Cherry took hold of Stevie’s collar again so that Tom could get out the door. When he went outside, she put Stevie in the kennel—ostensibly to keep her out of the way, but mostly because watching Tom shower the dog with affection was making Cherry want to howl like a wounded banshee.
Tom thumped back up the porch steps and slowly opened the door. He was carrying a flat pack of brand-new boxes.
They both stood there in the foyer, not looking at each other.
“I could start with my clothes—” Tom said.
Cherry cut him off.“No.”She didn’t want him in the bedroom.
Maybe he guessed that, because he said, “I could leave you with some boxes for my clothes.”
“I’m not packing your clothes, Tom.”
He stared at the floor.
“Just start down here,” Cherry said.
“Okay.”
She looked up at him, her composure cracking. “I know you said we should both be here, but I think I’ll just... get out of your way for a while.” She walked past him to pick up her purse. “Let you get the lay of the land.”
“Okay,” he repeated.
“Just start packing,” Cherry said. “And if we need to talk about something, I’ll be back.”
She held her tears until she got out the door, but it was a near thing.
Cherry went to the grocery store. She walked up and down the aisles for an hour, pushing an empty cart. She thought about Tom, back at the house for the first time in a year. Tom intheirhouse. Opening their cabinets and sitting on their couch. Petting their dog.
She could tell herself that none of it was Tom’s anymore—but it wasn’t Cherry’s, either.
All of it was theirs together. When Tom left for California, he’d taken the whole point of the house with him—that it was somethingfor them toshare. Cherry lived there now like a squatter. Like one more thing Tom hadn’t needed and left behind.
She remembered the day they’d put in a bid for the house. How happy they’d been when they got the call from the Realtor. They could just barely afford the place, and it wasn’t in the best neighborhood—but it wasneara good neighborhood. And it had three bedrooms. They wanted three bedrooms. For children they weren’t quite ready to seriously discuss.
The apartment they’d been living in had always felt temporary. It had been Cherry’s apartment first, and they weren’t allowed to paint or plant anything. They couldn’t even take down the blinds.
But this house would betheirs.
They planted fruit trees that first spring. And lilac bushes and perennials. Things that wouldn’t bloom for years. Things they could watch grow.
When Tom left for California, Cherry had become the house’s keeper. And the dog’s keeper. The person who had to pick the fruit and weed the garden and change the filters in the new furnace. The person who opened all the bills.
Tom hadn’t just lefther—he’d left her with their broken life, with all their abandoned plans and dead projects. He’d left herintheir broken life. The last resident in a ghost town.
Cherry did another full circuit of the grocery store and bought dog food. (She always needed dog food.) And cream, so she could offer Tom coffee. And packaged salad and a rotisserie chicken, so she’d have something to eat when he left.
When she got back to the house, Tom was sitting at the dining room table. He stood up, abruptly, when she walked in the door. Stevie jumped up, too. She’d been sitting at his feet.
Tom didn’t look good. He was pale, and his eyes had that hollowed-out look they’d had for so much of the year before he left.
Cherry used to go to him when he looked like this. She’d take his hand, touch his cheek.“You okay?”
She didn’t go to him now—but she still felt pity for him. She made room in her hard heart for the fact that this was the first time back for Tom, too.
“Do you need help with the groceries?” he asked.
“This is all there is.” Cherry set down the dog food. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
