Home Fires

by Luanne Rice

  “To you,” he said, raising his glass. He looked into Anne’s eyes, and his gaze held steady. Anne scowled, ready to protest. But what the hell? She clinked her glass to his, and tasted the best wine she’d had in months.

  “Growing up,” he said, “I thought there were two kinds of wine. Cooking sherry and altar wine. Then, about twenty years ago, I took a trip to France. I felt like I’d been hibernating or something. The food, the wine. The cathedrals.”

  “I love France,” Anne said. Sipping the Corton, she watched Thomas Devlin slice mushrooms, and she remembered her last trip to France. Two Junes ago. Karen had been nearly three. They had taken an ancient mas in Provence, with lavender growing wild in the field and bougainvillea cascading from the stone terrace.

  “It’s a place to be in love.”

  “Yes,” Anne said, thinking that the last time she had been there, she had been—wildly so. Don’t think about it, she told herself, forcing her thoughts back to the present. She concentrated on her wine.

  The silence between them felt comfortable as Anne leaned against the counter watching Thomas cook. He opened a can of beef broth and poured it into a heavy copper pot. He chopped a shallot, some carrots, one rib of celery, and added them to the broth. Reaching for a head of garlic, he glanced at Anne.

  “I love garlic,” she said.

  “Good,” he said. “If you didn’t, I’d be sunk.”

  With the flat of his knife, he smashed a garlic clove. He threw it into the pot along with a pinch of salt, a few crackles of pepper, a big handful of barley, some chopped parsley, a sprig of fresh thyme, and the mushrooms. He added a big splash of Noilly Prat vermouth.

  Now he reached for a shallow aluminum pan. He lined it with foil and placed the rest of the garlic inside. Some salt, pepper. He drizzled olive oil over the whole head of garlic, sealed it in tinfoil, and stuck it in the oven.

  He worked with true grace. His mutilated hands were so huge and ugly, you would expect them to be merely powerful. But to the contrary, they moved with soft precision. Staring at Thomas’s hands, Anne remembered holding them a week ago. Confused, she looked away.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “About an hour ago I was thinking of you.”

  “That’s nice,” he said, and half his mouth smiled.

  “It really affected me, the thing you told me at Ruby’s that last time.”

  “About Sarah?” he asked. He stopped working, turned his back to the counter, and folded his arms.

  “Your wife, yes. I’ve thought about what it must have been like for you, and in a way that comforted me. I’m sorry to say that—” Anne’s face twisted with confusion. She didn’t know how to put these awkward feelings into words, but she knew she had to try.

  “Don’t be sorry! I can understand why—” Thomas moved toward her, but stopped when she stepped back.

  Sweat stood out on Anne’s forehead.

  “It affected me, but I’m not sure I can handle it,” Anne said. “It’s too much. It’s not like we can be casual friends, you know? We know everything about each other.” Then, almost as an afterthought: “Everything that matters.”

  “And what is that?”

  “I think of it as a monster,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard. “Something terrible that came along, the worst thing in the world …”

  “And ate us alive,” he said.

  She shook her head, violently banishing the image.

  “All of us. You and me and Karen and Sarah.”

  “Stop it!” she cried. “I have to go.”

  Thomas watched her fumble for her coat; he made no move to stop her. Standing by the kitchen door, she couldn’t look at him.

  “Not being friends won’t make it go away,” he said quietly.

  “I just … it’s better to be alone,” she said.

  “I used to think that.”

  Anne started to button her coat. Thomas walked across the room and put his hands on her shoulders.

  “Monster. There was no monster,” Anne said, picturing the sunny summer day, the open window, the bird. “It was just an accident.”

  “That’s the monster,” Thomas said. “That such a thing could happen.”

  He reached for her hand and they walked into the living room. Who was leading whom, she wasn’t exactly sure, but it didn’t matter anyway. Thomas sat at one end of the sofa and pulled her gently down to sit beside him.

  “It’s too much to take, isn’t it?” Anne said.

  “It gets easier.”

  “You know, that scares me. Isn’t that strange? The way I feel, that’s all I have left of her.”

  “You have her drawing.”

  “Yes,” Anne said, a yawn escaping. Suddenly she felt calm and exhausted.

  “Maybe you’d like to take off your coat and stay awhile,” Thomas said, and when Anne glanced up at him she saw warm light and humor in his eyes.

  “I’m tired,” she said.

  He reached across her for a yellow chenille throw pillow and placed it on his lap. He patted it.

  “Put my head on your lap and take a nap?” Anne asked skeptically, but she found herself doing it. It didn’t feel strange at all.

  When she awakened, one side of her face was dotted with little imprints from the pillow tufts. She felt Thomas playing with her hair.

  “Some guest,” she said, still groggy.

  “You’re a good napper.” He laughed.

  “I’m afraid to ask. How long?”

  “An hour and ten minutes.”

  “Not that you’re counting,” Anne said, pushing herself up on one arm. “God, I can’t believe I did that. Do you think the soup cooked away?”

  “It’s probably just about done.”

  Anne’s scalp tingled and her stomach growled. She closed her eyes, trying to remember her dreams. None came back. Perhaps she had slept too well for dreams to have penetrated the veil between unconscious and awake. The ticking of twelve clocks dominated the darkness. After a moment she brushed the hair out of her eyes.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Only starving,” she said, pushing herself off the sofa.

  They walked into the kitchen, which seemed very bright after the living room. Anne blinked, getting used to it, while Thomas checked the soup.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Anytime you need a pillow,” he said, patting his thigh. “My leg’s not too asleep.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Don’t thank me, Anne. Just let me.”

  “Let you?”

  “Help.”

  Thomas stirred the soup, wrapped a loaf of Italian bread in foil, and put it in the oven. Standing behind him, Anne stared at his back. The worn chambray shirt could conceal his skin, but not the muscles. He carried tension in his shoulders and spine, yet Anne sensed sweet relaxation coming from deep within him. Before she knew what was happening, she kissed his back.

  It was a kiss so light, her lips barely grazed his shirt. She doubted that he felt it. The shirt was huge; it billowed out from where he had tucked it into the waistband of his jeans. Perhaps she noticed his spine stiffen just perceptibly; other than that, he gave no sign. He glanced over his shoulder so she could see only the good side of his face, smiling.

  “Can you get the bowls?” he asked. “In that cupboard, by the sink?”

  “Oh, is it ready?” she asked, feeling her cheeks redden.

  “Timed perfectly,” he said.

  “Two bowls,” she said. “No problem.”

  Chapter 8

  The month of March, the season of mud, had come to the island. Plodding from her mud-encrusted E250 van to the front door, Gabrielle felt the earth trying to suck the rubber boots right off her feet. She curled her toes, holding the boots on, and barely made it inside intact.

  The telephone was ringing. Her arms were full of grocery bags, her boots were covered in fresh slop, and the phone was all the way across the kitchen. She tried to kick
off her boots—and her boots, which moments earlier had seemed eager to be slurped off her feet, suddenly clung to them tenaciously.

  “Damn,” she said, grabbing for the sponge mop as she hurried for the phone, tracking mud as she went.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Hi, Gabrielle,” came Matt’s voice.

  “Well, hello!” She hadn’t heard from him in two or three weeks, and it made her happy to hear his voice.

  Matt asked about Steve and Maggie, how Gabrielle’s business was going, how the big house was coming along: all the niceties that disguised the real purpose of his call: to hear about Anne. Gabrielle didn’t mind. It felt so pleasant to be talking to a man who really seemed to care, whether he actually did or not. She appreciated him for going through the motions.

  For weeks now she’d been trying to get Steve to have a father-daughter talk with Maggie. She had a vague, unfocused fear that something was wrong with her, that she was depressed or heartbroken or something. Her friends hardly ever called anymore, and Maggie never went out.

  “I miss you guys,” Matt said.

  “We miss you, too.”

  “I really messed up, didn’t I?”

  “Well …” Gabrielle didn’t want to pass judgment. No one really knows what goes on in another couple’s marriage. Gabrielle’s loyalties, naturally, were with Anne. But she loved Matt, too. She had considered him to be a younger brother, and by leaving Anne, he had, in a way, left all of them.

  “Does she talk about me?” he asked.

  “Matt, you know I can’t tell you. Just as I don’t tell her the things you say to me.” It was a white lie. Of course Gabrielle had always told Anne every single thing, confidential or not, that Matt ever said. She had no scruples or regrets about doing so, either. It was all part of the sisterly double standard.

  “I’m trying to make some decisions,” Matt said. “I’m considering a move to Paris.”

  “Oh my God,” Gabrielle said, totally shocked.

  “When Anne first left the city, I thought it was a big mistake,” he said. “But now I’m not so sure. There’s a lot of bad stuff for me here. Memories.”

  “Matt, you’re nowhere near Gramercy Park now, are you? You’re living closer to your office, right?”

  “Well, East Eighty-third. But if I take a client to lunch, and I remember going to the restaurant with Anne.”

  “Go to a different restaurant.”

  Matt continued, as if Gabrielle hadn’t spoken. “I’ll walk in Central Park at lunchtime, and I’m pulled to the zoo. Karen loved the zoo. She loved the polar bears, the seals. I’ll watch the polar bears, and I’ll feel her hand in mine. She’s standing there, holding my hand.”

  Gabrielle had heard about cases of people who had lost limbs in terrible accidents. For months, sometimes years later, the people would swear they could feel the missing arm or leg. They’d feel an itch, or a pain, or just the normal heaviness of their old hand or foot. Doctors called the imaginary body part a “phantom” arm or foot or whatever. The idea of Matt feeling a phantom Karen squeezed Gabrielle’s heart so hard, she wanted to jump into the phone and give him a hug.

  “You’re suffering in New York, Anne’s suffering out here,” Gabrielle said. “Why don’t you get together and talk about it? Face the worst together?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “She won’t let me in, I guess, and I feel too guilty to push. She’s like a robot when I call.”

  THAT night Steve brought home pizzas and movies for dinner. Maggie was being her newly quiet self, and she asked permission to eat in her room. She said she had a math test the next day and needed to study. Steve had no objection. He praised her for her diligence, said she was making him proud. He was in a good mood: it was the first winter he’d had work in years, he was making fine progress on the house, and he liked coming home with treats.

  But Gabrielle felt a dark cloud hanging over her head. Ever since Matt’s call, she’d felt undone. She believed that a family’s love was the most precious thing in life. One false move, too much taking each other for granted: you could lose it all in an instant.

  “No,” Gabrielle said to Maggie. “Let’s have dinner together. I want to hear about your day.”

  “There’s plenty to tell,” Maggie said sullenly.

  “Let’s tell nasty mud stories,” Gabrielle suggested. “John Hildebrand got his Fiesta stuck in his driveway, up to the doors, and Bob Sullivan had to pull him out with his tractor.”

  “Way to go, John,” Steve said, chuckling. He had his mouth full of pizza, and he took a big swallow of beer. Maggie shot him a look full of disgust. Sometimes it seemed to Gabrielle that Maggie hated him. She wondered whether Steve noticed his daughter’s contempt, whether it made him feel bad.

  “I don’t have any mud stories,” Maggie said.

  “Wait. I have another,” Gabrielle said, watching her daughter.

  Maggie leaned on the butcher-block counter, tracing patterns in the wood. Her cheeks were pale, her hair not as lustrous as usual. Could it be drugs? An eating disorder? Gabrielle wondered, willing Maggie to look up so she could see her eyes.

  “This one’s really nasty,” Gabrielle said. “Walking across our very own yard, I nearly lost my boots. I’m not kidding you. You know that gross slurping sound March mud makes?”

  “Yeah,” Maggie said, the corner of her mouth twitching in a smile. She glanced up, and her mother saw that her eyes were clear, her pupils normal.

  Gabrielle felt her heart lighten.

  “Like you’re drinking a milkshake with a straw, and the glass is empty, but you keep going anyway? Well, our mud was trying to bring the boots right off my feet.”

  “That is nasty,” Maggie agreed. “But please? My math test?”

  “Okay,” Gabrielle said, giving in. “But this is positively the absolute last time. From now on we eat at the table. As a family. And we come prepared with stories about our days.”

  Gabrielle and Steve sat at the table, watching the six o’clock news on TV. When had she stopped making everyone eat together? Gabrielle couldn’t remember. Her catering business relied on the desire of people to entertain, to come together at a table laden with delicious food.

  Slowly, over the last year, she had gotten slack at home. Steve wanted to eat in front of the TV, Maggie wanted to bolt her food and talk to her friends on the phone, and Gabrielle was just as happy sitting alone, reading recipes as she ate her dinner.

  Talking to Matt today had really opened her eyes. She slid her arm across the table, took Steve’s hand. He looked up with surprise.

  “What?” he asked.

  “We take things for granted,” she said. “Each other. Our kid.”

  “We do not,” he said. He kissed the back of her hand and released it, reaching for another slice of pizza. He resumed watching the news.

  “Yes, we do,” Gabrielle said. But Steve gave no indication that he had heard her. He didn’t even glance her way. Leaning back in his chair, the front legs off the ground, he took another beer out of the refrigerator. His big belly hung over the waistband of his pants, and he burped.

  Gabrielle waited for him to say “excuse me,” but he didn’t. Noisily, she stacked their plates. She felt nothing but anger at the world, and to Gabrielle the world and her home were the same thing. She had a husband who couldn’t be bothered to use his manners, who didn’t care enough to stay in shape for her. She had a daughter who’d rather stay in her room than be forced to spend fifteen minutes with her parents. Cleaning off the table, Gabrielle purposely blocked his view of the TV.

  “Didn’t anyone ever tell you you make a better door than a window?” he asked, giving her a good-natured push.

  “This family had better shape up,” Gabrielle said.

  “Honey, what is wrong with you today?”

  “Nothing. Unless you count being totally taken for granted by the people you slave for.”

  “I don’t take you for granted. As a matter of fact”—Steve
glanced around, to make sure Maggie wasn’t in the room—“I’ve got a surprise for later. For you and me.”

  “What?”

  “A horny movie.”

  Gabrielle nodded. She put the dishes in the sink. There had been a time when she’d tried to understand and even enjoy Steve’s taste in X-rated movies. She’d told herself the material was erotic. She’d watch the scenes and try to feel excited. But the women’s breasts were obviously as fake as their orgasms. The nipples uniformly erect, the breasts had the immutability of holy mounds. The men would come all over the plastic breasts and faces of every woman in the picture, like poor little puppies marking their territory.

  Gabrielle wanted to like the movies, but they were too blatant or something. They didn’t hold enough back; they never had enough of a story to work her up. She’d take a hit of Anaïs Nin or Nancy Friday over porn movies any day. Plus, she didn’t love being naked beside such exemplars of male fantasy beauty.

  Standing at the sink, she felt Steve come up behind her.

  “You don’t seem too thrilled,” he said.

  “I’m just having a bad day,” Gabrielle said. “It’s mud season.”

  “Maybe the movie will cheer you up. Or what comes after the movie.” He slipped his arms around her from behind.

  Gabrielle smiled ruefully. She couldn’t help herself; she loved the man. Maybe he was fat, and maybe he was crude. Maybe he didn’t pay quite enough attention to Maggie. Maybe Matt wouldn’t rent movies with titles like Thunder Honies or Wicked Delight; maybe Anne had never had to share her bed with a beer belly the size of a basketball. Maybe what Matt and Anne had had was better, or at least more refined, but where was it now?

  “What’s the title?” Gabrielle asked.

  “The movie? Horny Figure Skaters,” Steve whispered in her ear.

  She laughed. What the hell? she thought. If it gives him pleasure, why not? She always ended up satisfied in the long run. The movies were definitely not her favorite part of their love life, but she had a firm belief that you don’t mess with someone else’s sex. You don’t judge, you try to understand. You don’t have to feel the same way, but you have to respect their desires. You don’t take people for granted.