She flicked the dishtowel at me. “You wash dishes like a grownup. Keep it up.”
I stuck my tongue out at her, and she laughed. Soft music played in the background, some old song we used to dance to, and we started to hum and sing together, finding a rhythm with the melody and our washing and drying.
Then she brought up the game between Brando and Santiago, I brought up the women in the hallway, and we relived the day, laughing at things we could find humor in and expressing disbelief in intervals.
She mentioned that one of the women in the group by the bathroom, Jennifer Correjolle, who we had gone to school with, was getting a divorce.
Messy, was how Violet described it.
“That must be hard,” I murmured, scrubbing down a serving platter. “Especially for the kids.”
I didn’t have to glance at her to see her reaction. I handed her the serving platter and got a good look. Her face showed nothing. But I also noted bland disinterest. As if divorce was something she had already been through and survived.
“She’s looking all over town for a new man,” Violet remarked, taking the serving platter and sticking it in a cabinet. “She’s afraid of being alone.”
“Would you be?” I asked. I pulled the stopper on the sink, preparing to wash all of the suds and leftover chunks of food out.
“Afraid of being alone?” Violet pondered this for a moment, beginning to take the decorative banners down from the windows. “Yeah. I guess I would be, but in a different way. My kids occupy me when my work doesn’t, and that does bother me, the thought of them growing up too fast and leaving. But—” She set one down on the table, going for another.
“I wouldn’t rush into a new relationship, not right away. I’ve been committed to a man since I was seventeen. I’d take some time to get to know me first. That’s what Jennifer is afraid of. Time. That it might pass her by before she found someone to love her again.”
I stared at the swirling bubbles, yearning to go home. The house on Snow seemed to be a buffer to all that could go wrong, a safe haven amongst all of the darkness in the world. I wanted more than anything to be closer to my husband in our house, in our bed, locking the world out.
It took me a few seconds to realize that Violet had come to stand beside me and was staring. “I talked to Mitch,” she whispered. “I’m not—I mean, I can’t leave Mick for him. He understands.”
I nodded. “So does that mean it’s over?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve decided to allow life to move me in the right direction. Which means giving up all control. I’m done fighting, Sandy. I can’t do it anymore. But I see things differently now. I love two men. I always will. Does that mean I need to rush from one to another? Or beinlove with them forever? No.”
Her words were cryptic, and I knew she hadn’t done it on purpose. She didn’t do it to make me dig or figure it out; she just said what she was feeling without explaining the situation in more detail. I got the feeling she was too tired to spell it out, to relive what she had been going through. In that moment, I was thankful. I was too tired to consider it all. A headache was coming on.
“What would you do, Sandy? Would you jump into a new relationship or get to know yourself better first?”
I laughed. “I had three years to get to know myself. I found that my company was lacking.”
“Scarlett?”
“Yes?”
“What those women said—they’re jealous. They’ve always been jealous. I only invited them because Paul goes to school with some of their kids and plays soccer with the rest. There’s nothing lacking about your company. Something is lacking with them.”
“I didn’t mean—”
She put her hand on my arm and squeezed. “I know, but I wanted to say it anyway.”
“Youaretoo mature!” I pulled her in for a hug, hoping to lighten her burdens some.
She laughed, almost sadly. “Yeah, that happens after time. Sooner or later, everyone has to grow up.”
* * *
We made love before the fire that night in a way that I could only describe as uncontrolled. There was an urgency to come to together, to block out the world and all its insistent demands on love. For the past two weeks, as much time as we had spent together, we were not moving closer to each other, but becoming stagnant in the circumstances we had found ourselves in.
Like clearing a clot through the vein so the blood can flow freely, the day had served as a powerful first push.
I couldn’t get enough of him fast enough. Our bodies were a hindrance, though it was the vessel in which we sought what we were both yearning for: the spiritual connection between two souls who loved each other beyond what words could convey.
I wanted to race through his bloodstream, feed the marrow of his bones with my love, surge through the vessels of his heart, and then float through his soul. Quite simply, I wanted to melt into him, for our flesh to become one.
