Cold Comfort (7 page)

Before our eating festival got underway, we all sat down, clasped our hands together and said grace. The atmosphere surrounding us was infused with a whole medley of gastronomic aromas swept up amid the warm spit and crackle of the fire.

As the dinner progressed, so did the conversation.

Talk of the weather dotted the antipasto and hot hors d’oeuvres courses. Jack was like a little kid, completely uninhibited in tipping back his head and slipping long, paper thin slices of imported prosciutto into his mouth. Then he heaped his cocktail plate full of stuffed mushrooms, deep-fried mozzarella sticks and rice balls.

As garlicky steam rose from the soup tureen and the greens from the Caesar salad glistened with dressing on our plates, Aunt Minnie asked Jack all of the things that I, myself, had been curious about but was too afraid to voice.

We learned how Jack abandoned his passion for the arts
(“it was a no-brainer between starving and finally having a bank account!”
), how he came to run his uncle’s seafood business
(“the best decision I ever made—although I couldn’t see it that way at the time!”
) and then he made mention of his divorce from Little-Miss-what’s-her-name
(“You know how creative types are. We get restless. In the end, we wanted different things… She grew tired of my working too much and found somebody else”).

When it came time for the fish course, cod fillets rolled around a stuffing of raisins, pine nuts, lemon juice, parsley and topped with breadcrumbs, Aunt Minnie snapped more photos. She regaled Jack and me with the story behind the dish—how it was brought to America by her grandmother, all the way from Salina, a very tiny island off the coast of Sicily.

“We’ve always included the fish course on Thanksgiving to pay homage to our Italian-American roots,” she said.

Jack asked for the recipe. He seemed impressed and genuinely interested, just as he was during the manicotti course when he asked about my work. Watching the candlelight on his rapt face, I told him about all the places I’d been and seen and where my photographs had been published.

The burning candles melted down and as the wax became more pliable, my heart also began to soften. No matter how much I resisted, Jack was easy to be with, and it was as though we’d picked up right where we’d left off before things went awry in college. I don’t know if it was the wine or Aunt Minnie serving as a buffer, but over the hours, I not only satiated my appetite, but as the missing years of Jack’s life and mine gradually filled in, I found myself actually getting lost in the day.

* * *

We were all full by the time we approached the piece de resistance, the turkey course. Therefore, we took a short interlude, allowing the mashed potatoes, yams and the green bean casserole to heat upon the outdoor gas grill. While we waited, Jack reached for the transistor radio sitting atop the spinet piano. Flipping past the static of weather reports, he came upon a radio broadcast of Glenn Miller’s Make-Believe Ballroom—big-band tunes from the 1920s.

Aunt Minnie—cane hung over her arm and a glass of wine in hand—danced her way into the living room. Jack quickly rose to his feet and hurried toward her. The two of them sashayed through the limited space of the warm, cozy parlor. The sight of their merriment and the blizzard, a tempest raging through the windows behind them, seemed to capture this moment as if inside a snow-globe. The anxiety I’d stirred-up for twenty-four hours in anticipation of this day—all those years, everything that had come between Jack and me and had wrenched us apart—seemed somehow subdued and calm, almost at rest.

But when my aunt stopped dancing and said, “Okay, enough for me. Time for the young people to cut the rug,” and Jack extended the invitation of his hand my way, my reverie was broken.

“Oh, c’mon, Aunt Minnie,” I said, inhaling a deep breath and pulling an imaginary piece of fuzz from my sweater. “Don’t make Jack suffer through my two left feet.”

“I’ll suffer gladly,” he said.

“We should really go and check on the grill,” I told him, feeling tense and awkward as I rose to my feet, disdaining his offer.

* * *

The day fought against the night. The snowfall became lighter and wisps of smoke from the grill swirled in the pale, dim light of the deepening dusk. Jack and I were bundled up, quietly standing in the alley, waiting for the potatoes and green beans to warm a little more.

“Feels like we’ve been living like pioneers all day, doesn’t it?” he remarked, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets.

“Yeah, I don’t understand how and why people go on camping vacations.”

“Or ice fishing…would never have the wherewithal for that.”

“Me, neither,” I said.

Fidgety, Jack kept his gloved fingers firmed around the handle of the grill. He lifted it every now and then, revealing the foil-topped roasting pans cramming every square inch of the metal grate.

“So, let’s see,” Jack said, pointing to a great big diver’s watch on his wrist. “We’ve gotten through almost three hours together… Is it safe yet for me to ask about the Mr. Wonderful in your life?”

“Mr. Wonderful?”

“Yeah, how is he?
Who
is he?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I told him, kicking at the snow. “But if you should bump into him, tell him I’ve been looking everywhere for him.”

He searched my eyes and stuttered. “So, in other words, you-you’re not
Mrs.
Wonderful?”

“No. But I have no problem being referred to as
Ms.
Wonderful.”

He chuckled. “Last I heard, through the grape vine, you were getting married.”

“Oh, I am…I am getting married,” I told him, with a sure sense of conviction. “Someday…”

He grinned.

“…Never made it to the altar. Things ended badly before we ever tied the knot.”

“Well, count your blessings,” he said. “When things end badly
after
you tie the knot, it takes a whole cracker-jack team of lawyers and your entire life savings to sever the damn thing.”

“That bad?”

“Yeah, bitter and nasty… And the custody battle made matters even worse.”

“How old is your daughter now?”

“Nine and half…”

I swung my head in disbelief.

“…And I hate how I miss out on so much of her life.” Jack’s face seemed twisted with grief. “I fought and fought for sole custody. But when they wound up putting her on the stand, seven years-old at the time, and she broke down in the courtroom, I finally gave in and just settled for shared custody… The whole thing nearly broke my heart.”

“Gee, that’s terrible. I’m sorry,” I told him. “But, at least the ordeal is over and behind you now. I hope you can at least enjoy the time you get to spend with her.”

“Yeah, but sometimes it feels like cold comfort.”

Silence carried his words like wind in the leaves. I glanced at the double set of our footprints marking the path behind us in the alleyway. Snow was accumulating in our tracks, diluting them, quickly covering everything up.

“I think I know what you mean,” I told him. “There’s nothing harder than being on the receiving end of heartbreak.”

Smoke from the grill rose between us like a ghost.

“Unless, of course, you’re the one who did the heartbreaking,” Jack said, creases filling his forehead. “You don’t know how many times I’ve wondered how my life would’ve turned out if only I would’ve made better choices, done things differently. I’ve made so many mistakes…”

“We all make mistakes.” At that moment, I lamented never telling him how I felt back in college.

“…And the thing is, I was getting married and you were in the midst of your big career boom. By the time I realized that my best friend not only wore a bra, but she was also my soul mate, it seemed like it was too late…”

As his words spilled out in one long breath, my stomach jumped. I suddenly grasped that we were no longer talking about his daughter and his divorce. He was referring to us.

Jack’s eyes met mine. The irises were a watery brown; the whites pink with a sense of remorse. I couldn’t look away.

“…I’m really sorry I fouled everything up for us.” His voice wavered. “I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

A cold shiver rushed the length of my spine, prickling beneath my hairline. The world around us seemed to hold its breath.

I searched Jack’s face, the crow’s feet around his solemn eyes, his dark, blue ski cap all dusted with snowflakes. For the first time since our paths had crossed, a vulnerability emerged in Jack—a vulnerability derived from something deeper, something with a resonance and a quiet intensity that had been seasoned by time and the disappointments that come from living.

My heart hammered beneath my ribs and a solid lump swelled in my throat. If I’d had my camera with me, I would’ve taken a picture just then and captured this moment—the sight of me and Jack amid the bluish-white glow of twilight in the aftermath of the storm. The two of us—a little older, hopefully a little wiser—finally together again after all the years.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, too,” I told him.

* * *

The flambéed turkey sat on the table bright and ablaze. Aunt Minnie snapped a few Smartphone pictures of Jack as she had invited him to carve the bird.

When we were all stuffed to the gills, Jack stoked the fire. The two of us, Jack and I, insisted that Aunt Minnie settle on the warm couch. With big band music serenading her from the transistor radio, Jack and I did the clean-up and the dishes. Amid the darkened windows and the flickers of light from the candles set around the kitchen, Jack washed, and I dried. Traces of that brassy, big band music trickled in from the parlor. Like the days of old, a comfortable, uninhibited quiet filled the void between Jack and me, and I could feel things slowly evolving, the disappointment and bitterness I’d harbored during all those years suddenly coalescing into something softer, more sympathetic. In one afternoon, “the guy who broke my heart in college” had become my best friend all over again. I couldn’t deny that I had ever stopped loving him. And while it was clear we had both attempted to get on with our lives, our shared past—the difficult parts that had lingered, at least in my own life for all those years—suddenly dissipated and somehow got lost in the shadows of the twilight.

The snow soon stopped and in the wake of the storm, the world outside loomed even more dark and quiet.

When everything was put away and the leftovers wrapped up and put in a cooler we stashed in the vestibule, Jack and I set up Aunt Minnie’s old-fashioned, dented stovetop percolator. As the coffee brewed, we wandered back to the living room. The floor beneath our feet creaked as we found Aunt Minnie zonked out on the sofa. I bundled her in a crocheted afghan, as Jack added another log to the fire. The two of us settled on the floor, atop some throw pillows. Our knees were almost touching.

“I really enjoyed spending time with you again,” he cooed. “I’ve missed you…”

He held out his hand. This time, I took it. And as he gently wrapped his fingers more tightly around mine, the warmth of his touch shuddered through my body until I wasn’t quite sure where his pulse ended and mine began.

For a while, we just sat there—his fingers squeezing mine as we stared into the sizzling fire, mesmerized by the sharp, hot angles of the flames. The sight before us hissed and sputtered as if we were watching a living, breathing thing until one of the logs broke free and burst into a dazzling new flame.

Jack’s voice crept beneath the silence. “To think that people in Florida are probably wearing their bathing suits right now, sitting under palm trees lathered in coconut-infused suntan lotion while devouring big, fat turkey drumsticks.” He turned to me. His face was flushed red, as if with fever. Then he gave me a sweet, tender smile that was as bright as a light snapping on in the darkness. “Look at what they’re missing out on… All of this,” he said, holding his free arm open wide.

We were close enough now that his features seemed to lose all distinction, leaving me only to conjure the feelings I had for him in this moment, in our own private world. And there, amid the firelight that cast everything into shades of gold, I realized that the past had passed. Now was all there was. That’s when I let him go—”the guy who broke my heart in college”—and finally, I let myself go.

I eased closer and buried myself in Jack’s open arms.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kathleen Gerard is the author of
In Transit
, a woman-in-jeopardy novel set in the NYPD Transit Police Division. The book was awarded “Best Romantic Fiction” at The New York Book Festival 2011. Gerard writes across genres. Her short fiction has been awarded
The Perillo Prize, The Eric Hoffer Prose Award
and was nominated for
Best New American Voices
and
Short Story America
, all national prizes in literature. In addition, her prose and poetry have been widely published and broadcast on
National Public Radio
(
NPR
). Kathleen currently writes and reviews books for
Shelf Awareness
. To learn more, visit www.kathleengerard.blogspot.com.