The Winters

by Lisa Gabriele

  Truthfully, I had no plans to lock up the greenhouse again. While crouched on the floor, Maggie heartily latching on to her kitten bottle, I had begun to fall in love with the place and imagined cleaning the windows and planting rows and rows of vegetables on the tables, green beans, tomatoes, cat grass in pots, maybe some yellow marigolds, and taking great sheers to Rebekah’s red-black roses. Those hours in the greenhouse had revived my spirits. I had no intention of cutting off my supply of warmth and light.

  I helped Katya clean up after lunch, then gave Maggie another quick bottle and headed down to strip another layer of varnish off the Aquarama before Max got home.

  When I opened the door I was surprised to find Gus inside, holding his phone in front of the boat and talking out loud to someone on the screen. It was Dani. He spun around wearing the face of a man caught in the act of doing something that was, on the surface, quite benign, yet both of us knew it wasn’t.

  “Sorry,” he said to me. He turned away and spoke into his phone. “I have to go.”

  I stepped towards the boat. My eyes possessively scanned the hull, the tools, his phone.

  “She was just curious about what you were doing in here. So I thought I’d show her.”

  “She’s more than welcome to come down here and see for herself,” I said. I didn’t like his expression, the way he had looked at me with pity almost. “When is she coming home?”

  “I’m just heading out to get her. Unless you need something.”

  “No, thanks.”

  He left without another word. I looked around the boathouse and shuddered at the thought that Dani didn’t even need to be on the property to spy on me.

  FOURTEEN

  When I heard the sound of wheels on gravel, I didn’t even pause to wash my hands. I dropped my brush and bolted from the boathouse and up the path. Max was home, later than he said he’d be, but he was home! There was so much to tell him about the boat and the kitten, so much to hear about his days and nights in Albany. I breathlessly rounded the corner of the garage and jumped into his arms, heedless of how dirty I was or how laden his arms were with bags.

  “I should leave more often,” he said, laughing, as I kissed him all over his face.

  “Never, never, never leave again,” I said.

  He dug his nose into my mess of curls. “Am I smelling . . . what is that? Formaldehyde? Have you been embalming the dead again?” He looked at my hands, my nails stained by my efforts. “Where’s your ring?”

  “In the boathouse. Come. I have a surprise for you.”

  “Great. I think. Listen, I also want to talk to you about something.” I pushed his bag off his shoulder and tugged him by the sleeve over the side lawn.

  “Me first.”

  I planned to thrill him with the boat first, then tell him about our new furry tenant convalescing in the greenhouse. I opened the boathouse door with a flourish and we were both freshly hit with the smell of varnish, which had begun to turn the boat back to a gleaming liver color. Only two or three more coats to go.

  Max, his mouth half-open, took a few steps closer to the boat, one hand floating towards it, careful not to disturb the finish.

  “This was my father’s boat. He never let me touch it. I’m . . . speechless.”

  I couldn’t place his tone, whether he was grateful or angry. “I wanted to surprise you. Please say you don’t mind.”

  He turned away from the boat and came towards me, his face slowly relaxing into a beatific expression. Was he tearing up? He swept me into his arms. I wrapped my legs around him, and as he walked, he murmured into my ear.

  “What did I ever do to deserve you?”

  “So you don’t mind?”

  He shook his head, placing me down on the leather couch and unbuttoning my plaid work shirt, then my jeans. For all of this ardor and my eager compliance, his expression was not triumphant. He seemed, for lack of a better word, mournful, as though preemptively sorry for what he was about to do. When I held his face in my hands, he avoided my eyes.

  “Hey. What is going on in that head?”

  “That I want to get you naked right now.”

  “I can see that,” I said, helping him with my jeans. They bunched at an ankle and he angrily worked off a running shoe to free them. Stopping for a moment, he looked at me again with that same sad expression.

  “You didn’t want such a big life, did you? You might have been content on that little island tinkering away on a boat like this.”

  I leaned forward and kissed him. “Not without you.”

  It was still bewildering how well he knew how to please me, without my ever having to explain my body’s intricacies to him. He simply knew where to touch me and with what part of his body, using the right level of fervency. Knees bent, body slack, I lay there while he pleased me again, my fingers spidering through the hair on the back of his head. Moans filling my ears, ones that were loud enough to drown out the sound of approaching footsteps. When I saw Dani in the doorway I snapped my knees shut on Max’s ears.

  “Wow,” she said, laughing. “This boathouse has seen a lot of action lately.”

  Then she slammed the door shut, sending up angry dust motes in her wake.

  Max sat upright, keeping his eyes shut tight as though with enough concentration he could turn back time. After what seemed an eternity, he muttered, “I’ll talk to her about this.”

  I dressed, enraged. “About what? About knocking? About privacy? About . . . sex? Oh my God, I’m going to throw up.”

  “Look, it was bound to happen. These things happen. We live with a nosy teenager.”

  He bent to retrieve my shoe, waiting a beat. “What did she mean about the boathouse seeing action?”

  I looked at him squarely and snatched my shoe from him. “Gus helped me ground the boat before she went to New York,” I said, my voice flat. “She’s been spying on me. I’m guessing she would like you to think that I am fucking him.”

  Max collapsed against the wall and let out a dark laugh. “I see,” he said, shaking his head.

  I wanted to tell him Dani was more than just a nosy teenager: she watched me from the turret, went through my purse for my wallet, followed me into town, had Gus chronicle my activities. I wanted to say I’d been at Asherley for more than a month and things were not thawing. They were becoming worse. She was getting chillier and meaner and odder. She wasn’t following me around because she was nosy. She was trying to menace me, threaten me, to make me afraid of her, so afraid that I would leave. That’s what she wanted. She wanted me gone. And barring that, she wanted to wreck what I had with Max. And I wanted to tell him that if she kept it up, she might succeed.

  * * *

  • • •

  Max unpacked and made some calls and I took a long bath to soak the varnish off my hands and the smell out of my hair and skin. Halfway through dinner, Dani joined us. I could barely look at her.

  We ate quickly, silently, Max telling us about Albany and how the big issue is zoning for condos since more young people want to live in Suffolk County but can’t afford a mansion. He knew older residents would resist. Dani said they’ll change their mind when they can’t sell their big, fat homes and that letting young people get into the housing market more affordably would only help them build a future here. Of course I was impressed with her acuity, only fifteen and holding court on local issues while all I could do was nod and listen, the gulf between them and me wider and deeper. They carried on, the two of them, as though there had been no mortification in the boathouse. Dani, in fact, was chattier than usual. So I was surprised that she folded me into the conversation towards the end of dinner with a compliment on the job I had done on the boat.

  “Now I didn’t get a great look at it, but I could tell the boat looked very shiny and new,” she said. “Was it hard to strip off all those layers?”

  “No
t if you’re using the proper chemicals,” I said, noting the time. The kitten needed a feeding soon.

  “So you just rub a chemical on the wood in little circles and it eats it out while you just lay back and wait?”

  “Yes, sort of.”

  “Maybe you could show me how sometime,” she said. “You seem to really enjoy it.”

  “Yes, I’d love to,” I said, only then picking up on her innuendos. I threw my napkin onto the table.

  “Dani,” Max said, a hint of a warning in his voice. “I would like to talk to you about something important, if you don’t mind.” He shot me a look, one that said, Go. I’ve got this.

  Dani collapsed back into her chair with a huff.

  I snatched up empty plates and found Katya in the kitchen putting on her coat. She usually left right after serving dinner on nights I insisted on doing cleanup.

  “I just fed Maggie,” she whispered, hoisting her purse onto a shoulder. “She should be okay for a few hours. But she’s a restless little thing. Running all over in there. Three days and she’s got her strength back.”

  “Thank you, Katya, so much.” I dropped the plates onto the island and turned on the water full strength to rinse the dishes. She gave me a look. “I’m going to tell him. Things are a little tense right now.” I motioned to the dining room.

  “Okay. Well, good luck,” she said.

  I finished filling the dishwasher and soaking the pans. While their muffled conversation in the dining room continued, I reached into the sugar bowl for the greenhouse key and tiptoed down the hall for a quick visit. It was dark inside and silent, but the air was sweet and warm. Her water dish was full, the litter clean. I felt inside the back of the crate. No Maggie. I spotted the shadow of her tail draped over the side of the shelf above. She must have climbed the bags of dirt. Restless, indeed. And spry. She was feeling better.

  As I headed back to the kitchen to wait out the storm, she leapt. Hard to believe such a tiny thing could instigate such a commotion, but by the time I turned around again, the shelves were raining down after her, their weight collapsing the table, sending stacks of clay pots and bags of dry dirt smashing on the floor and a terrified Maggie scampering into her crate. Then it was over except for the dust.

  Max and Dani came running down the hall, their confused voices in unison: What is going on? What are you doing in here? What is that thing that just ran under the table? The calamity lasted only three seconds, but it felt like an hour.

  “What the fuck?” Max’s eyes darted around the greenhouse. Dani seemed to be in a daze.

  “I can smell her,” she whispered, closing her eyes and tilting her head back to breathe deeply.

  I knelt down and pulled the kitten out from the back of the crate. I thought she was purring, but her tiny heart was beating so fast she was vibrating with terror.

  “Everybody, meet Maggie. Maggie, meet everybody,” I said with a nervous laugh. Still on my knees, I held the kitten tight, to protect her and myself from their reaction. “Gus found her in the barn almost dead. I’ve been feeding her for a couple of days.”

  Max glared at me, his hands opening and closing. Dani fell to her knees next to me, reaching for the kitten. Reluctantly, I poured the scared thing into her arms.

  “She’s about a month old,” I said to Dani. “I’ve been giving her kitten formula. She can start on watery wet food next week. In another month or so I can get her spayed. Then we can find a home for her.”

  “Who let you in here?” Max asked, in a voice I barely recognized.

  “I couldn’t keep her in the boathouse while I was using chemicals. And I didn’t want her in the barn. It’s too far for feedings,” I said, leaving out the fact that I found Gus creepy. “I didn’t know where else I could keep her. She requires constant care right now.”

  “Who gave you the key?”

  “I found it.”

  Dani was lost to us, having formed her own language with the kitten, girly coos and high-pitched sounds.

  “Katya knows better than to let anyone in here.”

  “Can I take care of her, too?” Dani asked. “Please, please, please?”

  We were side by side on our knees, the closest we’d ever been.

  “Yes! Of course you can. If your father says so.”

  “I’m not asking him. I’m asking you.” She nuzzled Maggie’s neck, her eyes pleading. If I had known a kitten could create this détente, I would have arrived from the Caymans with a crate of them.

  Max, ignoring this miracle happening between us, walked over to the pile of debris and poked his foot at the broken clay pots and the spilled dirt on the ground.

  “I’ll clean all this up in the morning,” I said. “I promise.”

  He turned to face me, his expression still livid. “Dani, take it out of here. Now.”

  “Her name is Maggie, Dad,” she said, remaining next to me on the floor.

  “I said take it and go.”

  Dani looked at me for direction.

  “It’s okay, Dani,” I said, trying to stay cheerful. “After I talk to your father I’ll bring you her things and some formula if you want to feed her tonight.”

  Dani nodded. I helped her to her feet. When she and the kitten were well down the corridor, I turned to face Max, clearing my throat.

  “Max, please let me explain. I would have brought her down to the boathouse sooner but—”

  “You’ve been busy this week.” He sounded calm. “I’m gone three days and you take it upon yourself to fix a boat that wasn’t broken, and then you bring a sick animal into the only place on the property I don’t want people to enter. As you can see,” he said, his arm sweeping the room, his voice pitching louder, “this place is unsafe. The glass, it needs to be reset. Those frames, they’re all rusting out. In fact, that fan, that fan weighs at least fifty pounds. It could fall out of the roof at any time and onto someone’s head and you’ve been running around in here chasing a kitten? I don’t want anyone in here. Not you, not my daughter, not Katya, and certainly not that fucking animal!”

  There was nothing about Max that I recognized in that moment, not his face, nor his tone of voice. Backlit by the moon and looming over me, he was a mere outline of the man I thought I knew. I froze, speechless. Sensing my fear, Max shook his head as though to break a spell.

  “Oh God, I’m sorry,” he said. “The way I spoke to you just now. It’s . . . I haven’t been in here in a long time. Forgive me. Please.”

  “It’s all right,” I said.

  “Now give me the key.”

  I passed it to him.

  “Please. Leave me alone for a minute.”

  I picked up the kitten’s things, her crate, her litter box. Before I left, I stole a glimpse of him through the dirty glass door. I’ll never forget how lost he looked, arms slack at his sides, eyes closed, head bowed slightly. Walking through the kitchen with tears running down my cheeks, I was torn between anger at the way he had spoken to me and sadness for a man I’d left alone in his dead wife’s most treasured spot, a place she created and loved. Smell is a talented time machine. I saw how Dani instantly remembered Rebekah. He’s also inhaling her memory, thinking back on a time when he might find her in there, wearing a straw hat, perhaps, white-blond tendrils falling around her shoulders. I saw them now, dappled by the sun, him sneaking up behind her, wrapping his arms around her. Unlike me, she’d be wearing gloves to protect her perfect white hands, and a dress, probably, something feminine and flattering, cinched at the waist. He’s kissing her neck and she’s smiling as she cuts a dozen roses for the table, blades glinting in the sun.

  For every step forward I made at Asherley, I suffered several back. While the kitten had seemed to bring me closer to Dani, she had caused a rift between Max and me. Outside Dani’s bedroom, I heard cooing and giggling. I put down Maggie’s crate and took a moment to wi
pe the tears off my face. Then I knocked, listening as Dani skipped across the bedroom floor. When she opened it, I went to step inside, but she pushed me back with her body.

  “Careful! I don’t want to let Maggie out,” she said, now through the crack in the door.

  “Oh. But I brought you her stuff. Let me just—”

  “I got her bottles and formula from the fridge. Just leave that outside the door. My friend Claire’s here and she knows how to take care of kittens.”

  Over Dani’s shoulder, I saw her friend lying on her side on Dani’s bed, one arm aloft holding a string to taunt Maggie.

  “Nice to meet you,” Claire called out, without lifting her head.

  Dani gave me a bright, wide smile. “Okay, so, night-night,” she said, before shutting the door in my face. The silence was broken seconds later by the sound of teenage girls laughing.

  I stood there in the gallery surrounded by a hundred triumphant Rebekahs.

  Perhaps Maggie had done something cute to elicit those giggles. Perhaps they weren’t making fun of me at my most vulnerable. But Dani was cruel, and it was clear now that her happiness was achievable only in direct proportion to my sadness. Even if I were to look upon that moment between us in the greenhouse as an appeasement, it was only temporary, the price, this time, a kitten. When she grew bored of Maggie, then what would I need to throw at her to keep her at bay?

  As for Max, I still loved him, felt it acutely that night in the empty spot in our bed. But when he had asked to be alone in the greenhouse, he was asking to be alone with her, and it was the only thing in the world I could truly give him.

  FIFTEEN

  Once I had made up my mind to leave, a calm came over me. The fight was over. In fact, it felt less like leaving than like Asherley itself was pushing me out, rejecting me like a body rejecting an unfamiliar organ. The memory of Rebekah was stronger than any future I might have here. Dani was certainly content to live off it, and last night I had got the sense, finally, that Max might be, too.