Tea and Primroses

by Tess Thompson

  This one small decision saved my life.

  At that moment, without the hat’s muffling, I heard the roar of a car’s engine. I turned; a black sedan sped down the main street toward me. The speed of its approach mesmerized me, but I realized it had veered right, toward where I stood on the sidewalk, and was gathering additional velocity. I ran, just in time, into a skinny space between two buildings. The car lurched to a stop, tires squealing, exactly in the spot where I’d just stood. I could not see inside the car, as the windows were the dark variety. I held my breath, fully expecting someone to leap from the driver’s side and come for me. As suddenly as it appeared, it left in the same way, tires turning in the opposite direction. With a ferocious lurch forward, it barreled down the street. I limped out to the sidewalk, watching the car run the town’s only red light and then a stop sign, and then it disappeared down the hill.

  Several shopkeepers had come out to assist me. I was in a daze, my heart thumping like mad. A horde of a dozen or so people had formed by then. I searched for Patrick on the crowded street but he didn’t come. Someone walked me over to Doris’s.

  Doris hadn’t seen the incident, only heard the screech and roar of the car’s engine as it sped away. I wasn’t hurt, obviously, but she made a big fuss anyway, taking off my jacket and insisting I sit in a booth with a tumbler of whiskey from her flask. Patrick showed up shortly thereafter. I will never forget the look on his face when we told him what had happened. He flushed red, then purple. A vein on his forehead popped. His eyes turned hard. But he didn’t say much, just bundled me back into my jacket and deposited me into his truck. The whiskey had made me warm and numb. The whole event seemed surreal. Had it really happened? Maybe I’d exaggerated it. I said as much to Patrick. He didn’t respond, simply reached out and took my gloved hand in his. We were almost home before he spoke.

  “I want you to move in with me,” he said.

  “Move in? To your cabin?”

  He pulled into his driveway and turned off the engine. “Someone tried to hurt you today. I don’t want you living alone, unprotected. You need to be with me.”

  “But who would want to hurt me? I think it was an accident. Maybe the driver was drunk. Or maybe he slipped on the ice because he was going so fast. If someone wanted to hurt me, they would have gotten out of the car to do so. I was right there.”

  He nodded, darting his eyes to mine, something like relief on his face. “Yeah, it was probably a drunk. Or a kid on a joyride. Who would want to hurt you, right?”

  “Exactly. I mean, it’s not like I’m investigating a mob family and writing about it in the New York Times. Then I might have some enemies.” I smiled, taking off my glove and brushing my fingertips over his mouth. “You worry too much.”

  He didn’t speak for a moment, leaning over to rest his head on the steering wheel. “Oregon, I’m in love with you. If anything happens to you I think it might kill me.”

  I opened my mouth to say something but nothing came. Outside the truck, a layer of snow fell from the branch of a leafless maple.

  He straightened, looking over at me. “I suppose it’s too soon for me to feel this way about you but I do. I have from that first day I met you. I’ve never felt this way about anyone in my life. It terrifies me like nothing ever has. Please, move in with me. Let me keep you safe.”

  I couldn’t think of one reason to argue. “I’m in love with you too.” I thought of how I’d searched for him in the throng of people that afternoon. “In every crowded space I search for you.”

  “Thank God you feel the same or I’d really feel like an idiot right now.”

  I laughed. “I should be terrified but I’m not. I’m just happy.”

  He smiled and touched my hair with his gloved hand. “Let’s get inside. I need a drink.”

  He kept his arm around me until we reached the house. Pulling his keys from his pocket, he opened the door and shuffled me inside, bolting the door behind us. I put my hat on the small table by the door and turned on the lamp next to the reading chair. He went to the cabinet next to the fireplace and pulled out a shotgun. There were several other long, shiny guns as well. He set one shotgun by the door. Grabbing another, without a word to me, he hustled up the stairs to the bedroom. After a moment, he came back down the stairs. “You ready for that drink?”

  ***

  Fall turned to winter. The first blizzard came and we were blissfully snowed in for two entire days. By Thanksgiving, I’d finished the rewrites and Patrick sent the manuscript off to his former colleague, Janie at Kingston.

  One afternoon in mid-December, John drove me out to Patrick’s after work. We were chatting amicably about our Christmas edition (every year the paper published grade school children’s letters to Santa) as he pulled into the clearing where Patrick parked his truck. His spot was empty but this wasn’t unusual for this time of day. Often he was out shopping for our dinner or making a run to the library. I jumped from John’s truck and waited for a moment, watching him bounce back down the driveway and onto the road. It was late afternoon but already the sky was dim; night came early in mid-December. I set out toward the cabin, warm from John’s truck and contented, thinking of the evening to come. Patrick had promised chicken stew with potatoes and carrots. There would be red wine, too, sitting in front of the fire, my feet in his lap and music from his stereo. And Patrick. If he was with me, I was happy.

  My boots crunched in the snow. It had dropped into the low twenties the night before and the snow was frozen and slippery even though Patrick shoveled the path after every snowfall. My thoughts had turned to Christmas and what I could afford to get him for a gift when I heard a snap of a tree branch to the left of me. I peered into the woods, expecting to see a deer. But I saw nothing. I stopped, though, and stood still, straining to hear. It was silent, only the hush of snow. That’s when I noticed them: six feet farther up, a person’s footprints veering off from the shoveled path, leading into the forest. The footprints were deep, because of the icy nature of the snow, and close together. This meant they were not Patrick’s. His long legs made wider strides than these. My flesh turned prickly and hard, the way it does when a sudden fear enters. I waited for a moment, suddenly cold. My eyes skirted across the landscape. The trees were in shadows, the snow gray in the dim light. Nothing. I did a full circle, scanning and peering into spaces between trees, and then, it came—the feeling of being watched. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up; I felt a tingle and then numbness in all four limbs. I returned my gaze to the spot I’d first heard the snap, but, again, nothing but trees. Just then, I heard the rumble of Patrick’s truck coming down the road.

  I headed back down the path, walking quickly, and came out into the clearing. Patrick’s truck was pulling into his usual spot, using the tracks made in the snow from when he’d left earlier. He waved. I did the same, the warm rush of relief coming to my limbs.

  He reached over to the passenger side of his truck and grabbed a bag of groceries before getting out and coming toward me. I shivered. What if someone waited for us in the woods? I shook my head. What was wrong with me? It was just my over-active imagination. When he approached me, he looked at me carefully.

  “Oregon, you all right? You’re white as a ghost.”

  “There’re footsteps into the forest from the path.” I paused, taking in a breath. “I thought I heard someone. And then…” I trailed off, feeling foolish.

  “What is it?” he asked, his voice gentle.

  “I felt like someone was watching me.”

  He set the grocery bag on the ground and took me in his arms. “It’s all right now. I’ll take a look. It’s probably nothing.” But his voice sounded odd, hollow and frightened.

  He picked up the groceries and we headed down the path to the house, me walking behind him, glancing back occasionally to see if anyone followed. It was growing steadily darker, approaching four-thirty now and I was cold and started shaking. When we arrived at the strange footprints, he stopped and r
eached for my hand, hugging the grocery bag in his other arm. As I had done, he peered at the footprints and then into the forest and then made a full circle. “Come on, let’s get inside.” He held onto my hand so tightly it hurt, almost dragging me, and several times I almost slipped trying to keep up with his long strides. Seeming not to notice, he continued on until we got to the house. The front porch light was on, warm yellow light flooding the yard.

  He let go of my hand and unlocked the door. I followed him inside. He switched on two lamps, then grabbed the shotgun from the table. “Lock the door. Wait for me here,” he said.

  He strode across the room, set the groceries on the kitchen table, and then charged up the stairs. I heard his footsteps go into the office and the bedroom, and the opening of the closet and bathroom doors. After a moment, he came back down the stairs. “You hungry?”

  I was at the bottom of the stairs, still in my jacket, my teeth chattering. “Patrick, should I be afraid?”

  He grinned but it was false. It didn’t reach his eyes. He kissed me quickly on the lips. “Of course not, Oregon. We’re all locked in here, safe and sound.” He put the gun back on the table by the door and came to where I stood, rubbing his hands up and down my arms. “You’re cold. I’ll get a fire started.” He kissed me again and went to the fireplace. Whistling, he wadded up newspaper and set kindling into a teepee and lit it with a quick strike of a match.

  I slid out of my coat and hung it on the rack near the door. Then I closed all the curtains.

  “If there is someone out there,” he said, “she certainly can’t survive a night in this cold.”

  “She?”

  “What?”

  “You said she.”

  “Did I? Well, he or she, no one can survive a night like this one. It’s supposed to get down to fourteen degrees or something.” He took off his jacket and hung it next to mine. “Anyway, those tracks are probably from a hunter out looking for a deer. I was gone all afternoon.”

  I sighed, thinking about this. What he said made sense. There were a lot of hunters in Vermont, right? Of course that’s what it was. “It was probably a deer that made the noise, right, Patrick?”

  “Sweetheart, of course.” He took me in arms, holding me tight against his chest. “It was just your writer mind going crazy.”

  “Yes, that’s it. Of course. I feel stupid.” But the way I said it, I was still fishing for his reassurance. I could hear it in my own voice.

  He kissed me on the mouth and then pulled away to look in my eyes. “I have a great dinner planned.” His hands moved to my hips. “I’m going to get some meat on these bones eventually.”

  The telephone rang. We both jumped. In the months we’d been together, the phone had never rung. I hadn’t thought of it until then. No one ever called here. “I wonder who that could be?” he said, his eyes suddenly twinkling, all look of worry gone. He went to answer from the phone that hung on the wall in the kitchen. Not wanting to pry into what might be a personal conversation, I went upstairs. I was still cold and decided to run a bath. Sitting on the edge of the tub, I turned on the water. It creaked and the water sputtered as it usually did. I waited for it to warm; sometimes it took a while, especially when it was as cold as it was today. When it was running hot over my cold fingers, I put the stopper in, sprinkled in some bubble bath Patrick had gotten for me the week before, and undressed while it filled. The room began to smell of sweet flowers. What did the bubble bath say it was? Primroses. I hadn’t realized primroses had such a wonderful smell. They grew in Aggie’s garden, and Louise used to say how pretty they were, growing in the pots on the porch. Shivering, I slipped into the tub, letting myself sink below the water, missing Louise. I should write to her tonight, I thought.

  The door to the bathroom opened and Patrick came in, grinning and rubbing his hands together.

  “It was Janie on the phone. She’s in love with your book. They want it. Kingston Press, that is. They want to offer you a deal.”

  I sat up, the bubbles clinging to my skin. “What did you say?”

  “Yep, you heard me. They’re giving you a five thousand dollar advance. And she wants to see the new book as soon as it’s done.”

  I stared at him, trying to comprehend what he was saying. “Five thousand?”

  He closed the lid of the toilet and sat down. “I know it’s a small print run to start because you’re a new author, but sweetheart, it’s a start. A really good start.”

  I leaned back, looking at the ceiling, and then back at him. “We did it.”

  “You did it.”

  “A published author?”

  “It’s just the beginning.” Still grinning, he started stripping off his clothes. “I’m getting in. I want to congratulate you properly. The stew will have to wait.”

  That night, after we made love, I rested in Patrick’s arms, my body encased in his bigger one, listening to the silence and watching the stars in the high, square windows. I couldn’t imagine being happier than I was at that moment.

  ***

  On Christmas Eve morning, I woke to an empty bed. The clock said it was after eight. I yawned and stretched, listening for Patrick’s movements downstairs but heard nothing but the tick of the clock on the dresser. Outside the window, snow fell in large, dry flakes. The smell of cinnamon and pumpkin drifted up from the kitchen, telling me that Patrick had been up and busy for hours, making muffins and probably other treats. I smiled, swinging my feet out of bed and onto the cold floor.

  After a quick shower and my minimal beauty routine, I went down to the empty kitchen. There were a dozen muffins, still in the tin, and a fresh loaf of some kind of quick bread, also still in its pan. I made a cup of tea, grabbed a muffin, and went to the office to work. I was close to finishing the first draft of my new manuscript and had made a goal to have it done by New Year’s. For one thing, Patrick was anxious to read it, but I wouldn’t let him until the entire draft was finished, which he begrudgingly accepted.

  Taking a fresh sheet of paper, I put it in the typewriter and pulled out my handwritten draft from the drawer. I worked intensely for at least an hour, having forgotten both my tea and the muffin, when something out the window caught the corner of my eye. It was Patrick, dressed in a flannel hat and his big jacket and boots, dragging a large fir tree across the snow-covered yard. I stood, watching from the window, as he set it on the porch. Then he crossed the yard to his workshop and came out a minute later with a wooden stand. Sipping my cold tea, I went back to my desk as the sound of a hammer penetrated the quiet morning. A few minutes later, he called up to me from the front door. “Oregon, get your cute butt down here. It’s Christmas Eve. We’re taking the day off.”

  I went to the landing. He stood by the door, grinning, holding his red hat in his hands.

  “I couldn’t possibly take the day off,” I said. “I’ve been terribly naughty all year and expect nothing from Santa.”

  “But your naughty is so nice.”

  I laughed and started down the stairs. “Where have you been?”

  “I cut down a tree,” he said, like a child might. “And I bought some new lights. All white. And as the woman of the house, you need to tell me where to put the tree.”

  I pointed to the corner with the reading chair. “There.”

  Without a word, he moved the chair over next to the couch before carrying the tree inside with one hand. In front of the fireplace was a box. He tapped it with his foot. “Decorations. God only knows what condition they’re in.”

  “I love decorations. And Christmas trees.” I began to sort through them as he strung the lights. There were homemade birds and a tree and a paper candy cane with Patrick’s photo from grade school. I stared at that photo until Patrick poked me to keep going.

  “I have to put a roast in the oven, so we need to hurry it along here.”

  “Do you ever think of anything but food?”

  “You. Naked.”

  I laughed, moving toward him. “Let’s wait on
the tree.” Wrapping my arms around his neck, I kissed him and pressed my small frame against his large one. “And the roast.”

  He pulled my legs around him. “You’re so bossy, Oregon.”

  ***

  Christmas day was clear and bright, the sunlight making diamonds on the snow. It was near nine but we were still in bed. I snuggled closer to Patrick and his arm came around me, pulling me close. The cabin was cold; I could see my breath. Patrick’s breathing was even; he’d fallen back to sleep.

  I snuck out of bed, draping a blanket around my shoulders, and went downstairs. I turned on the tree lights and stood looking at the sight of the white glow against the backdrop of the dark walls and the white snow beyond. Quietly, I went to the fireplace. There was a small red ember left from the night before. I stacked a few pieces of dry kindling on top of it and used a newspaper to get it all lit. After they were burning well, I put several pieces of wood on top and soon it was a fire worthy of Christmas morning.

  Patrick came down the stairs in his pajamas and thick robe. “Merry Christmas, Oregon.”

  We embraced and then he went to the kitchen to make our tea and put some kind of egg casserole in the oven. Afterward, he took my hand and made me sit on the couch. “I have presents.” From under the tree, he brought out a medium-sized box, wrapped in gold paper with a red bow. “Open it,” he ordered, plopping next to me.

  “You’re so bossy.” But I was already unwrapping. Lifting the lid of the box, I gasped. It was a clock, made of cherry wood, with a dainty, feminine face and hands. “Oh, it’s beautiful. I love it.”