After All I've Done

by Mina Hardy

  This is the last Christmas I am going to spend alone.

  The text is sent before I can change my mind, but once it’s gone, I have no desire to take it back. I meant it. The message is delivered, but not read.

  He’s with her, of course.

  No way to get out of it. How could he explain to his mother that instead of an all-American Christmas with his wife and mother, he’s going to spend it with his side piece? Any woman who’s fucking a married man and thinks she’s going to spend any holiday with him is a dumb bitch.

  I might be a bitch, but I ain’t dumb.

  That’s Diana’s line, and it’s perfect, and right now I hate her more than ever. For finding him first. Frankly, for being given him first. For keeping him long after she stopped wanting him. For getting injured so that he feels guilty about leaving her.

  I hate her for not admitting that she wanted to let him go.

  I was going to travel this long weekend to New York. Treat myself to a hotel room, a Broadway show from the discount tickets booth, some really good ramen. But haven’t I been hoping, uselessly and stupidly, that Jonathan will at least … try?

  I see that he’s has read my message, but he doesn’t reply. The last couple weeks we’ve spent without seeing each other, barely texting, and speaking only once every few days have not been the most terrible of my life. I won’t say that, even to be dramatic. In fact, in some ways, they’ve been easier than talking to him every day, if only because I can convince myself I’m getting over him.

  People lose their minds over having a white Christmas, but this year it’s more like a black one. Freezing temperatures, warnings about staying off the roads because of patches of invisible ice. I have turned off the radio so I don’t have to hear “Last Christmas” one more damned time. I roasted a turkey with all the fixings, but I’m drunk by the time it’s ready, and I pass out on the couch instead.

  Hours later, I wake in the dark. I check my phone immediately, but there’s no message from Jonathan. I curse his name. Softly. Then louder. I don’t have Diana’s expensive tastes, and my white wine is cheap. My stomach is sick from no food, too much wine. I’m sick with heartache.

  In the car, I shiver as I wait for it to warm up. My breath plumes out in smoky trails that make me wish for a cigarette. It takes only ten minutes to drive to the house in the woods that Jonathan shares with Diana. The roads are curving, twisty, and the houses are all set apart from each other. Trees in between. Privacy. When I lived in Brooklyn in a brownstone, there was no such thing as not knowing what your neighbors were up to, and I never minded. But back in my childhood home, with houses so close on either side, I swear I can hear the people inside them breathing, and I am suffocated. If I lived in Diana’s neighborhood, I would never complain about feeling isolated, the way she does.

  I park at the end of the long, sloping drive leading to the detached garage and the mother-in-law apartment. I get out of my car. My fists clench.

  I should not be here. This is everything I never wanted to be. But the hate is welling inside me, and the loneliness, and the love—that fucking shovel to the face. My love for Jonathan is like nothing I’ve ever felt or ever thought I would feel. It has ruined me for anything else.

  Moving closer, I catch sight of Harriett through her living room window. She’s crying and drinking white wine right out of the bottle. My heart seizes. I know how she feels. Her husband died. The thought of losing Jonathan has bent me over more than once. If she wants to double-fist her drinks because she’s alone at Christmas, I don’t blame her.

  Swiftly, I climb the narrow concrete stairs into the yard and the curving stone path to the main house’s front door, which I avoid. Instead, I duck around the back and along the side, where I can see right into their bedroom. The lights are on inside, but dim, as though coming from a different room.

  There he is.

  My fingers are numb with cold, but the bite of my nails into my palms is fierce. So is the tang of blood on my lower lip where I’ve bitten it. Jonathan is naked. Hair rumpled. Do I imagine the gleam of sweat on his lean body? Do I see evidence of something between them that’s not there?

  Oh my god. He’s been fucking her. My teeth chatter, but I am an inferno. I text him quickly.

  I see you.

  The floodlights come on.

  I am a dumb bitch. Of course I should have remembered their security system, the motion-activated lights and cameras. Home security was Diana’s entire career, after all. I move back, out of the light, glad I thought to tuck my hair inside a wool beanie cap and pull my hood up to shield my face, grateful for the baggy pants and oversized hoodie I’d thrown on because it was all I could bear to make the effort for.

  I’m at the top of the stairs to the lower drive when the front door of the main house opens. No outside lights have come on from Harriett’s place, and I have time to make it to the bottom, convinced I’m going to trip on the uneven stairs, no railing to catch me, before Jonathan makes it to my side.

  “The fuck are you doing?” He grabs me by the arm so hard I twirl and fall against him. He grabs my other arm to keep me upright. He’s backlit, face in shadow, but I see the gleam of his teeth. He’s wearing only a pair of low-slung pajama bottoms, feet and chest bare. His voice is rough, the words a little slurred.

  “Are you drunk?” I demand. That would explain it, maybe. If he got drunk on Christmas Day with his wife, if something happened between them because he’d been drinking and I’d been ignoring him for days.

  But that’s not an excuse.

  He grips me harder. “No, I’m not fucking drunk.”

  “You sound it.”

  “I had a couple glasses of wine at dinner, that’s it. Fuck, Valerie, it’s freezing out here. What are you fucking thinking?”

  I know he’s drunk. He never swears that way unless he is. His fingers dig into my arm even through my sweatshirt; it feels like I might even bruise.

  “Let me go.” I bite out the words and pull away from him.

  I think he’s going to. At least, I make it halfway down the driveway before he catches up to me again.

  He snatches at me again, barely catching hold. “You can’t be here. You can’t come here like this. What’s wrong with you?”

  We’re far enough away from both the house and the street that it’s unlikely anyone could overhear us, but still, he keeps his voice pitched low. It’s dark here, and I’m glad for it. If I had to see his face, I might scream. I don’t hit him, but I want to. In the frigid air, it is impossible to smell him, but I imagine the warm waft of his body. His breath, the taste of it and of his skin. I am shaking.

  “Val …”

  “I’m leaving.”

  Jonathan snags my sleeve again. I let him turn me. He must be freezing. I tell myself I don’t care. He deserves frostbite.

  “You just … you can’t do this, baby.”

  I force a few words from between my chattering teeth. “I. Was. Alone.”

  “I know, I know. I thought you were going to the city.” He tries to pull me close. His skin is cold. I stiffen to keep him from embracing me.

  “I didn’t go. I would have been alone there, too.” I want to ask him if he was fucking her, but I don’t want to hear him lie. I don’t want him to tell me the truth either.

  We are both silent.

  “She doesn’t have access to the security notices anymore,” he says abruptly. “She turned off the app notifications, and I changed the account information, so I know she can’t log back in. She won’t know you were here.”

  I have nothing to say about that. I don’t care if she knows. My car is no more than a minute’s walk. Every step I take away from him is like walking on broken glass, only the glass is in my heart. By the time I get there, I am gasping. In the driver’s seat, I grip the wheel and try to catch my breath.

  He doesn’t come after me again.

  I drive away.

  As I pull into my driveway, my phone lights with a text, an answ
er to the one I’d sent earlier.

  It’s the last time you’ll have to.

  In the dark, my car still running, I clutch the phone to my chest and let out a single barking sob. I want to believe him, but the truth I have to face is that no matter what he says, he’s never going to leave her. The thought of living without Jonathan honestly makes me feel like I want to die, but it’s seeming more likely that the only way we’ll ever be together is if Diana does, instead.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Cole

  Sunlight breaking through storm clouds. That’s the sight of Diana there in the coffee shop. For four months, I’ve made it here every day and pretended to work on something important when all I’m really doing is scrolling through a bunch of forums and listings, looking for my next gig. You know how it feels when you’ve been waiting so long for something that you’ve started to believe it won’t ever happen? That’s me, stunned and grateful and disbelieving and relieved.

  It’s all I can do to stop myself from getting up and greeting her. I know better, though. Unless something has changed drastically since that day in the hospital, Diana isn’t going to remember me. It was hard enough to realize that when she was covered in bandages and stoned on pain meds. I’m not going to make a scene about it here and now.

  So, I watch her. God, she’s beautiful. She carries an oversized leather purse with her left hand, but moves so cautiously that it’s clear she’s still in pain—or at least expecting to be. She wears skinny jeans tucked into knee-high brown boots with a leather jacket the color of rust. Her hair, so black it sometimes looks highlighted in blue, hangs to the middle of her back, pushed off her face with a simple plastic headband. She used to wear it in a braid or a bun.

  Diana orders her favorite: a brownie with fudge icing and a bottomless mug of coffee. She seems uncertain about how to carry both items to a table without putting her bag over her shoulder. Her grimace says a lot. I’m on my feet, then.

  “I can help.” I gesture toward the table next to mine. “I’ll grab your stuff.”

  “No, you don’t have to … Ah, you know what? Yes, that would be great. Thank you. Thanks,” she says again as I pull out the chair for her.

  She settles herself in the chair with a low, long sigh. It’s just after New Year’s, but the coffee shop hasn’t yet taken down their Christmas tree. It’s hung with multicolored lights, and they reflect rainbows in her hair. I put the plate with the brownie in front of her, then offer to fill her mug from the small self-service bar behind us. Again Diana looks like she might refuse, but then smiles and nods her permission. I fill her mug and set it on the table, making sure not to splash it on her bag. She’s looking at a thick catalog I recognize as the rec center’s class listings.

  “Thank you so much. I broke both my collarbones a few months ago,” she says. “I just got permission to be out of the slings a while ago, but I still have to watch what I’m doing, or it hurts all over again.”

  I slide into my own chair at the table diagonal from hers and nod sympathetically, like I have no idea about the accident. I’m a liar. I’ve always been a liar, and it’s likely I always will be. “Ouch. Broken collarbones are a bitch, I hear. Take a long time to heal.”

  “You hear right.” She shifts her right arm a little bit and gives a small nod. “I tend to overdo it, then regret it later. Anyway, thanks again for the help. You must’ve been an Eagle Scout.”

  “Nobody’s ever accused me of that before.” I laugh because that’s the damn truth. I gesture toward her table and drop the next question all casual. “So, were you doing something crazy like skydiving or …?”

  “Oh God, no. Never. Car accident. I was lucky. It could’ve been worse. The worst part is I lost my car. I loved that car.” Diana frowns and shakes her head, looking sad.

  “What kind of car was it?” I ask, although of course I already know.

  “It was a … bitchin’ Camaro.” She laughs softly, referring to the song by the Dead Milkmen.

  I lean back in my seat to make a show of checking out the parking lot through the coffee shop’s huge plate glass windows. “Camaros rock. Where is it?”

  “It was totaled.”

  Surprised, I say, “Totaled … as in scrapped?”

  “Yes. I guess it doesn’t take much to total a Camaro.”

  That doesn’t make any sense. I’d seen the accident photos. Small-town news stations still cover that sort of thing. The car wasn’t in that bad of shape. “Maybe you can get another one.”

  “I hope so.” Diana leans forward with a small conspiratorial smile that reminds me again of that first light after darkness. “I got a replacement car, and I hate it.”

  I think about making a joke, some light words to tease her with, but they dry up. We’ve spent hours laughing together, but I think if I made her laugh now, it would break me.

  She gives me a curious look. For a moment I have the bitter hope she’s going to ask me if we’ve met before. Not sure what I’d say if she does, but turns out I don’t have to worry. There’s no hint of recognition in those blue eyes, and that does fucking slaughter me.

  She shakes her head, and her smile goes away like time clouds covering the sun. She turns her attention deliberately to the catalog. She sips her coffee and turns the pages.

  I get the hint and focus again on my own task, or at least I try to. There’s no paying attention, not even to find work, with Diana sitting so close to me. It had never occurred to me that seeing her without being able to talk to her, really talk, would be worse than never seeing her again.

  Her phone hums from her purse, and she pauses to dig it out with a wince. “Hi. Yes, I am. Sure. No, I’m fine. Really. No problems. It was fine. I came over to the rec center to sign up for a class … I didn’t know you’d want to come with me. I’m sorry. Yes, I’ll be home soon. No, I don’t know what time he’ll be home.”

  She slides her thumb across the phone screen and lets out a disgruntled sigh.

  “My mother-in-law,” she says, catching me staring. “She’s … needy. This is the first time I’ve left the house on my own since the accident. I didn’t tell her I was going anywhere. I guess she panicked a little. I mean, I’m an adult woman. I shouldn’t have to tell her where I’m going or why, right? If I want to take a class, I don’t need her permission.”

  “What class are you taking?”

  She gives me another of those head tilts, eyes narrowed, looking me over. She has to know me, even if she doesn’t remember, but all I see is a vague suspicion. I’ve been too nosy.

  “Intro to watercolors. It’s every Wednesday at four.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  Another assessing look. “It could be, I guess.”

  The urge to tell her the truth is pretty hard to squash, but I manage it. She turns back to her food, and I have no more excuses to make conversation, so I go back to my laptop. She doesn’t say goodbye when she leaves, but I’m not worried about it.

  Now I know where to find her every week.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Diana

  The instructor greets me with a friendly smile. She wears paint-stained jeans, and there’s a smudge of what must be clay on her men’s button-down, but her smile is sincere, and she looks happy to see me. I can’t tell if she knows me or not.

  “I’m Diana,” I say.

  She nods. “Welcome. I’m Mary. I saw that you took this class last summer? You might get a little bored, repeating the beginner class, although I do have a different approach than the former instructor. You might still find something new to work on.”

  “Oh. It wasn’t you? I mean, the class I took before wasn’t with you?”

  Mary gives me an odd look, and who can blame her. “Nope, according to the records, you took Introduction to Watercolors with Betty. I’m sorry to say she’s moved down to Florida, so I took over. I do have room in the advanced class, if you like.”

  “Oh, I’ll be fine,” I say cheerfully. “I don’t remember anythi
ng from the original class.”

  Mary dimples. “I’m sure it will come back to you.”

  “I hope so,” I say and tell her about the accident, my surgery, and the amnesia.

  Her surprise looks genuine. “So … you don’t remember anything at all?”

  “Nothing for a certain time period. Nope.”

  I’m still cheerful. I have been since breakfast. Harriett’s egg, bacon, and cheese quiche had been waiting for me when I got up. The coffee had been brewed. Lunch was chicken and dumplings, left for me in the fridge. Yet Harriett herself was notably absent, which meant I got to shovel food into my gullet all day long while I read clickbait articles on my phone without having to have a conversation. It was glorious, and all day I’ve been feeling euphoric.

  “That must be very strange,” Mary says.

  I laugh. “You said it, sister.”

  I’ve never said such a thing in my life, but it’s seems the sort of thing someone like Mary would like to hear, and I add a couple of finger guns. Pow, pow! We both laugh then, and it feels good. I like it. I like Mary. I like this class. Hell, I might even like watercolors, I don’t know. The world seems bright and magical right now, and anything is possible.

  Why have I signed up for another class in watercolors? I don’t expect to get any better at it than I was before, and I can honestly say I’ve never been a fan of the way they look even when painted by someone with skill.

  The truth is, I’m hoping that somehow, some way, something is going to get pulled free from the swamp of eternal sadness that is my brain. I want to remember why I signed up for that class last summer. Hell, I want to remember anything at all.

  The class fills up with ten students, each of us in front of an easel hung with fresh paper next to a tray of paints, brushes, and of course a mug of water. Mary spends the first few minutes demonstrating techniques. Then she walks around the classroom offering help.

  I have a grand old time. My painting sucks, but whatever. Mary’s a good teacher, but you can put a pig in a pair of high heels and never get it to dance. Thinking that, I laugh. It was something my mother said, but today, not even that memory can make me feel sour.