I expected that Jep would immediately cross the kitchen and take me in his arms. But he didn’t. He nodded, and gave me a tight little smile, and then carefully made a plate of salami and cheese on rye toast. These last months had been so filled with event, by contrast with the past couple of years of leaden sameness, anyone would be at a loss. Under enough relentless stress, even steel breaks.
“He’s going to leave me,” I said to Julie on the phone. “I have to tell him about Esme, but then he’ll really leave me.”
“Thea, he is not going to leave you. You two have just been jumping from one rock to another for years, trying not to fall into the river and drown. You need to go to a family therapist. I have a…”
“A list, oh sweetie, of course you do.”
“Hal and I have gone to counseling.”
“How could you possibly ever need counseling? Your life is blessed!”
But she was right, there were always things in a marriage—not so lurid as the things that beset us, but all kinds of petal-tender doubts and lacks.
I told her, “The truth is, I can’t do anything until this is over.”
Julie asked then, “Have you heard from Esme?” I hadn’t and it was driving me mad to have to wait on her whim. “She’ll call,” Julie went on. “When she does, you’ll be ready. And maybe the detective has already found her. He could be talking to her right now. You don’t know. So just keep on with whatever you’re doing.”
It took me another entire day to find the resolve to call Jill.
She answered on the first ring. Fear sizzled along my forearms. She told me not to worry, she wasn’t bringing out the picketers again, but she had something to talk over with me. Could I meet her tomorrow at the Lava Java? I imagined the visual of Jill and me in a booth sharing a chat over our mocha lattes. Making noises about people who could be too curious at such a popular spot, I suggested somewhere more private, a place I frequented, the apple orchard at the university arboretum. The weather had been temperate; it would probably be good enough to sit outside on a stone bench for a very brief time. And I fervently hoped it would need only a very brief time.
Tomorrow, then, Jill said, about three?
The next day, there I was. As I waited, snow began to fall, of course it did, first lacy lazy flakes that gilded the darkening grove of squat, skeletal, snow-buffed trees, as the late afternoon sun pierced the cloud bank. There were eight hundred apple trees of different varieties. We used to come here often when Stefan was small. The arboretum allowed visitors to gather apples free on two specified weekends in the fall. There were signs urging everyone to share; but there were always a brigade of aggressive Mennonites armed with rakes and baskets the size of baby strollers menacing the rest of us with the force of their virtue.
Jill pulled in exactly at three.
We were the only ones there.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t told Jep that today was the day, and I hadn’t told Stefan anything at all.
Despite the snow, it was not really cold, and we got out and slowly walked toward each other like gunfighters, advancing on some imaginary middle line. I didn’t reach out to touch her, to shake her hand or hug her—although that would have happened in the movie. I didn’t say she looked well. She didn’t ask if I was teaching. She smiled then, a clear message of rapprochement; and I recalled with a pang how decent and gentle Jill had always been in the before times.
“Yikes, Thea,” she said, reaching out and nearly touching my lip before she caught herself and held back. “What does the other guy look like?”
“I’m sure you know what happened.”
“I do. That must have been awful.”
“It was scary. I was scared.”
“Now you know how scary it would be to have someone hit you,” Jill said. “First, I should say thank you, Thea. Thank you so much for coming.”
I said, “Do you remember that time we baked mini-muffins for the kids’ soccer game and, on the way, I went around a corner so fast that we spilled them all onto the floor mats? And we kept trying to pick the dog hair off them? For like ten minutes?”
Even Jill smiled. “Then we wouldn’t let Belinda or Stefan eat them? And we just watched all the other kids scarfing them down? I wanted to throw up.” She said then, “I need to ask you a favor.”
“What is it?”
“In recent months SAY has gotten involved with the forgiveness movement, not quite like your… Stefan’s thing that you’re doing, I mean the one that’s been around for years. And while I’m not at that point, I have learned a few things and one of them is that you’re supposed to ask for what you need, if that is possible.”