Tea and Primroses

by Tess Thompson

  “I made it. In my shop.”

  “That’s what you’ve been doing in there?”

  “I have a half dozen, all different. But I made this one for you.” He smiled, tugging on the ties of his robe. “I’m calling this The Constance.”

  “Will you make more, then?”

  “Yes.” He was up and reaching under the tree once more. It was a small box this time, the size used for jewelry. I opened it. Inside was a necklace made of sapphire stones, the size and shape one might see on a diamond tennis bracelet. My eyes misted. “It’s too much, Patrick.”

  “No, it’s perfect for you. Matches your eyes.” He paused, smiling. “It was my mother’s. My pop gave it to her as a wedding gift. It was the only nice thing she ever had. After she died, he saved it for me to give someday to the woman I loved. And I wanted you to have it.” He stopped, his voice sounding strangled at the back of his throat.

  “I love you too.” It was no more than a whisper.

  He kissed me, soft and tender, until I shivered. “Are you cold?”

  I nodded, too shy to confess that it was this moment and everything he was that made me shudder with happiness and emotion and love.

  He got up from the couch and put another log on. The flame grew higher. I felt the heat on my cheeks. I draped the necklace across my lap, wondering why he’d never given it to his wife. But I couldn’t ask, not now.

  But as if he read my mind, he answered my question. “Sigourney would never have wanted it. She’s used to much finer jewelry, diamonds and such. So I kept it hidden away here in a box of things that are special to me.” He put out his hand. “Here now, let’s put it on you and see how it looks.”

  I handed him the necklace and he leaned close, fastening it at the nape of my neck. It draped just a smidge above my collarbones. We went to the mirror hanging by the front door so I could see. Indeed, it matched my eyes. And my eyes—they were shining as brightly as the gems. My cheeks were flushed. This is what happy looks like, I thought. “I never thought I’d love a piece of jewelry,” I said. “But now I see what all the fuss is about.”

  He laughed. “You’re a weird girl, Oregon.”

  “I know.”

  “The perfect girl for me.” He kissed my neck. “Now where are my presents?”

  I wrapped my arms around his waist, resting my head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. “It’s under the tree.”

  Before we settled back on the couch, he put Emmy Lou Harris’s Christmas album on the stereo. Then he opened his gift. It was a signed original of the Ken Kesey novel, Sometimes A Great Notion.

  “I thought you might like to read an Oregon story,” I said. “You know, to understand me better.”

  “I’ve read it, Oregon. Of course I’ve read it. But how did you find a signed original?”

  “John’s wife used some of her connections. It wasn’t that hard. Rich people know other rich people who can get them what they want.”

  “How did you afford this?”

  “Well, if you hadn’t noticed I have no expenses since you take such good care of me.”

  “I love it. Thank you.” He set it on the mantle and came back to the couch. “But not as much as I love you.” He held out his hand. “Dance with me?”

  “If you insist.”

  “Oh, but, Oregon, I do insist.”

  “So bossy,” I murmured into his neck as his arms tightened around my waist.

  “So beautiful,” he whispered back.

  CHAPTER NINE

  SUTTON PUT UP HER HAND to indicate that Declan should stop reading. “I need a drink.” She placed her half-eaten cinnamon roll on the platter and wiped her sticky fingers on a napkin, then went to the bar and poured them each a tumbler of scotch. The sun was high outside the large windows. She turned to him, holding both glasses in her hands. “I never saw my mother dance. Not once. Not even that last Christmas when Roma was still with us and you asked Mom to dance with you. And she could never refuse you anything. Do you remember?”

  Rubbing his eyes, he nodded, his voice low. “She said she’d rather watch us dance.”

  Sutton felt the sting of regret, remembering. They’d danced near the tree to the Emmy Lou Harris Christmas album—her mother’s choice. She saw the room as it had been. Sutton was twenty-three that year and Declan had just turned twenty-five but they’d come home for the holidays like salmon swimming upstream. Declan was living and working in Seattle; Sutton was in her first year of pastry school. Declan bought them a giant Christmas tree from the local lot two days before Christmas and they’d all teased him that it might not fit as he set it in the corner by the big window. And they’d decorated it together, the four of them; Declan strung the lights, all white, and Sutton and Roma had put the ornaments one by one on the branches. Her mother was there but didn’t help decorate. She’d opened wine and put music on, watching them from the couch.

  “She says in the manuscript she loved to decorate the tree but she never did it with us. And she loved to dance with Patrick but never danced with us. Why is that?”

  He shrugged and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Do you really not know why?”

  What did he mean? “I never thought of it until now but she never put one ornament on the tree in all the Christmases that we still had a tree.”

  He looked at her. “You no longer have a tree?”

  “Not since you left.”

  He flinched and then went still. “What? Why?”

  “I don’t know. Seemed silly for just the two of us, I guess. We usually went out to dinner on Christmas Eve and opened presents when we got home. Then we both slept in on Christmas morning.”

  He was quiet.

  “Declan, what is it?”

  “I was away too long.”

  Neither of them spoke or looked at one another for a long moment. Finally, she handed him the drink she hadn’t realized was still in her hand. “Do you remember that night we danced? After our mothers went to bed?”

  He held his drink in both hands, his gaze on the inside of the glass. “Yes.”

  She sat next to him on the couch and took a sip of her scotch. It was strong but warm down her throat. Something restless was inside her; she wanted to poke him, provoke him. She wanted him to talk about their past. Was it her mother’s love story with Patrick so fresh in her mind? Whatever it was, she could not let it go. “You kissed me for the first time that night.”

  “I remember.”

  “On this couch.”

  He looked up at her. “Sutton. Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  He tipped back his glass and downed his entire drink in one swallow, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Don’t what?” she repeated.

  “I can’t do this.”

  “Talk?”

  “Yeah, Sutton. Talk.” He waved his glass in the air. “Talk about what was one of the greatest nights of my life, knowing now how it all ended. It’s the same damn reason your mother couldn’t decorate a tree or dance after losing Patrick. She loved him, Sutton, like I loved you. And it was obviously too painful to do without him.” He rose to his feet and went to the bar, pouring another generous amount of scotch into his glass. Turning to her, he leaned against the bar, holding his drink at his chest. “I’ve spent the better part of six years trying not to think about that night or any of the other ones we spent together.” His voice was loud with a bitter, harsh quality. “I’ve done everything I can think of, including bedding dozens of women to try and forget you, and you know what, nothing worked. Nothing works.” He elongated these last two words. “I’ve loved you my entire pitiful life and being back here, seeing you, sitting next to you on this damn couch is almost more than I can stomach.” He took a large swallow of his drink. “You know what I remember?”

  “Forget it.”

  “Come on, do you want to know?” He slammed his glass on the bar.

  She shook her head, blinded by tears, and bro
ught her drink up to her trembling mouth. “No. Just stop.”

  “Bullshit if I’m stopping now. You pushed me to talk about it. Let me tell you what I remember. For a solid two years I’d wanted you. You were my best friend all my life but something shifted that summer after I finished college. I saw you as a woman, not just my best friend. You were the woman I loved. But I kept it to myself because you were going through all that angst at college trying to remain interested in academics when they were so unsuited for you. I knew instinctively the timing wasn’t right. So I kept it all to myself. When you had the courage to drop college and go to pastry school I could see you’d changed. That holiday after starting pastry school I could see you’d blossomed. You were comfortable in your own skin; you weren’t trying to be like everyone else. You were finally just you. And it was intoxicating to see the woman I loved so confident and happy. I didn’t know if you felt it or not. I knew you loved me as a best friend—we had the nightly phone calls to prove it—but I didn’t know if you thought of me that way until that night we danced together. It was then I knew. You were almost breathless when I held you and I could feel that your skin was damp. So after our mothers went to bed I put a Hitchcock movie on, hoping you’d get scared and inch a little closer to me on the couch. I didn’t even see the movie because it was just you on the other end of the couch with your long legs stretched out on the coffee table and your jeans hugging your hips and your chest in that purple cashmere sweater, practically begging me to reach under it and feel your skin.

  “And when you placed your fingertips on my knee and turned your face to look up at me and said, ‘Are you ever going to kiss me?’ I thought it might be a dream but I didn’t hesitate, Sutton, because when it came to you I knew exactly what I wanted.” He picked up his glass and swallowed the rest of the scotch. “You were the one confused about what you wanted, not me. So why you want to hash this all out now, after almost six years, is beyond me.”

  She began to cry and wrapped her arms around her waist, trying to control the shaking. “You ran away, Declan. Don’t pretend like this was all me. I asked for a little time to grow up more, to establish my career, and instead of giving that to me, you ran away, which proved to me you hadn’t really loved me as much as you said you did. You chose traveling the world over me. You chose bedding dozens of women instead of sticking around and giving me a little time to establish my own life.”

  “That’s a goddamn lie.” Shouting, he threw his empty glass across the room. It crashed against the wall and fell to the floor, splitting in two. “I wanted a life that we built together. How is that so difficult to understand? That’s what love is.”

  “I needed time to become fully myself, Dec. Flunking out of college wasn’t exactly good for the ego, you know? And you and my mother were so busy planning everything out for me you didn’t stop to think it wasn’t your place. It was mine. Not to mention you were impetuous and moody, Declan.”

  “And you were insecure and frightened.”

  “Exactly. How is that a good combination for building a life together?”

  “You tell me, Sutton. You seem to have all the answers.”

  “I asked you for time and you couldn’t give it.”

  “Wait a minute, now, haven’t you done the same thing to Roger? Didn’t you ask him for a little time to think?” He made quotes in the air. “Well, hell, I know what that means. You don’t love him enough to marry him, just like me. Does it ever get tiresome? Breaking men’s hearts because you’re too afraid to really commit to something? Are you ever going to commit to anything, Sutton, other than being afraid of your own shadow?”

  “Screw you. You left because you didn’t get exactly what you wanted when you wanted it. Just admit it and then go back to Italy and continue to fuck your way across Europe.” She pointed at the door. “Get out.”

  “With pleasure.” With that, he turned on his heel and left the room. She heard the front door slam several minutes later.

  She paced for a moment or two, crying silently. Then, she did the only thing she could think to do. She picked up the manuscript to read more of her mother’s story.

  WINTER

  On a Saturday morning just before New Year’s, I was working at the desk in the office upstairs when there was a knock on the front door. Patrick was downstairs, making breakfast. I heard him move across the wood floor to the door. I got up from the desk and then, instinctively, decided it was best for me to remain upstairs. Patrick’s voice carried up the stairs.

  “Maurice,” said Patrick. “What’re you doing here?”

  The voice that answered was loud and deep with a strong New York accent. “Came by to see how you’re doing.”

  “Come on in.” Patrick’s voice sounded pinched. I heard the front door close. I snuck out to the landing above the living room, careful not to make a sound. They stood by the front door. The voice matched the man. Maurice Templeton was as tall as Patrick but barrel-chested, making him appear larger and more powerful, intensified by his dark blue suit and red tie. Who wore a suit on a Saturday? He was a man who filled a room, of that there was no doubt.

  “You have some coffee for your father-in-law?” His face was reddish and seemed bloated, like someone who ate too many fried, salty foods. He had a wide forehead with thinning white hair slicked back.

  “I don’t. I’m a tea drinker.”

  “Since when?” Silently, I went back to the office and sat at the desk, listening, my heart rate quickened.

  “Since always.”

  “I didn’t remember that.” I heard heavy footsteps cross the room and the floorboard near the couch that always creaked. “So, this hiatus you’ve enjoyed needs to come to an end. Sigourney wants you to come home. Hell, so do I. You’re missed at Kingston.”

  “I’m not coming back.”

  “This foolishness needs to stop.”

  “I’ve filed for divorce. Get her help, Maurice. But I can’t do it any longer.”

  “She’s desperate, Patrick. If you care for her at all, you’ll come home and look after her. You owe her that much. I don’t know what she might do. To herself, or someone else.”

  “I gave up too much of my life already.”

  “You ever hear of for better or worse?”

  Patrick was quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry she’s having a hard time, truly, I am. But you helped make her the way she is, not me. I’m taking care of myself, for the first time since I married her.”

  “You’ll never work in publishing again. Is that what you want?”

  Patrick’s voice was loud now. “Take your threats and your editor job and stick it up your ass. Now get out of my house.”

  Maurice appeared calm, given the even, low tone of his voice. “You’re a foolish man, Patrick. I knew it the moment I met you. Enjoy this shit-hole life you’re so dedicated to. I’ll make sure your name is mud in my town.”

  “There’s the door, Maurice.”

  I heard footsteps, the door open and close, and then the sound of the deadbolt.

  Stepping out to the landing, I looked down. Patrick was leaning against the door, his chest rising and falling.

  He looked up at me. “Well, I guess I just sealed my fate.”

  “Is it really what you want?”

  “Freedom, Oregon, to make your own choices—it’s the only thing that matters. No career is worth it.” He walked across the room and headed up the stairs, two at a time. At the top, he grabbed me in his arms and swung me in a circle. “God, it’s good to be free. You’ll marry me, won’t you, Constance Mansfield, when all this is said and done?”

  “Yes,” I whispered against his chest. “Yes.”

  “I’ll figure out what’s next for me, I promise. And we can build a life together.”

  The lump in my throat kept me from speaking. I moved closer to him, until my body felt merged into his. He stroked my hair until he took my hand and led me into the bedroom.

  ***

  Dark January kept us inside fo
r much of the time. We didn’t care. I worked and Patrick spent time in his shop, coming in after a day’s work smelling of wood shavings. One evening, after dinner, we were on the couch in front of the fire, sipping wine. “What do you think about this clock thing?” he asked, his voice unusually meek. My feet were on his lap and he stroked my arches with his fingers.

  “As a business?” I said it without reflection, in case he meant something else, but already my mind was turning with possibilities.

  “Yeah.” He turned his gaze to the fire. “Does it sound stupid?”

  I swung my feet off his lap and scooted toward him, wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing him several times in rapid succession on his cheek. “I think it’s perfect.”

  “Do you really think so?” His face was vulnerable, more so than I’d ever seen it.

  “I really do.”

  He pulled me onto his lap, touching my hair and looking into my eyes. “Something about you makes me feel like I could do anything.”

  “That’s how you make me feel too.”

  He shook his head, chuckling. “My poor dad’s probably turning over in his grave. All the sacrifice to send me to college and how proud he was that I was a book editor in New York, and now I’m back in his house making things with my hands, just like he did.”

  I touched the side of his face. “He’s proud of you. A man figures out how to start over when everything goes awry. That’s what you’ve done. He’d be proud that you’re not letting the bastards win.”

  ***

  Several days later, I went out to the porch with my tea, enjoying the break from snow that had brought clear blue sky. I had misplaced my hat somewhere but it almost felt warm with the sun on my hair and face. I wore my necklace every day and in the light it was like a heater around my neck. I kept fingering it, wishing I had a mirror to see how it sparkled in the light. I wandered down the steps and sat; Patrick had shoveled them after the snowfall. There was something on the snow, on the edge of the clearing, just outside the trail. At first I thought it was merely a shadow but then I could see it was an object of some kind. I got up from the steps and walked over to it, my boots sinking into the soft snow. As I approached, my eyes couldn’t register what it was until finally I was upon it. I was seeing blood—bright red on the snow and splattered, like it had been tossed from a bucket. Beyond, just down the trail, was a dead deer, its black eyes staring lifelessly toward the sky.