I don’t see the point.”
Reggie clopped up the porch to get more pots, and I pulled Harper into a corner to give him room.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s, like, a hundred dollars per application.”
“How many do you want to send out?”
“Three. Stanford. MIT. Michigan.”
I would give it to her even if three hundred dollars meant I had to stay. “You have to become what you were meant to be.”
“Oh, give me a break.”
“Harper.” I put my hands on her biceps. “I never thought I was meant for anything. I wasn’t pretty like Marsha. I wasn’t smart like you. Mom always dreamed so small for us. But she was wrong. I was wrong. I became something here. I found my purpose in my people. But you? You’re never going to be your best self here.”
She looked away from me, twisting her mouth into a defiant curve.
“Maybe,” I added, “you’ll find your purpose and Taylor at the same time.”
“We’re all going to find Taylor.” She clopped the floor between her feet. “There’s talk he’s buying the factory.”
“Our factory?” I exploded from the inside out. “That’s wonderful news! We haven’t heard a thing since… was he the one we cleaned it for?”
“No. It’s…” She shook her head. “It’s complicated. But it’s real and you know what? I don’t want to be here when he’s here.”
Behind her, Johnny and Pat joined the
march of food-carriers.
“Do you have three hundred dollars?” My offer was tinged with hope.
She looked less thrilled. “It’s three seventy-five, and I can put it together.”
“Are you sure?”
“If you let me get to work already.”
I hugged her first, planting a long kiss on her cheek. “I love you, Harper.”
“I love you too.”
She pulled away and brushed past Reggie to get out the door.
Chapter 36
CATHERINE
The soup kitchen closed at two. We cleaned up, distributing the pots and bowls back to their owners, and went home. I didn’t repeat Harper’s news and wouldn’t until I knew for sure. But in that time, as I chatted with my people, exchanging smiles and hugs, I realized I wasn’t needed anymore. I didn’t know whether to feel free or lonely.
Chris’s rental car was in the front yard. Inside, the dining room sconces glowed and a beat-up wooden table stretched from entry to egress. He sat in one of the plastic folding chairs from the back porch.
“Hi,” I said, dropping my bag by a table leg. It had been scratched to the raw wood by an army of cats. “This is… big.”
“Biggest I could find.”
We stepped toward each other as if we were molding the space between us.
“I’ll bite. Why does size matter so much?”
Fingertips touching. Palms pressed flat together. Bodies against each other.
“We have a lot of stories to tell and I don’t want to run out of space.”
I glanced at the tabletop. A hundred rings marred the wood, but there wasn’t a story on it that I could see.
With my head turned, he laid his lips against my cheek and kissed it, breathing deeply. “You smell like paprika.”
“I need to wash up.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Tell me what the table’s for first.”
“It’s the distance between who we were and who we are.”
“No wonder it’s so big.”
In one smooth motion, he picked me up, then carried me upstairs. We didn’t make it to the bathroom. By the time we were at the top of the stairs, we were kissing as if we wanted to eat each other alive, clawing our way to each other’s skin.
Half-dressed, he propped me against the wall outside my bedroom and peeled off my pants. I unbuckled and unzipped him, feeling the throb and heat of his arousal in my fist. I’d never imagined how much I’d want it, and I’d never imagined I’d ever feel so empowered to take it. My boldness shocked and freed me.
Holding me up by the legs, he pushed toward me and I guided him so he could drive into me with the force of an animal. I grunted. He exhaled.
“I’m having you in the shower too.”
“And on the table?” I gasped as he thrust hard.
“Table’s not for that.”
Angling his hips to put pressure on my clit, he took me faster. I was aroused beyond all thought, but it was hard to concentrate against a wall.
As if reading my mind, he took my hand from his shoulder and guided it between my legs. “I want to see you make yourself come.”
I started to object. That would be too shameful. Too embarrassing.
“Show me,” he said, deep inside me.
My reaction to his intensity wasn’t in my mind or heart. My spine vibrated and I nearly came from his command.
Any thought of shame was drowned and washed away. I rubbed my clit as he fucked me, letting my orgasm wash away any idea of shame. With him, I was fully myself.
“Yes,” he hissed and thrust harder, grabbing the flesh of the backs of my thighs, slowing as if savoring every thrust. He buried himself in me, pinning my hand between his body and my clit. I felt his pulsing as he filled me.
When he was done, he gathered me in arms that never seemed to get tired and carried me to the shower, where we made love again.
* * *
Chris pulled our one comfortable chair in from the living room and placed it at the center of a long side of the table. His hair was slicked back and he smelled of spicy soap.
“Stay here,” he said before kissing my forehead.
“Okay?”
He was already on his way up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
He wouldn’t discuss where we were going or what we were doing. He had some kind of future for us on his mind, but had made it clear he wasn’t interested in bringing it up yet. I was relieved, because though I wanted to discuss our future, I feared I wouldn’t like the results of the conversation.
Because how could this work?
I needed to find a new life, and he already had one. He was based in New York, and though I might travel, I didn’t know if I could ever really leave Barrington.
Chris came down more slowly than he’d gone up, taking his steps carefully, looking around the three boxes stacked in his arms.
The boxes of his letters.
He placed them on the table and pushed the stack to the center. “Our story is here.”
“Oh, Chris. Didn’t you see? I’m so sorry, but most of them are impossible to read.”
He slid off the top box. It landed on the table in a poof of dust. “I’m here to fill in the gaps.” He opened the box and grabbed a handful of envelopes. “Upper left corner is the day I left. Bottom right is the seven hundred and forty-nine dollar check. We’ll go horizontally. If I calculated it right, we should have enough space for all the letters folded into thirds.”
“I don’t get it. You want to…”
“Lay it all out. My entire story.” He plucked a letter off the top of the pile and took out the paper. It was water damaged and all the ink had run. “This is on letterhead.” He flipped the envelope over so he could see the postmark. “Right. So it goes about…” His eyes flicked from one edge of the table to the other. “Here.” He laid it two thirds of the way to the right, letter tucked under the envelope flap.
I picked the next one off the pile. The postmark had crumbled away. I slid the letter out, unfolding it. Letterhead again.
“‘—time I moved to Park Avenue.’” I read what hadn’t been washed away. “‘—aller than I’d like for Lance, but zip—’” I scanned to the bottom, where a few more words had survived.
“Zip code matters,” he said. “I had a place on the Lower East Side that was fine. All the roommates moved out and I just took over the lease. But Brian, my partner, was pretty adamant that I was always going to be a second-rate player below Fourteenth.” He shook his head as if getting the dust off. “Street. Fourteenth Street runs east-west. There’s below it, where the creatives live, and above it. He said I needed to have a Park Avenue address, even if it was big as a closet.”
“How big was it?”
“It had a two-burner stove and a sink as big as that postage stamp.” He took the envelope and laid it next to the first letter. “But I had Lance, even if he was miserable in that tiny studio.”
“How could you tell?”
“He shit in my favorite shoes.”
I laughed. He took another letter off the pile.
I grabbed his hand. “Wait.”
It was my turn to take the stairs two at a time. I rushed to the hallway, threw open the closet door, and gathered up as many of my photo albums as I could carry. When I went up for my second trip, Chris helped. Soon we had them all piled at the foot of the table.
He told me the year and season of his move to Park Avenue, and I located the right photo album.
“Oh,” I said, seeing which era of my life it was. I pressed my fingers against a picture of my parents and me in the town square.
“That the Labor Day Barbecue?”
“Memorial Day. Daddy stopped funding it a few years after the factory closed, but it went on without him. Bernard and his band just set up. People brought stuff.”
He put his arm around my shoulder and brushed his thumb along my neck. “This is a special place.”
“It is. It’s a d
ead end, but it’s home.”
“It’s our home.”
“Yeah.” The album page’s plastic skin crackled when I pulled it back. The photo came right off. I put it on top of the letter it went with.
“Why isn’t Harper in the picture?”
“She was at MIT.”
“Wait, what?”
“She didn’t finish.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a long story.”
His arms snaked around me, turning me toward him, my body tight against his. “Catherine, I need your long stories. I need to live them with you.”
“It’s so much.”
“It is, but we have nothing but time and a really big table.”
Could we bridge the years between us? Could we understand each other? Or would the exercise make it worse? Would we see each other’s bad decisions and get disgusted or ashamed?
“What if you don’t like what you find out?” I said. “What if I don’t live up to your expectations?”
“I have more to worry about than you.” He tipped my chin up so he could look in my eyes. “Whatever we did, that makes us the people we became. And I know I loved the girl you were. I’m pretty sure I’m in love with the woman you grew into.”
For a split second, he looked like the old Chris on the day we were caught in the office, face cut into stripes from the afternoon light coming through the blinders. His skin folded into Ws at the corners of his eyes and his voice had grit in the corners, but he was that same boy with that same raw love.
I wanted him to love me again, because I was sure I loved him.
“Let me make you some tea and I’ll tell you what happened with Harper when Daddy got sick.”
Chapter 37
chris
I didn’t have a timeline to complete the boxes of letters. Good thing, because there was no way we would have made it. That afternoon bled into the night. Harper came home, stopping to look at the boxes and the new table.
