by Kate Hewitt
As everyone finished their dinner, I came to the end of the story, when the princess forced the tsar to hold a contest to see who could make her laugh, with a prize of three bags of gold. And then Stefan came to the palace and told his nonsense to the princess, who finally had a reason to laugh, and he even made the old tsar laugh too.
“And of course they lived happily ever after,” I finished with a smile for everyone, a deep satisfaction stealing through my bones. “Because it’s only a story, after all.”
My words seemed to fall into the stillness and settle there, like snow.
“Yes,” Alexa said after a moment, a hard edge entering her voice again, making me falter. “Only stories have happy endings.” She rose from the table in a swirl of hair, and I bit my lip, wishing I hadn’t ended it that way, afraid I had made it worse.
“Life has more shades than a story,” I said quietly. “Happy and sad and everything in between.” Or so it should. For others, it had no shades at all.
She gazed at me for a moment, and I thought she might say something, but then she simply shrugged and walked out of the room. Nathan watched her go, a frown puckering his brow, before he turned to me with a determined smile.
“Maria, that was marvellous. You’re a born storyteller. What a gift.”
“It has been a long time since I’ve told a story.” I felt breathless from the exertion of it, the emotion and energy still fizzing inside me. Even Alexa’s anger couldn’t keep me from remembering that old joy. For a few minutes, it had felt as if I had come alive again, as if I were the girl I’d once been, the one I had buried so long ago.
“Will you tell us another one?” Ruby asked and I smiled and shook my head, trying to banish the lingering disappointment at Alexa’s abrupt exit.
“Then I would be the only one talking! Why don’t you tell me a story?”
Ruby pouted. “I don’t know any stories.”
“I’m sure you have some in your room. You could get one and then I could read it to you.” Ruby’s face lit up and she scurried off, returning moments later with a bright yellow book. “Curious George,” I read aloud. “I don’t know this one.”
“You don’t know Curious George?” Ruby said in disbelief. “I thought everyone did.”
“Now I will find out.”
As I opened the book, Ruby scrambled onto my lap, shocking me with her nearness, the solid warmth of her. Her head fit under my chin, her body pressed against me as her thumb found its way into her mouth. Shyly, Ella came over, to stand behind my chair, so she could look at the pictures in the book.
For a moment I could not speak; my vision blurred and I could not see the words on the page in front of me. If I could hold onto this moment forever, cup it between my hands, drink it in like living water, I would. Oh, how I would.
Gently, I put my arm around Ruby as I began to read.
Eleven
Nathan
The apartment was quiet, the girls all asleep. Although the evening had started strained, with Ella so silent and Alexa in one of her moods, it ended on an upbeat note, thanks to Maria.
I sank onto the sofa, gazing unseeingly in front of me as I recalled the animation that had lit her features when she’d begun that folktale, as if she were drawing on some light from within. It wasn’t until she’d told the story that I realized how sad she’d seemed before, a sorrow that was quiet and contained rather than wild and stormy, the way Alexa’s was. The way mine felt, even if I tried to hide it.
Laura, why? How? What do I do with all this grief? How can I contain it? How can I go on?
Tonight, for a little while at least, I had almost been able to forget. Not really, not for more than a few seconds at a time, but those brief moments had been such a relief, such a liberation. Then I’d remember, and it felt like being pulled under, having to drown all over again, the grief sucking me down, making me gasp for air.
Still, overall, despite its ups and downs, it had been a good evening. I held onto that thought, let it bolster me. After Maria had read a story to Ella and Ruby, she’d risen from her seat and started to clear the table. To my shame, that had been a liberation, too—someone else was doing the work, if just for a moment.
My in-laws had helped, of course, but it had always been long-suffering, with pointed looks and drawn-out sighs, and I’d tripped over myself to thank them for so much as rinsing a plate. This felt different. Easier.
“Maria, you don’t have to…” I’d begun, far too half-heartedly.
“I don’t mind.” She’d given me a quick, tentative smile. “It is nice, a table full of food and plates.”
It took me a second to understand what she meant. “You live alone?” I’d surmised.
“Yes. For a long time.” She’d bowed her head as she sidled past me, into the kitchen, where she set about scraping plates and bundling away the foil containers. I watched, transfixed and grateful, as she asked Ella to collect glasses and Ruby napkins. She made it a game, and soon the girls were racing in and out of the dining room with their “treasure”—crumpled napkins and dirty cups. I heard Ella giggle, the sound slipping out of her like an afterthought, and I realized I hadn’t heard her laugh since Laura.
Since Laura. And there was a memory again, slamming into me. How many times would I have to take it, and try to stay standing? As Maria had cleaned up the kitchen, I knew I should help and yet I felt so tired that I simply sank onto a stool and watched as she moved around the space, briskly tidying away the mess I never seemed to get on top of.
The table cleared, Ella and Ruby had gone into the living room, sprawling on the sofa in front of the TV. I’d listened to the tinny theme song of some brainless kids show or other, the soundtrack to our lives recently. I told myself to go in there and spend time with them, or find Alexa and try to prise her out of her angry shell, figure out why she seemed to blame me for everything, but at that moment I felt too tired, too utterly drained, to do either. So I simply sat and watched Maria clean my kitchen.
“I’m sorry,” I said after about fifteen minutes. I felt as if I’d been lulled to sleep by the simple presence of her, her movements so neat and efficient as she tidied everything away. “I’m being a terrible host.” And a bad father.
“Not at all.” Maria hung a damp dishrag over the oven rail. “I have enjoyed this.”
“Cleaning?” I couldn’t keep the disbelief from my voice.
“Cleaning a home.” She’d looked away, and I’d wondered whether to ask her about her life, her past. I knew basically nothing—she came from Sarajevo; she’d emigrated to America. She was alone. Broad strokes, but what about the finer details? What had her life been like in Sarajevo during the war? Hadn’t there been a siege in the city? How had Maria coped? I didn’t even know what questions to ask.
I remembered seeing stuff about the war on the news when I’d been a kid, news stories of humanitarian aid packages, pictures of bombed-out buildings and piles of rusted cars, but in truth I hadn’t been all that bothered by it. It had seemed so far away. Irrelevant, even, happening to people who didn’t matter to me. It could have been happening on the moon. But Maria had lived through that.
It seemed unimaginable… as unimaginable as my wife being shot by a madman on the subway. Tragedy bound us together. Laura did.
“Still…” I’d nodded towards the now sparkling countertops. “You didn’t have to…”
“I am happy to help. It is very little, after all.”
“Did Laura say anything else to you?” I blurted. I realized we hadn’t talked about Laura all evening, and it made me feel guilty. “Did she ever mention anyone or anything, someone who was bothering her, following her…?”
Maria had frowned. “You mean the man…”
The man. The man who killed my wife. My gut clenched hard and I felt that ever-present tide of powerless rage swell up inside me. Why hadn’t the police found the bastard yet? Why did no one know anything, despite there being a subway car full of witnesses?
&nb
sp; “Yes,” I said flatly. “The man.”
Maria reached one hand towards me, her fingers fluttering, her face crumpled in apology. “Nathan…”
“I’m sorry.” I dug the heels of my hands into my eye sockets until I saw flashing lights. “I didn’t mean to sound…”
“It’s all right,” she said quietly. “I understand.” And I knew she did.
Ruby came in then, her voice a plaintive wheedle. “Daddy…”
Maria still wasn’t looking at me. “What is it, Rubes?”
“Can Maria put me to bed?”
Maria turned back, startled. “I should go…”
“Please…”
“I don’t mind if you tuck her in,” I said awkwardly. “If you don’t.” I couldn’t tell if she wanted to go, or if she felt as if she was intruding, and the truth was, I wasn’t ready for her to leave. I didn’t want to be alone.
“All right,” she said softly, and something in me breathed easier as she left the kitchen hand in hand with Ruby, and I went to find Alexa, in what I knew would be a futile attempt to get her to talk to me.
She was still blaming me for everything, from Laura’s death to her grandparents leaving, and I couldn’t get her to tell me why. Her anger was like a shield, a defence against the person she’d decided was the enemy—me.
Still, I tried, if only half-heartedly, pausing in the doorway of her room. As usual, she was huddled on her bed, crouching over her phone, hair swinging down.
“Alexa…” She didn’t even look up. I’d hesitated, not knowing what to say. How to reach her. This was Laura’s territory, picking her way through the emotional minefields, defusing the bombs. “You okay?” I finally asked.
“Fine.”
Of course she wasn’t fine. No one was. I shouldn’t have even asked; it was a stupid question.
“Do you have homework?” I asked, feeling like that was another wrong question.
“I’ve done it.”
“Phone goes on the charger at nine,” I said, and she finally looked up.
“Oh, so now you’re enforcing Mom’s rules?”
“They were my rules too.”
She snorted her derision, and I wished I could have started the whole conversation over. Now I sounded like a nag.
“It’s for your benefit, Alexa.” Another misstep.
“Yeah, right. It’s for your benefit, because you want to seem like you’re a good parent when you’re crap. Who are you trying to impress? Maria?”
I stepped back, winded by the vitriol in every syllable of that sentence. It was the most she’d said to me in weeks, and it hurt, a lot.
“Alexa…” I began, but I didn’t know what to say. Don’t talk to me like that? That would hardly help. “I’m sorry,” I finally said quietly. “I am trying. I know it’s not enough…”
If I’d been hoping for some sort of apology, a Hallmark-worthy I know you are, Dad, I didn’t get it. I got another snort, and she was already back on her phone. I was tempted to snatch it from her flying fingers and throw it out the window, or grind it under my foot, hear the satisfying crunch of glass. Who was she texting? What was she saying? Who was comforting her in a way that I couldn’t seem to?
I drew a steadying breath, knowing none of that would help, or maybe I just wasn’t brave enough to actually do it and face her wrath. At least then she would be angry for a reason I could understand.
“Nine,” I’d said at last, and I left the room, closing the door behind me a little more firmly than I should have, feeling like the whole conversation had been a failure.
Maria left a little while later, thanking me again for dinner, although I was the one who should have been thanking her for everything. I still didn’t want her to go, and I fought the urge to make up a reason for her to stay longer, because I knew it would seem strange and there was no real reason for her to stay. Besides, it was nearly nine; I needed to wrestle Alexa’s phone off her and Maria had to get all the way back to Queens.
“I’m glad you came,” I’d said, and she’d smiled shyly.
“So am I.” A pause as we stared at each other, the oddness of the moment making it feel impossible to navigate. “Goodbye,” she said softly, and it sounded far too final, because of course it was.
“Maria…” I took a step forward, but she was already edging towards the door, and with a jolt of humiliation I realized how grasping and needy I must have seemed, this widowed, grieving man begging a virtual stranger to come into his life and make things better. Clean his kitchen and tuck his daughter into bed, even. Alexa was right. I was crap. “Goodbye,” I’d said, and then she was gone.
Alone now, with the girls finally in bed, the kitchen thankfully clean and Alexa’s phone safely on the charger, the apartment felt too quiet all around me.
In what was now another lifetime, on a night like this, I would have hauled out my laptop and done two or three hours of work—catching up on emails, going over building plans, or just surfing online for industry news.
Laura would have been pottering around, getting cereal bowls out for the morning, or sitting next to me watching something on TV. We wouldn’t have said much to each other, but she would have been there. I missed her easy, comfortable presence with a deep, physical ache. And yet…
Other memories forced their way in, ones I didn’t want to remember. My tut of irritation as I asked her to turn the volume down. The way she drifted around the apartment before asking me if I had to work. And my answer was yes, of course I did. The soft sigh of disappointment she made without realizing it, that I always pretended not to hear.
But it hadn’t always been like that, I told myself. I hadn’t checked out every single evening.
I grabbed the remote and started flicking through my account on Netflix, looking for the last movie we’d watched together, suddenly needing to know what it was. I scrolled through movies and series I didn’t recognize, that Laura must have watched on her own. They surprised me—serious movies, docudramas, not the light fluff I assumed she watched.
Then I found it—an episode of a spy series that had been more my choice than hers. Staring at its lurid icon on the screen, I could almost feel her head on my shoulder, the lemony smell of her hair, her warm body pressed to mine, legs tucked up under her on the sofa.
Should we open a bottle of wine? Her voice light, teasing, and my response, a shrug, a smile. Sure, why not? It’s Friday.
We’d drunk the whole bottle, cuddled up on the sofa together. Was I remembering it, or making it up? Wishing it had happened? Longing for it now?
Oh, Laura.
I rose from the sofa to pace the living room like something caged. Although I was glad my in-laws had left, at least their presence had acted as a buffer between me and my grief, just as Maria had.
Now, in these dark, empty moments, I had to face it, face the yawning loneliness all around me, and I couldn’t stand it. I felt like screaming, or clawing at my skin, anything to end this agony, this endless parade of moments and memories racing through my mind, the fear and panic lapping at my senses.
The comfort I chose was predictable as well as pathetic—a large Scotch and a couple of sleeping pills, my usual night-time routine since Laura’s death. I stretched out in the big bed, hating the empty expanse next to me, and let oblivion claim me, my only solace.
* * *
When I woke, it was to Ruby standing about two inches from my face.
“Daddy, why do you smell so bad?”
I rolled onto my back as I tried to blink the grit out of my eyes. My body felt leaden, my mind fuzzy. The alarm clock’s red digits blurred in front of my eyes and I blinked again. 5:23 a.m. I should not have drunk that whisky.
“Ruby…” My voice came out in a thick mumble. “You should go back to bed.”
“I don’t want to.”
“It’s early.”
“Can I sleep with you?”
Wordlessly I lifted the duvet and she scrambled in next to me, fitting her small, warm bod
y to mine. I wrapped one arm around her, pressing my cheek against her hair. She snuggled in closer.
“An open sandwich,” she said, sounding satisfied.
“Right.” My voice sounded rusty. I didn’t want an open sandwich. I didn’t want any of this. But this was what I had.
I tried to doze, but Ruby kept wriggling next to me, and then she started to hum some song from a kids’ TV show, and by half past six I gave up my desperate attempt to grab some more sleep. Ruby, sensing her victory, rolled over to look at me.
“Daddy, it’s going to be Christmas soon.”
“So it is.” Christmas was in just over two weeks, which seemed both crazy and awful. I couldn’t imagine anything I wanted to celebrate less.
“We don’t even have a tree yet.” Ruby’s lower lip jutted out mutinously.
With a rush of dread, I thought of the tidal wave of expectations that Christmas inevitably set—a tree, decorations, presents, stockings, food. That sense of expectation and wonder that Laura had seemed to manage effortlessly; she’d loved Christmas as much as the girls, while I, like with so much else, could take it or leave it.
I’d never celebrated Christmas as a kid. My mother claimed she didn’t see the point of presents. You should give freely whenever you wish, she’d said, except she hadn’t given presents any other time of year, either.
When I’d met Laura, she’d introduced me to concepts I’d only seen in cheesy films—leaving a cookie out for Santa, stockings heaped with what I privately thought was useless crap, a dining room table bowing under the weight of a meal no one could possibly eat all of. Her parents adored Christmas, and we’d spent several painful ones with them, while they’d lavished gifts on Laura, and looked at me like some inferior alien species for not really getting it. I’d always received a twenty-five-dollar gift card to Amazon, that Elaine handed me in a bow-wrapped box with a little shrug of shoulders.
I never know what to get you, Nathan, and since you don’t really celebrate Christmas…