need to tell him something is wrong. My head hurts terribly.
He’ll know what to do.
But there’s nothing beside me except cold, empty space.
Then I realize it’s snowing inside the car.
We will not be lucky this time.
The biscotto shatters into a million pieces, the butter knife clanging against the fine china plate I’d planned to use for Christmas dinner. Back when I was looking forward to Christmas. Or to anything. Staring into the crumbs, I realize how closely they resemble my life. No one piece big enough to be satisfying; too many that even if you try to gather them all, a few will be left behind. Lost forever in the cracks.
“I don’t know why you insist on trying to cut that stuff.” Gabe leans against the doorjamb between our kitchen and the hallway.
“Because I only want half,” I say. “Why do they have to make them so damn long?”
“So you don’t burn your fingers when you dip them in your coffee,” he replies, shrugging. Obviously, his expression adds, though he doesn’t say anything out loud.
I sigh, tucking a stringy piece of dark hair behind my ear. “Why are you still here anyway?” It’s two o’clock in the afternoon on a Wednesday, the middle of a workday. It’s been a long time since I went to work, nearly three months. I pick up a small chunk of the broken biscotto and dip it in my coffee, appreciating the hot liquid’s burn against my skin. Physical pain is good. It dulls the ache that won’t leave my chest.
Gabe moves into the kitchen and sits on the empty stool beside me at the island. “I live here,” he says, his tone purposefully light. He’s trying to bring a smile to my face, I know, like he used to so easily.
The soggy corner of the cookie falls from my fingers and disappears below the surface of the coffee. “Besides, you need me,” he adds with a resigned sigh. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I look back into my mug, oily dots popping to the surface, and grab another piece of biscotto. My mother-in-law, Rosa, brought it over earlier, a whole tray’s worth, because she believes eating dilutes grief. But the cookies are Gabe’s favorite, not mine. To be honest, I don’t much care for them although I didn’t have the heart to tell his mom. Especially not now.
I put the thick, crusty cookie on the plate and pick up the knife again. Gabe raises an eyebrow but I ignore him, cutting the piece in half, once again unsuccessfully.
My mother bustles into the kitchen and I glance up at the stack of tiny folded blankets, covered in green turtles and fuzzy brown teddy bears, she holds in her arms. “What would you like me to do with these?” She looks uncomfortable to be asking the question, even though I’ve asked her here specifically to help pack up the nursery—something Gabe and I are incapable of facing alone.
“Get rid of them, please,” I say as if I’m talking about tomato soup cans in our trash bin. “Give them away or something.”
My mom opens her mouth, then closes it as she fingers the fine, muslin blanket on top of the pile—the one I imagined swaddling our son in before rocking him to sleep. “I could just put them in storage, until you’re sure.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. The air in the kitchen is charged with tension. No one knows how to deal with me these days; I can’t say I blame them. If I could escape my body and mind, I wouldn’t look back. “Give them away. Or throw them out. I don’t really care, as long as they’re gone.”
“Are you sure?” Gabe asks. He looks sad. But I’m sure I look worse. I tuck my hair behind my ear again, smelling how long it’s been since my last shower.
My mom hasn’t moved. She’s standing on the other side of the island and staring down at the blankets, sweeping her hands across the top one to try and straighten out the wrinkles. It occurs to me she imagined wrapping her grandson in that blanket, too.
“Get rid of them,” I say with an edge this time. But I keep my eyes on Gabe, who has gotten up and is now standing beside my mom. I’m challenging him to argue. “Please don’t make me say it again.”
“Okay, hon, okay,” Mom says, looking apologetic before leaving us to finish the conversation I don’t want to have.
“I’m sorry, Tegan.” Gabe’s voice carries a sadness I understand but don’t want to deal with.
I pick up another biscotto and put it on the plate full of broken cookie pieces. “I know,” I reply, setting the knife directly in the middle of the cookie. I press down firmly and a large chunk of the biscotto flies off the plate, still intact. Finally. “But it doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?”
“I’ve never seen you look more beautiful.” Gabe is beside me on our couch. I’m looking at the collection of photos on my lap that have yet to make it to a scrapbook or album. I shuffle through the photos, stopping at one of Gabe and me in Millennium Park, in front of Cloud Gate, or what Chicagoans call “the Bean.” In it Gabe kisses my cheek, my one foot kicked up and my hands holding the dress’s frothy layers of material in a sashay move. Our image is reflected back in the Bean’s smooth, shiny steel surface, along with the Chicago skyline and a slew of strangers, now part of our memories. A day I’ll never forget.
“Aside from the tinge of green on my face,” I say. Remembering. It’s only been six months, but feels like a lifetime.
We were married at dusk, during an early September heat wave. The ceremony was on the rooftop of the Wit hotel under the glass roof, which, along with the potted magnolia bushes that were somehow in bloom despite the season, made it feel as though we were inside a terrarium. Glowing lanterns lined the aisle and guests sat on low, white couches that would later become seating for the reception. It was all much more than we could afford, me a kindergarten teacher and Gabe just out of law school. But his well-off parents insisted—and paid—so the Wit it was.
I was horribly sick at the wedding, throwing up most of the day—including right after the picture at the Bean, in a bag Gabe wisely tucked in his suit pocket, “just in case”—and only five minutes before I walked down the lantern-lit aisle. Luckily my best friend and maid of honor, Anna, grabbed a wine bucket just in time. My mother-in-law blamed the catering from the rehearsal dinner the night before, which my parents had organized. My mom, bristling at Gabe’s mother’s implication, suggested it was nerves, telling all who would listen I’d always had a weak stomach when I was nervous. As a child that was quite true. I did my fair share of vomiting before important school exams, anytime I had to public speak and, most unfortunately, onstage when I was one of the three little pigs in the school play. But I had outgrown my “nervous stomach,” and figured I’d just caught a bug from school. When you teach five-and six-year-olds all day you spend a good part of the year ill.
Gabe was so sweet that morning. Sending me a prewedding gift of a dozen yellow roses, a bottle of pink bismuth for my stomach and a card that read:
You’ve always looked good in green—ha-ha. You are my forever.
G xo
Even sick, it was the best
