Still Life with Plums (22 page)

“He’ll say yes, Mama, I know it.”

“We’ll see. But this isn’t forever, okay? This isn’t forever.”

“I know.”

“Now go to your room for awhile. Jack and I need to have a little talk.”

Chloe skipped to her room, but paused to watch her mother pad to the living room, kneel beside Jack, and slide her hand up his T-shirt. He rolled toward her and Sarah buried her face in his beard.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll stay home with Chloe.”

For the most part she did.

Sarah sat from morning till noon, eyes ping-ponging from Chloe to the front door, foot twitching against the viny green fingers threatening to tug at Sarah’s feet. She tried to sound excited when Chloe found another picture of a rabbit hutch, lion’s den, eagle’s nest. “That’s real nice, honey. No, I’m sure it’s safe or they wouldn’t build them up that high.”

Afternoons were rough when the luring sun glared bright outside, and the thick pull of the bars was unyielding. Sarah paced the house, shredding frenzied trails of tissues until she relented and yanked on her coat. “I’ll just be a sec, okay? I’m going to the corner, so don’t answer the phone, all right?” She’d plant a hard kiss on her daughter’s head and yell, “Be right back!” before closing the door.

Heavy snow fell the first Saturday of December. “Guess this is the day,” Jack said. “Everybody grab your coats.”

Chloe lay belly down on the living room floor, coloring. “What for?”

“Christmas tree hunting.”

“Isn’t it kind of early?” Sarah asked. She huddled under a thick blanket on the couch, feet pummeling the cushions.

“Gotta get our tree before all the good ones are gone.”

“You go. We’ll stay here where it’s warm,” Sarah said, swaddling the blanket around her.

Jack tilted his head. “Aw, come on. I haven’t done this in years.”

“I’ll go!” Chloe said, standing.

“I don’t think so,” Sarah said. “It’s pretty nasty outside.”

“Let her come,” Jack said.

“Please, Mama?”

“Didn’t you hear me? I said no.”

Jack looked at Sarah, then tugged Chloe’s earlobe. “Sorry, kid. I’ll pick us out a good one.” He zipped his coat and went outside.

Chloe bit her lower lip, scowling, as she listened to Jack scraping the truck windows outside.

“Don’t give me that look,” Sarah said. “Tell you what. We’ll have our own fun. Want me to paint your fingernails?” She stood, draped the blanket over her shoulders, and headed down the hall. “Now where’d I put that stuff? It’s got glitter in it!” she yelled from the bathroom.

Chloe didn’t wait for her mother to find it; she snatched her coat and ran outside.

Jack was sliding the truck in gear when Chloe opened the passenger door.

“She changed her mind?” he said.

Chloe looked straight ahead. “Uh huh.”

They wove through slushy streets to lot after lot. “Too scrawny.
Too bare. It leans,” Jack kept saying. But after they loaded the perfect blue spruce in his truck, Jack blew on his fingers and said, “You want hot chocolate?”

“Sure!” Chloe said, head bobbing.

Inside Benny’s Donuts, Jack thawed his fingers over the steamy cocoa. Laverne, the waitress, slid a Santa cookie in front of Chloe. “On the house,” Laverne said.

“Really?” Chloe said.

“If it’s okay with your dad.”

Chloe expected Jack to correct the mistake. All he said was, “Okay by me.”

Chloe swiveled on her bar stool, dunking marshmallows, trying to decipher this new warm bubble in her stomach, her chest.

Jack sensed her joy. “I’m glad your mom let you come.”

Chloe stopped swiveling. The bubble popped, spilling a bitter liquid inside her. She opened and closed her mouth twice before whispering, “She didn’t.”

“What?”

“I never picked out a tree before.”

Jack clinked his spoon against the mug. “Your mom is really going to be pissed.”

Chloe whispered, “I know.”

“At me, too.”

She looked up at him. “You?” The liquid in her belly turned into acid that burned.

Laverne leaned over the counter. “Anything else?”

“No.” Jack slid a five from his wallet. “Well wait, Chloe. Why don’t we get your mom a peace offering? Maybe a cake with lots of flowers and swirls?”

“We got a real pretty poinsettia cake over here. You like that?” Laverne asked.

Chloe nodded.

Laverne pulled out the cake and set it before them. “You want any writing on it?”

“What do you think, Chloe?”

“How about, World’s Best Mama, Love Chloe and Jack.”

Jack laughed. “That ought to soften her up.”

“Can you do it in pink?” Chloe asked. “Mama likes pink.”

“Sure, honey,” Laverne said. “And I’ll do it right here so you can watch.” She grabbed a frosting tube and squeezed out bright pink gel, calling out each letter as she wrote. “Now you’re gonna have to help me with the Chloe part. How do you spell that name?” She looked at Jack, who looked at Chloe.

“How do you spell your name?” he asked.

Chloe pressed her hands out flat on the counter.

“It’s okay, sugar,” Laverne said. “You wanna write it yourself?” She held out the tube.

Chloe reached out, but pushed it away. “I don’t want to.”

Jack looked at Chloe, but said to Laverne, “Just take your best shot.”

Sarah rubbed her red hands as she paced before the picture window. She’d gone outside without gloves or coat, circling the neighborhood in search of Chloe. “God,” she said. When Jack’s truck pulled in the driveway, she leaned against the window straining to see inside the cab. There she was. “Thank God,” Sarah said. Jack got out and opened Chloe’s door. Reaching in he drew out a white box. Chloe hopped down and walked behind him, feet dragging through the snow.

When the front door opened, Jack said, “You should have come, Sarah, we had a great time.”

Sarah pushed past him, knelt down, and hugged her daughter. “I was afraid your father—” She squeezed Chloe, then held her at arm’s length. “Don’t you ever go off without me. You hear?”

Chloe mumbled, “Yeah.”

“You hear me!”

“Yes!”

Sarah stood. “And you,” she said to Jack. “Don’t ever take my daughter anywhere without me.”

“We wanted you to come, Sarah. And you know I’d never let anything happen to her. She’s like my own kid.”

Sarah’s cold eyes drilled into his. “She’s
not
yours.”

“All right, all right,” he said, thrusting the cake forward. “Here. We brought you a present.”

Instead of grabbing the box, Sarah grabbed Chloe’s hand and yanked her down the hall.

Jack held the cake and watched Sarah recede. “You’re welcome.”

Chloe ripped into her third pack of tinsel. Jack slipped a wire hook onto a gold ornament and handed it to Sarah.

“You ever hear from Chloe’s special school?” Jack asked.

Chloe hesitated, but threw another wad of tinsel high up on the tree and watched it slide down.

Sarah buried the gold ball deep inside the tree. “They said we probably wouldn’t hear until summer.”

“I see.” He paused. “Cause Wilson Elementary is just a few blocks over and I hear it’s pretty good. Some of the guys at work have kids there. They say it’s all right.”

“Waste of time,” Sarah said.

“I don’t know. I mean, she’s gonna be eight—”

“I know how old Chloe’s gonna be. Don’t you think I know how old my own daughter is?”

He handed her a red star. “Yes. It’s just that I thought maybe she could start in January when the other kids go back. Might give her a head sta—”

“I do the thinking for Chloe. I’m still her mother, so quit trying to buddy up to—”

Chloe stopped flinging tinsel when Jack rose and grabbed both of her mother’s wrists. Sarah tried to pull free, but Jack held tight.

“Let go!” Sarah yelled.

Jack leaned close to her face. “I
do
have an ulterior motive. If Chloe’s in school down the street, you’ll both have to stick around me for a good long time.” He held her arms behind her, kissing her hard and fast on the mouth. “Got it?” He let go and settled back down to hook ornaments. Sarah stood with her arms still behind her. Jack handed over a reindeer made of pipe cleaners and spools. “Now get busy, woman. We got a heap a tree to cover.”

Chloe smiled wide and threw tinsel even higher up the tree.

Sarah slid into hot bath water with a wince. Inhaling deeply, she marveled that the tree’s pine scent lingered even here. The faucet eked a slow drip-drip. Sounds of sawing and hammering drifted through the window, sounds that had persisted all day. Earlier, Sarah went out back, snooping, but Chloe hollered: “Stay out!”

“Elf work,” Jack added. “Sorry, ma’am.”

Sitting back in the tub, Sarah felt warmth penetrate down to marrow. It surprised her. She had grown used to the deep chill that no sweater, blanket, or thermostat would ease. But today the chill was gone.

Sliding under water, quiet pressure clamped against her ears. Only here could she allow the thought to mature, Jack’s thought planted with four nothing words. “A good long time.” Sarah pushed a bubble from her mouth. It rose to the surface and burst with a possibility of permanence she hadn’t considered for years.

In the bedroom, Sarah lifted Jack’s photo from the nightstand and ran her fingers along its cool frame. She studied the two images. Jack
and his daughter fit tight like a puzzle. How easy it looked, this closeness, this bond, and how safe. She traced the photographer’s shadow that crept up beside them. Maybe it’s me, she thought, trying to squeeze inside.

On a Friday after dinner Sarah ran her fingertip along Jack’s jaw. “I have to talk to you,” she said, “in the bedroom.” She wanted to celebrate her first sober day.

Chloe set down her milk glass. “But Jack, we have to finish the—you know!”

Jack kissed Sarah’s palm. “We can work on that later, Chloe.”

Sarah wrapped her hand around Jack’s wrist and teased him toward the bedroom, toward the silver-framed photo.

Chloe painted her third miniature shutter when Jack creaked into the garage.

“How’s it going?” he said.

She stopped painting. “So-so.”

He eyed the birdhouse, Chloe’s gift idea, an exact replica of his own house right down to yellow siding, green shutters, red roof.

“Looks great to me,” he said, ignoring the paint runs and missed patches.

“You sure it won’t blow down?” she asked.

Jack rolled the metal pole on the ground with his foot. He planned to cement it into the ground come spring. “That baby’s not going anywhere.”

Chloe grinned and dabbed her brush into paint.

Four days before Christmas Sarah lay on the couch; the dim glow of the lit tree soothed her. In the kitchen, Jack and Chloe washed the supper dishes. Their low murmurs and laughter floated around
Sarah, lulling her toward sleep.

“Sarah,” Jack said, easing her back a notch.

She opened one eye.

“Listen,” he said. “I have to go over to my ex-wife’s for a little while.”

This pulled her back several more notches. “What for?”

“She called me at work today.” He paused for an interruption, but there was none. “Seems Camille’s not coming home for Christmas like she’d planned.” He draped the dish towel over his shoulder. “My ex is pretty upset, so I said I’d drop by.”

All Sarah could push out was, “Oh.”

“I won’t be long.” He bent down to kiss her. “Go on back to sleep.”

Sarah rolled over but did not fall asleep. Instead she tried to untangle the new knot balled up in her chest.

Several hours later Jack’s key scratched in the front lock. Sarah lay in bed listening as he tiptoed in the darkness, emptied his pockets on the dresser, slipped off his clothes. Under covers, he lay on his side, body curving away from her.

Sarah waited for his rhythmic breath, then rolled toward his bare shoulder. She reached over to raise the cover, sweeping her fingers through the back of his hair. It was damp. Leaning close, she smelled the fragrance of newly washed hair, his body soaped suspiciously clean.

She rolled away, fists clenched, mind crowded with images of Jack and his ex-wife together. The chill that had so recently vanished gripped her and bore through to marrow. “God,” she whispered, certain her breath misted white in the frigid air.

In the morning Sarah feigned sleep when Jack slipped from the bed, the house, and his truck echoed down the street. She tried to push off the covers, but the blankets tangled around her feet like dense underbrush. Finally she freed herself, swung her legs over the
bed, and reached to turn on the ceramic lamp. Instead she swatted it to the floor where it split in two, one half laying in a white patch of sunlight filtering in from the west.

Chloe scuffed into the kitchen as her mother yelled into the phone. “Just for a few days. Okay. Okay! Never mind.”

Chloe pulled a chair to the counter to reach the Captain Crunch. She carried the box to the TV, turned it on, but did not watch. All morning she listened to her mother dial and redial, plead and curse. It was all too familiar but Chloe hoped she was wrong. When Sarah stepped beside her, eyelids and lips coated pink, she knew.

“I’ll be back in a little while,” she said. “So get—” She didn’t finish. Just shivered, turned the thermostat to high, and left.

Air in the house was so thick Chloe could barely pull it into her lungs. She trudged from room to room for a fresh breath, but found none. Finally she raced to the garage where the air was thin and crisp and carried smells of wood shavings and earth. Sitting on Jack’s stool she spun around and around until she had to hold onto the lathe to keep from falling. She stood dizzily and fell into piles of sawdust and wood fragments. On the cool ground, she closed her eyes and groped blindly for a smooth wood scrap. She found one and held it to her nose, inhaled the raw scent, and rubbed it against her cheek.

“Are you all right?” Jack said, kneeling beside her.

She opened her eyes. “Yeah.”

He looked her over, brushing bits of wood from her hair. “What are you doing on the floor?”

“I was hot,” she said, as he helped her up.

He scanned the garage, puzzled. “Where’s your mother?”

Chloe looked at the wood scrap in her hand. “I think she went to the store.”