* * *
Later that night, Finch is asleep, and Marie and I tiptoe into her room. I slide my hand under her pillow, feeling for the tooth, until at last my fingers settle on something sharp and hard. I tug it out and slide the feather of a scarlet tanager—red and fading to gray—in its place. I found the feather in the woods months ago, but I’d been waiting for the right moment to give it to her. Finch opens her eyes for a moment, and we freeze. She says something about Walt Whitman and rolls over. Marie and me creep back out into the living room, two giddy kids, sneaking around. I drop the tooth into a corner of the Raisinets tin and replace it on the shelf.
Marie cracks open a bottle of bourbon—it’s Christmastime, she says—and we sip it from Fiestaware mugs, hers turquoise and mine red, both of us on the couch, knees touching. The woodstove purring, the Christmas tree glowing in the corner. She turns to me and moves closer, her hip to mine, and this time, no thought of Cindy, no holding back at all. I’m ready. Our lips touch. Tentative, at first. It has been so long. I place my hand on her neck. Pull her closer. I’m not sure I remember how to do this and meanwhile my body wants and is racing ahead and so there is a conflict of pace. We kiss again. My hand in her hair and her hands on my face and our mouths pressed and I’m ravenous and want all of it. Body, yes. But also the connection: the acceptance in the two of us coming together. The surrender.
She pulls away suddenly.
“What is it?”
“I’m sorry,” she says, and then she’s crying.
I lean back against the couch. Head spinning. I hadn’t meant to upset her but meanwhile I’m also torn. Worked up now and trying to readjust and, well, confused. And it seems like maybe I’m the one who should be apologizing, though I can’t say for sure what it is that went wrong. “I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head. “No.” She grabs my hand and wraps her fingers around mine. “He was the only one I ever … I was twenty and there was never anyone else.” She squeezes my hand. “I want this. I do. I just can’t rush into something again. I’m grieving and lonely and heartbroken right now and this would make things better temporarily, but in the end I would regret it. I would wonder whether it was real. And if there’s one thing I don’t need right now, it’s more regret. More doubt.” She looks at me. “Does that make any sense at all?”
It does and it doesn’t, and she is still touching me, her fingers laced around my knuckles, and our legs are touching, too, knee thigh hip, and it’s hard to shift gears from where things were headed to where things are now, so I just go ahead and tell her: “I need a minute.” The best thing to do would be for me to peel away from her. Remove myself, get some physical space, cool down. But I don’t want to hurt her feelings. I gently pull my hand from hers, lean forward, rest my head in my palms.
“I have to go home.”
What I want to say is, Do you? And why? Come spring, the whole world will pull awake, open itself up, and we could be happy, here. The three of us, leaning on one another. We could have a life together, couldn’t we? I swallow, trace the rim of my mug with my pointer finger, quiet.
“The snow seems to be melting, don’t you think? I should probably leave as soon as it clears. If I wait until another storm blows through, I might be stuck here all winter.”
“Would that be so terrible?”
“It sounds kind of lovely, actually. But my job,” Marie says, smiling a little. “School will be starting up again. And my brother’s house. Tempting as it is, I can’t just leave those things behind.” She twirls the fringe of the blanket around her finger.
I nod.
“But I could come back. Maybe in the summer. I mean if that’d be all right with you.”
“You own the place,” I say, nudging her but also thinking back to that first night, when she mentioned selling.
She presses her fingers into my palm. “About that. Cooper, this is your home. I see that now. I want you to know I would never take it away from you.”
“Appreciate that. And like I said before, we can pay rent.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t worry about that. The place is paid for. And I like thinking that I’m honoring Jake. Carrying on his tradition. I like knowing you’re here.”
I slide closer. “I’d like it. I mean, if you’d come back.”
“Good.”
For a long time, we sit there, her shoulder pressed against mine. The candle burns way down and then out. Maybe I doze off, maybe not. Outside, the wind howls, pelting the windowpanes with clumps of snow, but we’re warm here on the couch, and Finch is sleeping soundly in her bed. At peace, because this moment—it’s just that. A moment, and it’s good.