Far from Here

by Nicole Baart

  She would have been dismayed by the weeks of dust that had accumulated on the antique table. I resolved never to tell her how long it took me to fully inspect her gift as I ran my finger in the grit, tracing letters at random. Or, at least I thought I was writing at random. It wasn’t until I stepped back that I realized I had spelled out my name. My full name—Danica Reese Greene—as if I were claiming the huge trestle as my own.

  It seemed a birthright of sorts, the table. A heritage that had come hard-earned on the back of my husband’s disappearance and my own apparent loneliness. I procured it through my suffering, just as the shortcomings of my childhood earned me a spot in Emmi’s chimera bed. A part of me wanted to walk away from it again, to ignore the fumbling ministrations of the people who hated to see me hollow. But it was a beautiful table.

  I could imagine what might have been. Etsell working beside me, laughing as I agonized over the process of purification. The way he would look at me across the long, flat board, and the bench that he would make with his own two hands while I stained the wood a color to perfectly match the original finish. I could see us around it, Etsell and me, and the contours of a family that would never be—mere shadows of a longing that I couldn’t even begin to articulate.

  It was excruciating to lift my hand to the surface of the table, to push away the dust and examine what lay beneath. My fingertips trembled. But it wasn’t entirely the result of my diffidence.

  I was no princess, and I would never know a happily ever after. And yet there was satisfaction in this. A certain quiet joy that could be found in reclamation.

  In resurrecting the lost.

  11

  These Days

  “Tell me again why you’re doing this.” Kat leaned back on the old steamer trunk and tucked her legs beneath her so that she was sitting cross-legged. Then she situated a cardboard bucket of popcorn chicken in the pretzel of her calves, and took a long drag on the straw of her jumbo-sized Mountain Dew. “You’ve got to explain it again, ’cause I can’t imagine what you’re going to do with that thing.”

  “It’s a table,” Dani smirked. “Strange as it sounds, I intend to eat off it.”

  “But where are you going to put it? It won’t fit in your house.”

  “Maybe I’ll leave it here.”

  “In the garage? Don’t invite me over.”

  Dani didn’t look up from her sanding. “I didn’t.”

  “Ouch!” Kat’s mouth was full of fried chicken, but she talked around it. “I’m keeping you company, Sis. What would you do without me?”

  “I might finish sanding this table.” Dani straightened up, wiping her hands together to get rid of the fine film of sawdust and flakes of paint. The top of the trestle table was nearly bare, and it gave her an unparalleled thrill to see the original honey-colored veneer shine through. It was a warm, beautiful color, but she could tell that it would need to be stripped and refinished. Too much wear and tear—and a double coat of obnoxious, undoubtedly lead-based paint—had caused it to fade and lift off in places. She had her work cut out for her, and Dani secretly wondered if she should pass the job off to someone else—someone more qualified to work with such a special piece.

  The only thing of any value that Dani had ever restored was an antique secretary’s desk with arching legs that had been lathed in twists like sheaves of winter wheat. It was a painstaking process, made all the more tedious by the fact that each carved groove required special attention. Since she didn’t have the proper tools, Dani ended up digging a slim nutcracker pick from her messy utensils drawer and using the sharp side to clean each running furrow. By the time she was done, her hands were cracked and raw, and she was sure she needed glasses to correct the squint she had developed. But the table fetched a nice price, and Dani used the money she earned to splurge on a long weekend in Minneapolis with Etsell. It was a second honeymoon of sorts.

  Romantic trips and extra cash were the last thing on Dani’s mind when she laid the first sheet of sandpaper against the trestle table. This project had an entirely different feel, an undeniable weight because it was the first restoration she attempted after. After her trek to Alaska.

  After Ell.

  As she buffed away the blue paint, rubbing her hand in tiny, light sweeps that left loops of sawdust on the wood, Dani allowed herself to think about all of it. Of the abrupt way that Etsell left and the fears she nursed while he was gone. Then Blair’s telephone call and her subsequent exodus to a part of the world she never thought she would see. And finally the slow beat of her days without, the gentle plodding of her life that continued as steady as the tick of a metronome. It wasn’t what she wanted. It was so, so far from what she wanted.

  But though Dani wished she were finishing the table for a family—for the eventual return of her husband, who wasn’t gone, only missing—she couldn’t force herself to hope anymore. She didn’t have the strength. Instead, with each minute arabesque her hand made over the wood, she polished away the chaff of a shattered life. It was impossible to see what was to come, impossible even to wonder at what she wished for, but there was a sense of starting over in each simple action. Of erasing all that had come before. Or at least, trying to.

  That very first night, Danica worked until the moon glowed outside the garage window. It was full and firm, a golden fruit that she could have plucked and placed like an offering in the center of her table—a feast for herself and no one else, for who was there to share it with?

  When Kat slipped into the garage after Dani had logged a week’s worth of spare time on the table, Dani complained, but it was a facade that she knew Kat would see through immediately. It was obvious even to Dani that the ambitious project had her in a melancholy grip, and so Kat hunkered down with her gas station supper and parried her sister’s barbed remarks with amiable sass.

  “You should sell it,” Kat said. “Paint it black and distress it. That’s all the rage, you know.”

  “Black?” Dani threw a tack rag at her sister. It hit her square in the chest. “Are you kidding me? I would never defile this table by painting it black.”

  Kat laughed. “Defile? Did you just use the word defile in reference to a piece of furniture? I suppose the people who painted it blue ravished it. . . .”

  Dani rolled her eyes. “I never asked for your opinion.”

  “It comes free with the company.” Kat held out the bucket of chicken. “Have you had anything to eat? I swear, you look skinnier every day. If you keep losing weight I won’t be able to borrow your clothes anymore.”

  “My clothes aren’t your style,” Dani muttered, but she brushed her hands against her jeans and grabbed a handful of chicken pieces from the bucket. “I can’t believe you eat this stuff.”

  “Deep-fried.” Kat winked, popping a piece into her mouth. “As long as I’ve got the metabolism, I’m going to make the most of it. Apparently it’ll all go to crap when I hit thirty anyway.”

  Dani maneuvered to the opposite side of the steamer trunk and sat next to her sister. They surveyed her handiwork in silence for a few moments, taking in the little piles of blue sawdust and the flat, long plank of wood that had supported well over a century of plates and bowls and elbows. It had undoubtedly seen feast, and famine. Days when the wood seemed bowed by the heft of plenty and the dreams of generations gathered around it. And maybe someone had laid her head on that table and cried. Someone other than Dani.

  “It’s pretty, isn’t it?” she asked. She tried not to sound so needy, but her voice was pleading.

  “It’s beyond pretty,” Kat said. “It’s gorgeous. Even half-done and speckled blue.” She leaned into Dani, bumped her shoulder conspiratorially. “I think it’s good for you to have something to do.”

  “I have lots to do. I’ve been working overtime at the salon, and there’s so much to take care of around the house. . . .” She trailed off, aware that she was toeing the very edge of an abyss filled with all the grief she tried to keep buried. The house, the yard, the bills,
the random letters that came cheerfully addressed to a man who would never receive them . . . there were a hundred reminders every day of her loss.

  “But this is different,” Kat said, indicating the table. “You love doing it. Your face looks different when you’re working on it.”

  Dani didn’t know what to do with that statement. Everyone kept nagging her about changing, and she was getting sick of it. But before she could allow Kat’s comment to depress her, Kat stuck her tongue between her teeth in parody and scrunched up her eyes.

  “This is your look when you’re thinking. And this”—she exaggerated the expression, crinkling up her nose and rounding her shoulders—“is what you look like when you’re working on the table. Different looks entirely. I hardly recognize you.”

  “You can be so obnoxious.”

  “Oh, I’m so much more than that.”

  Dani heaved a weary sigh and tossed her uneaten popcorn chicken back in the bucket.

  “Hey!” Kat complained. But she plucked another piece out anyway.

  The sound of a car outside made them both look up. Danica lived on a quiet corner and the thrum of an engine so close could only mean that it was pulling into her driveway. A moment later there was the heavy thud of a car door being shut and a slow volley of footsteps on concrete.

  “Heels.” Danica guessed. “Must be Char.” She turned back to the table, angling the yellow work lamp that she had dragged from the shed to illuminate an untouched corner. Dropping to her haunches, she laid her hand against the angle, moving the sandpaper over the thick veneer of paint with the greatest care.

  “You’re off early,” Dani said when a figure filled the doorway. The overhead garage door was shut because the wind was whipping up a dust storm outside, but the little side door was propped open with a rock. Dani hadn’t realized how much she appreciated the airflow until it was blocked. “My fridge is empty, but Kat’s got chicken.”

  “I already ate.”

  Dani froze. The voice was not Char’s, but it was almost painfully familiar in spite of how little she actually heard it. “Natalie?”

  “Hey, stranger.”

  It was shocking how quickly those two innocuous words disarmed Dani. The sandpaper in her hand fluttered to the floor, and she stood slowly, half afraid that if she moved too quickly the woman across the room would disappear into thin air. But there Natalie was, little changed from the last time Dani had seen her, and yet downright startling in the mere fact that she was standing there—neat and trim as always, and looking like she had stepped off the page from the Work Casual section of a J. Jill catalog and straight into Dani’s crumbling world.

  Natalie smiled a little, and raised one slender hand to tuck her chestnut hair behind her ear. It wasn’t a self-conscious gesture; instead it had a calculated feel: Natalie perceived something out of place and promptly took care of it in the most efficient manner possible. “It’s nice to see you, Danica.”

  Nice to see you? After all that she had been through? But it didn’t really matter what Natalie said. A sob tore from Dani before she could stop it, and then she was stumbling across the floor, reaching for her big sister.

  Dani clung to Natalie, ignoring the fact that her sister was rather rigid and unresponsive. Four years separated them, but as far as Dani was concerned, it could have been a decade. More. Natalie was stable and wise and unflappable. She filled a part of the gaping hole where a strong and level-headed mother was supposed to be. Char and Kat and even Hazel all took their own part, but Dani hadn’t realized how much she missed Natalie until she was hanging on to her for dear life.

  “He’s gone!” Dani choked, the cry coming from so deep inside it left her feeling eviscerated. “He left me, and he’s not coming back!”

  “Shhh,” Natalie murmured awkwardly. She patted Dani’s back once or twice, then tried to pull away. But something inside Dani had split open, a ripe fruit rending its flesh, and she couldn’t let go.

  “I can’t do it! I can’t do it alone!”

  Dani’s tears spiraled out of control so quickly, it was as if she was being sucked down a dark drain. When the balance tipped and Dani began to hyperventilate, Natalie steered her toward the chest and waved Kat out of the way. Dani’s sisters each took one of her arms and lowered her to the improvised bench.

  “Come on,” Natalie said. “Get a grip, Dani. You’re not going to solve anything by sobbing about it.”

  Dani looked up sharply. “I’m not trying to solve anything,” she gasped. “I’m grieving!”

  Kat elbowed Natalie out of the way and took Dani’s face in her hands. She wiped her sister’s tears with her thumbs, a tender gesture that seemed incongruent with her words. “Ignore that cold bitch,” Kat said. “You can cry your heart out if you want to. I think it’s good for you.”

  “Sure.” Natalie snorted. “All she needs is a good cry. That’ll make everything better.”

  “She lost her husband!” Kat was on her feet in less than a second, finger in Natalie’s face as implacable as a weapon. “She can cry if she wants to! Besides, I’m not sure you have a right to determine how she mourns. It’s not like you’ve been here—”

  “It’s not like I had a choice.” Natalie’s blue eyes glinted like ice. Leaving Blackhawk had come with a very steep price, and though she had earned more than her fair share of scholarships and grants for undergrad and beyond, she was up to her eyeballs in debt. Kat knew that. Everyone knew that. And everyone knew that it was a source of deep and quiet shame. Natalie raised her chin a little and glared at her sister. “I taught two classes this summer—classes I couldn’t get out of. Classes I had to finish—”

  “Classes you had to finish because your degree is more important than your family. Etsell was your brother.”

  “In-law.”

  “As if that makes a difference!”

  “You think this isn’t affecting me? You think I haven’t agonized over this—”

  “Oh, I’m sure.” Kat glared. “I’m sure this has been hard for you. I can’t imagine how you’re coping.”

  “And what have you done?” Natalie flung an arm in the direction of the bucket of chicken. “Fed her junk food? Thrown her pity parties? Gotten her drunk? Really helpful, Kat.”

  “Nice. I love how you just assume the worst of me. It’s always like that with you. Kat’s the bad girl. Kat couldn’t possibly do anything right.”

  “Well, there’s certainly a precedent.”

  Dani didn’t realize that the iron band around her chest had sprung loose until a giggle escaped her lips. She put a hand to her mouth, pressing back both the tears and the snicker that seemed so out of place as she watched her sisters turn their attention to the source of their argument. “Some things never change,” Dani whispered.

  “Looks like you’re feeling better.” Natalie smoothed her khaki skirt and arranged her shoulders as if shrugging off the residue of the angry words she had exchanged with Kat. “I’m sorry if I surprised you.”

  “It’s a nice surprise,” Dani managed, taking a shaky breath. “I’m glad to see you. And I’m sorry if I ruined your shirt.” She nodded at the damp spot on Natalie’s shoulder, the place where her tears had wet the white linen of her sister’s crisp blouse.

  Natalie sighed. “No problem.”

  Kat glanced between the two of them, a frown creasing her forehead. It seemed that all was forgiven and forgotten, but Kat wasn’t quite ready to let go. “If I had known that you were going to be such a bag . . .” she muttered, trailing off.

  “You knew about this?” Dani asked. “You knew that Natalie was coming and you didn’t tell me?”

  Kat zipped her thumb and forefinger across her lips, then threw away the imaginary key. Her pantomime said that she kept a good secret, but her eyes revealed that she regretted it. “You were supposed to be happy. Not dissolve in tears.”

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Natalie said, effectively taking the reins. She turned
her head a little so that her chin-length hair fell back from her face. “I would have come sooner if I could. But now that I’m here, I don’t want to waste time arguing.”

  “Right.” Kat bent and rescued her bucket of popcorn chicken from the floor. “I’ll see you soon, Dani. Natalie, welcome home.” She didn’t sound very sincere.

  Dani thought about calling her back, asking her to stay so that the three of them could spend some time together, but she knew that her sisters functioned better when they saw less of each other. Later, she told herself. After I’ve had Natalie to myself for a while. She watched wordlessly as Kat slipped out of the garage.

  “It really is good to see you,” Dani said when Kat was gone.

  “You too.” Natalie’s smile was thin but genuine. “And I want to hear everything. But first I need to work out the kinks from flying all day. I’m dying for a run.”

  “You still run?”

  “Every day. Don’t you?”

  Dani couldn’t remember the last time. “It’s been a while.”

  “Well, sounds to me like you could use a little direction. A few good disciplines. Let’s get changed; you’re coming with me.”

  “I am?”

  “I’ll take it easy on you.”

  Going for a late-night run sounded like a mild form of torture, but Dani followed her sister obediently. Natalie made benign small talk as she lifted her suitcase out of the trunk of the rental car. Then she led the way into Dani’s house as if she owned the place. When she disappeared down the hallway in the direction of the spare room, Dani knew she should have felt annoyed. The last thing she needed was her big sister bossing her around.

  But for some reason, it was exactly what she wanted.