“I’ll ask him,” I said, even though I already knew the answer, even though I had no intention of telling her the answer. “Once he has the dictionary.”
When Jonathan called me on Friday morning, there was so much noise in the background I could hardly hear him. “You sound like you’re in a bus terminal,” I said.
“Airport terminal,” he said. “I’m coming home.”
“Today?”
“Four hours, give or take,” he said. “I wanted to surprise you, but Bea said people don’t like surprises. She said you might need time to get your lovers out of the house.”
“Beasaidthat?”
A gate announcement blared through, a final boarding call to Minneapolis. I had to ask him to repeat himself. “No, she didn’t. That was me being funny.”
“Ha, ha,” I said.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
The sincerity in his voice landed with a weight, and suddenly I missed him, too. I missed him very much. I wrote down theflight number and arrival time. I told him I would be there.
“Don’t drive to the airport,” he said, but I could tell he was happy.
When we got home, Jonathan and I had sandwiches and watermelon for dinner. He emptied his suitcase straight into the washer and took a shower, and after that we got into bed while it was still light outside. This was the definition of a long marriage: the same things happened but in a different order.
“So does this mean you’re done with Fond du Lac?” I asked, my head on his chest. “Can Bea finish up the rest of it?”
He cupped the back of my head with his hand. “Oh, no. Nothing like that. But a couple of days ago, we were doing something, I don’t even know what it was, maybe going through Dad’s tools, and we both decided we needed to stop for a while. The house isn’t going anywhere, the canning jars aren’t going anywhere, but we could go somewhere.”
“That makes sense.”
“The further along we get, the more it feels like some sort of immersive therapy project. I wonder what Leda would think about that—put two siblings in their childhood home and let them go through every single object in the house, see what comes up.”
“So what came up?”
“Memory, loss, love, anger, all the usual suspects. Sometimes I’d have to go in the other room and stand there with my eyes closed for a minute because I couldn’t look at anything else. Every teacup comes with a short documentary film: I remember Mom’s friend Marie had taken a china-painting class, and she’d painted this cup and saucer for our mother, peonies or roses, we couldn’t tell which it was, but it was nice, she did a good job. The thing was, though, every time Marie came over, our motherwould have to drink her coffee out of this particular cup or Marie would get her feelings hurt. And then I have to think it all through: Marie is dead. I have no idea what became of her children. I’m going to wrap up this cup and saucer and put it in the box for Goodwill, but is anyone going to want it? It’s pretty, you know. Then I’m hoping that someone will want it because I don’t want to bring it home with me.”
“About a hundred thousand times.”
“About that. Maybe more. That’s why I wouldn’t go home with Bea at night. We’d be vibrating by the end of the day. Wait.” He got out of bed, my dear naked husband, and went into his closet. He came back with his hand in a fist. “I brought you something. Hold out your hand.”
I held out my hand, and he covered my hand with his hand, then took it away.
There sat a metal horse. As small as it was, it had some weight. It had been painted a chestnut color, with a saddle and bridle a darker brown. No rider. The horse must once have been part of a regiment of toy soldiers.
“I painted them when I was a kid,” he said. “Hundreds of them, soldiers, I mean. I didn’t paint that many horses. I thought that one was especially good. I don’t know why it made me think of you.”
I stood the horse upright on my palm and felt my throat tighten. “I love it,” I said.
He was so pleased. “Do you? There were so many things I could have brought you.”
I shook my head. “You picked perfectly. This is the only thing I would have wanted.”
When we lay back into the pillows, Jonathan told me about the set of lead soldiers and how he had painted them after schooland on weekends when he should have been doing his homework. Rachel agreed to take the set for her son, though no twelve-year-old boy with his own iPhone wanted a regiment of British soldiers. Rachel was taking them because she was kind and I loved her for it.
“When do you think you’ll go back?”
“Soon enough. There is a sense of the ending now, and we both want to get things finished.” He stretched and then resettled himself. “It’s awfully nice to be home, though.”
“I think we’re living parallel lives,” I said, and from there I told him everything, about talking to Eddie, and about Henry telling me Eddie was gay, going to the Century Club and then the wedding, about talking to my mother, and talking to Leda about our mother and Eddie. “I mean, it’s fascinating and I also want it to stop. I’m too old to be nine again.”
