A Proper Goodbye

She would ask herself, afterward, in the long white hours, why she had opened the door.

She would examine the reasons one by one, like a woman laying out coins on a table, and she would find that each of them was true, and that none of them was enough. She had been tired. She had been alone for three days in a house that moved. She was hungry, and sick, and frightened, and it was raining, and a voice she had loved for five months was saying please through two inches of oak. She had been raised to believe that grief deserves a hearing. She was a person who answered the door.

But the real reason, the one she would not look at for a long time, was this: she wanted to know.

She wanted, more than she wanted safety, to find out whether she was wrong.

She slid the bolt. She turned the knob. And she stood in the open doorway, with the rain blowing in, and looked at him.

He had been crying. He stood on the porch in the thin gray light with his hood down, and his hair was plastered to his forehead, and the rain ran in rivulets down his face and neck and dripped from his chin. His eyes were swollen and red. He had not shaved. He wore the same blue oilskin, and under it a sweater she did not know, and he held, in both hands, a brown paper bag with a bunch of thyme sticking out of the top, like something a child brings to a teacher. He looked young. He looked thin. He looked, standing on her porch in the rain, like a stray dog who has been told twice to go home and has come back a third time because it has nowhere else.

“Thank you,” said Emory.

“I haven’t said yes.”

“I know. Thank you for opening the door.”

She looked past him. The truck stood at the end of the drive, its lights off, rain beating on the hood. Behind it the lane ran away into the pines.

“One dinner,” she said.

“One dinner.”

“At the kitchen table. Here. With the doors open.” She drew breath. “And you’re going to answer some questions, Emory. Honestly. I’m going to ask, and you’re going to tell me, and I won’t be argued with.”

“Anything.”

“And then you leave. And you leave the key. And you don’t come back.”

His face tightened and smoothed. “Anything,” he said again, gently. “I promise.”

She stepped back. He wiped his boots very carefully on the mat, front and back, and stooped to unlace them, and left them on the rack. He came into the hall in his socks, as he had done a hundred times, and the house seemed to draw in a breath around him. She watched him walk down the passage to the kitchen. She watched the set of his shoulders, the careful gait. He did not look into the rooms. He kept his eyes on the floor, like a visitor in a house of mourning.

He’s afraid, she thought, with astonishment. He’s as afraid as I am.

It was the cruelest trick of all, she would realize: that she believed it.

* * *

He cooked.

He cooked as he always did, with a kind of grave and joyful absorption, as though the act were a rite and the food its sacrament. He washed his hands. He unpacked the bag onto the counter: a pound of fresh haddock from the dock at Port Ellis, wrapped in white paper; lemons; new potatoes; a bunch of thyme; a square of butter. From his jacket he drew a bottle of white wine with a handwritten label, which he said had come from Pip’s cellar, and set it on the table unopened, with a bow.

“I’m not drinking,” she said.

“I know. It’s for me.” A small smile. “I thought I’d earned one.”

“I thought you’d quit.”

“I’m a man in mourning. It’s allowed.” He rolled up his sleeves. “Sit down, Corinne. Please. Let me.”

She sat. She took the chair at the end of the table, the one nearest the door, and laid her hands flat on the oak, and watched him. The kitchen filled with the sound of his working: the thunk of the knife, the sizzle of butter, the clink of a pan. She smelled thyme, and lemon, and the sweet sharp fume of the fish. The rain drummed on the roof. The candle burned in its saucer. Everything in the room was ordinary, and tender, and hurt her heart.

She said, “Where’s your phone?”

He glanced round. “In the truck.”

“Why?”

“I left it. I didn’t want it ringing.” He turned the fish with a spatula. “I thought you’d rather.”

“You told me you lost it in the cove.”

“I did.”

“Then which phone is in the truck?”

He turned off the burner. He wiped his hands on the towel, slowly. He faced her across the kitchen with the light of the candle on one side of his face, and his expression was sober and open and a little sad.

“I didn’t lose it,” said Emory. “I’m sorry. I lied. I sent that message from my other number. The one I use for the rescue squad.” He drew a breath. “I did call, Monday night. Eleven times. I didn’t speak. I’m so ashamed of it that I can barely say it. I was sitting in the truck on the cliff road with the phone in my hand. I couldn’t make myself drive away. I’d press the number and hear it ring, and I’d think, she’s lying there, three hundred yards away, and she can hear it, and I’d hang up before you answered. I did it eleven times.” He shut his eyes. “Then in the morning I got scared you’d be frightened. So I sent a lie.”

She stared at him.

It was perfectly plausible. It was so completely plausible, and so humiliating, so abject, so human, that it took the breath out of her.

“You were on the cliff road.”

“At the end of your lane. I had the headlights off.” He opened his eyes. They were wet. “That’s what I’ve been, Corinne. For three days. A man sitting in a truck outside a house, with a phone. I’m not telling you so you’ll feel sorry. I’m telling you because you asked, and I said I’d be honest. It’s a thing I did. It was wrong.”

“And the flowers?”

“The flowers were wrong too. I knew it when I put them down. I wrote the note and I thought, this is a campaign, this is exactly what she told me not to do, and I put them down anyway.” He gave a short, broken laugh. “I’m not good at this.”

“And my mug?”

He blinked.

“Your mug.”

“The blue one. The one I hang on the second hook.” She watched his face. “It was on the fourth hook this morning. The pencils were turned. The back door was unlocked. My rules are gone, Emory. The gas bill. It was in my pocket on Sunday night and now it’s not, and I want to know where it is.”

He was silent for a long moment.

Then he said, quite slowly, “Corinne. I have not been in this house since Sunday.”

“Somebody has.”

“I don’t —” He broke off. He pushed a hand through his hair, and she saw it was shaking. “I swear it. On my father. I haven’t been inside. I left the key on the table, and I took my things, and I got in the truck. I’ve been outside. On the road. I’ve never been in the house.” His voice dropped. “You think somebody’s been in here?”

“I think so.”

“Did you call the police?”

“And say what?”

“That someone broke in.”

“There was no break-in. There’s no damage. Nothing’s missing but a piece of paper.” She laughed, a thin high sound. “A mug and a gas bill.”

“Then it’s —” He stopped. He stared at her, and a dreadful comprehension moved across his face, slow and appalled. “You think it’s me.”

She said nothing.

“You think I’ve been coming in at night. Moving your things. Taking —” His eyes widened. “Oh, God. You think I’ve been in your house.”

“I don’t know what I think.”

“I would never.” The words came out hoarse, very low. “Corinne. I would never, ever do that. I’d rather cut off my hand. I made you a rule. I signed it. I would sooner —” He turned away. He put both palms on the counter and bent his head between his arms, and she saw his back shake. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I can’t — it’s a thing I can’t stand, that you could think —”

She sat with her hands pressed flat on the table, and watched him weep.

It’s true, said the cool reasonable voice. Look at him. He’s not acting. Nobody could act that.

Everyone can act, said a smaller voice, a dry one, the voice of a woman in a hospital bed. Graham wept at the funeral.

“Emory,” she said.

“I’m all right.”

“Emory. Look at me.”

He turned. His face was blotched and wet, and his lashes were stuck together in dark points. He looked about fourteen.

“If you haven’t been in the house,” said Corinne, steadily, “then someone else has. And I don’t know who. And if someone else has, then I need you to help me find out. Because I’m frightened. I’m very frightened. And I don’t have anyone else.”

It was out before she could stop it. It sounded, in the quiet kitchen, like a confession.

His face changed.

It did not light up, or soften, or break into relief. It settled. It went very still, and very calm, and the tears dried in the lamplight as though a hand had passed over them, and he looked at her across the room with an expression of such grave and tender attention that she felt the hair rise along her forearms.

“You have me,” said Emory.

* * *

They ate at eight.

He had set two places, with the good blue plates, and lit two more candles, and put a jug of wild asters in the middle of the table. The haddock was perfect: pale and flaking, with a crust of butter and thyme, over a bed of buttery potatoes. There was a green salad, dressed with lemon. There was dark bread. There was, at her place, a tall glass of water with a slice of lime, and beside it a plate with six dry crackers laid out in a fan.

“For the nausea,” he said.

She looked at the crackers.

“How do you know about the nausea?”

“You’ve been sick for three weeks, Corinne. I’ve watched you eat toast and nothing else. I’m not a fool.” He sat across from her and unfolded his napkin. His tone was mild. “You don’t have to tell me why. I’m only saying, I notice. It’s one of the things I’m bad at not doing.”

“You noticed.”

“I notice everything about you. You know that.” He lifted his fork. “Eat. Please. Before it’s cold.”

She ate.

It was a strange meal. They talked, a little, in low careful voices, as strangers do at the funeral of a mutual friend. He asked about the book. She told him Ingrid had given her until the thirtieth. He told her about Ned Pratt’s cat, which had had kittens in a lobster crate, five of them, each a different color. He did not once reach across the table. He did not meet her eyes for longer than a second. When she lifted the glass to her lips, her hand shook, and a drop of water spilled onto the cloth, and he looked at it and did not say a word.

He’s behaving beautifully, she thought. He’s behaving exactly as a decent man would.

She could not decide whether that comforted or terrified her.

At half past nine he put down his fork and folded his hands.

“May I say what I came to say?”

“Go on.”

“I’ve been thinking about it all week.” He looked at the candle. “I’ve gone over it a hundred times. What I did. What went wrong. And I think I understand it now. I think you were right. About the rule. I think you were right to end it.”

She stared.

“I was too much,” said Emory. “I know that. I’ve known it for a while. I just didn’t want to see it. You told me, in the beginning, you said, don’t arrange your life around mine. And I said understood. And then I did it anyway. I stopped seeing Ned. I stopped going out. I quit my Tuesday shifts at the rescue, and I told myself it was because I was busy at the yard.” His voice was low and level. “I lived in your house for five months. I knew where every spoon was. I learned your whole day. And I called it love. And you were drowning in it, and you couldn’t say so, because you’re kind. And so you had to use a rule.”

“Emory —”

“No, let me finish. I want to apologize.” He lifted his eyes to hers, and she saw they were bright and clear and sorrowful. “I’m sorry for the calendar. I’m sorry I never asked you if you wanted it. I’m sorry for the router. I thought I was being helpful, and I was being a — a warden. I’m sorry I knew things you hadn’t told me. I did know about the doctor. I read the text. It was on the table when you went upstairs, and I looked, and I should never have looked, and I’ve been sick with shame ever since.”

The breath stopped in her chest.

“You read it.”

“On Friday. When you were asleep. I saw Maternal-Fetal Medicine, and I didn’t have to be a genius.” He did not flinch. “I put the reminder in my phone. I told myself I’d drive you. I told myself you’d tell me when you were ready. That’s what I did. And then you said no, and I thought, she doesn’t want me there, and I was so hurt I didn’t say a word. And on Sunday you said finished.”

“You knew.”

“I knew you were pregnant. Yes.”

He said it simply, without a tremor, looking straight at her, and the word dropped between them on the white cloth like something laid down by hand.

“Since when?”

“Since the lamb. Maybe before. I’d guessed, I think, in the car, after the clams.” He lowered his eyes. “I wanted so much for you to tell me yourself that I didn’t dare ask. I thought — if I said it first, it’d be mine. Not yours. And I’d already taken enough.”

She could not speak. A great slow roaring had come up in her ears.

“I’m not going to claim anything,” said Emory. “I want you to know that. I’m not going to say it’s mine, or ask for a right. It’s your body, and your life, and your choice, and whatever you decide, I’ll respect it. If you want me to disappear, I’ll disappear. If you want me to pay, I’ll pay. If you want me to stand at the end of the road with a flashlight and make sure nobody ever comes near you again — I’ll do that, too. I’m only saying that I’m sorry. I’m sorry it was me. I’m sorry I was the one.”

The candle sputtered. A drop of wax ran down the side and hardened.

She sat with her hand pressed to her mouth. She was shaking. She hadn’t known she was, until she felt her teeth knock together. All the walls she had spent three days building seemed to be melting, one by one, in a warm terrible tide. Here it was, the thing she had needed. The apology. The honesty. A man laying his hands open on the table and saying I looked, and I was wrong. She could find no flaw in it. She hunted for it frantically, in the flicker of the flame, behind his eyes, in the line of his mouth. And there was nothing there.

“Why didn’t you tell me,” she whispered, “that you knew?”

“Because it wasn’t mine to tell.”

“You could have said —”

“I could have. I should have.” He stretched out one hand, slowly, across the cloth, and stopped it an inch from hers, palm up, without touching. “I’m so sorry, Corinne. For all of it. For being the sort of man you had to be afraid of.”

She looked at his hand.

It was a big, rough, familiar hand, scarred across the thumb. It lay on the white cloth in the candlelight with the fingers slightly curled, open, waiting. She had held it in the dark. She had felt it on her scar. She had seen it plane a board so fine that light came through.

She did not take it. But she did not pull away.

“Thank you,” she said, and her voice shook, “for telling me the truth.”

* * *

It was after ten when he stood to clear the plates.

The rain had slowed to a patter. The window above the sink was black. In the glass she could see the kitchen reflected, a small gold room floating in the dark, with a young man in it at the sink and a woman at the table with her head in her hand. She was very tired. She hadn’t known how tired. It seemed to her that a weight had been put down, and that all the muscles which had been braced against it, for three days, for three weeks, had let go at once; and now she felt her limbs loosen and her mind go soft and white as cotton.

“I’ll make you tea,” said Emory. “Before I go.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Chamomile. The way you like it. It’ll settle your stomach.” He turned from the sink, drying his hands, and smiled at her over the dish towel. “It’s the last thing. One last cup. A proper goodbye. I’ll make it, and you’ll drink it, and then I’ll put on my boots and walk out into the rain and you’ll never have to see me again. Is that all right?”

She looked at him. She thought: I should say no.

She thought: I don’t want him to go.

It was a clear, terrible, shameful thought, and she looked at it in the candlelight and could not pretend it was not there. She wanted him to stay. Despite the mug and the calendar and the phone; despite Mrs. Dunphy, and the missing paper, and the blank eleven calls in the night. She wanted him to stay, and make tea, and hold her hand. She wanted to put her head down on the table and have him tell her it was all right. She wanted the story to be the one he told.

“Yes,” said Corinne.

He set the kettle on the stove.

She heard the click of the burner, the tick of the flame. She heard the water begin to tick and murmur in the pan. She sat with her head on her arm, watching him through half-closed eyes: the long back, the dark hair, the movements of his hands among the cups. The white mug, the one she liked. The tin of dried flowers. The honey, the Wild Rose, the amber jar with its crooked label. He took the lid off the jar and dipped the spoon, once, twice, a big spoonful and a small, and she heard it clink against the china.

She was so sleepy. The warmth was spreading in her like ink in water. She thought: I should be afraid. But the thought floated away like a leaf on a stream.

He brought the mug to the table. He set it down in front of her, gently, with the handle turned toward her right hand. Steam rose from it, pale and fragrant. It smelled of apples and straw and honey, of summer afternoons, of every comfortable thing.

“Drink,” said Emory softly.

She wrapped her hands around it. The china was hot. It burned her palms a little, and she was grateful for it.

“You’re not going to have any?”

“I had mine earlier.”

“Sit with me.”

“I will.” He drew out the chair beside her and sat, close, not touching, his hands loosely clasped between his knees. “I’ll sit with you until you’re finished.”

She lifted the mug. She breathed in the steam. Somewhere in the back of her mind a small voice was speaking, quickly, faintly, from a long way off, like a voice on a radio between stations. The honey, it said. He put the honey in. He always puts the honey in. He didn’t ask. But the voice was so small, and the tea so warm, and the whole day so long and so heavy and so tired, that she heard it the way you hear a clock in another room.

She drank.

It tasted exactly as it always did: sweet, and green, and faintly of apples. She drank half the cup. She sat with her eyes closed, and the warmth went down through her chest, and her stomach, and into her hands. The candle flame swam. The rain on the roof had become a soft distant rushing, a long breath, a lullaby.

“Better?” said Emory.

“Mm.”

“You look so tired.”

“I’m so —” She tried to lift her head. It was very heavy. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why. I’m just —”

“It’s all right.”

“I should wash the — I should —”

“I’ll do it.”

“Emory —” Her tongue felt thick. The room had begun to tilt, very gently, to the left. Her hands lay on the table beside the mug, and she looked at them, and they seemed to belong to someone a long way off. “I think I should lie down.”

“I think so too.”

His arm slid round her shoulders. It was warm, and strong, and smelled of thyme and rain, and she let her cheek fall against his chest. She heard his heart. It was beating steadily, slowly, in an even calm rhythm, the rhythm of a man who has been waiting a very long time for a thing to be over.

“I’ve got you,” he said, into her hair.

She tried to say his name. It came out as a sigh.

The kitchen was sliding away. The candle was a smear of gold. Somewhere far off she felt herself lifted, easily, as a child is lifted from a car at the end of a long drive, and felt the swing of the hall, and the creak of the stairs, and the fourth stair’s soft complaint. A door opened. Cool sheets. The smell of cedar and the sea. A hand drew the quilt up to her chin, tenderly, and tucked it in.

“Sleep,” said Emory.

“The doctor — Thursday —”

“Shh.”

“I have to —”

“I know.” Fingers brushed the hair from her forehead, one by one, gently, as if each strand were precious. His voice was very near, a warm low murmur at the edge of her dreams. “I know. Don’t be afraid. You’re safe, Corinne. I’m here.”

And in the dark, as the last light went out of the world, she heard him say it a second time, softly, like a vow.

“You’re safe. I’m here.”