Chapter 22
What We Almost Lost
For the first week, neither of them did anything, and it was the longest week of the year.
She went to work. She ran the story hour. She read The Very Hungry Caterpillar to a baby in a bright voice and said oh, my goodness, at the right places, and when a small girl asked her why she had a sad face, she said, "Do I?" and the girl said, "You've got your sad voice on," and she put down the book and stood very still for a while in the middle of a rug.
She ate soup out of a can. She did the crossword. She did not look at her phone.
It sat on the counter, face up, with its small bright eye, and did not light. She had noticed, on the second night, that she was waiting for it. It was a thing she did not like. It was as if she had set a trap for herself, in her own kitchen, and sat there watching, as one watches a mouse hole. She turned the phone face down. She turned it over again. She put it in a drawer, under the dish towels, and heard it buzz at four in the morning, and lay awake in the dark with her heart in her mouth. It was her mother, asking about Christmas.
Nobody else wrote.
That was the thing. It was what she could not get past. There was no I'm sorry. There was no can we talk. He had said, in a kitchen, in a very low voice, I just can't be the one who proves it to you, and gone out, and shut the door. And she had thought, for three days, with a kind of dull fierce pride, good. She had thought: I don't need a man who sits outside. I don't need a man who gets tired.
She had said I'd rather be alone.
She had meant it. That was the dreadful part. She had stood in her own kitchen and said it with her whole heart, and felt, as it went out of her, how much it sounded like a thing that somebody else would say. It had come out smooth. It was a good line. It was the sort of thing a woman says in a film, with her chin up, right before the music.
And it was what he had heard.
She's gone quiet, he would have thought. She's put the wall up. She's decided to look fine.
That's exactly what I said she'd do.
On the eighth night she sat on the kitchen floor, with her back against the cupboard, and said, aloud, to the radiator, "You did it again."
She did not cry. She was past that. She sat there, with her knees drawn up, and her chin on them, and looked at the apron, which was still on the table, folded in three. She had not been able to move it. It lay there like a flag. It said, KISS THE LIBRARIAN, in blue letters, and someone had once thought it was funny.
I said I'd tell you.
I said it over and over. Tomorrow, tomorrow.
And I didn't. Because I wanted to be good.
She put her face down on her knees.
That's the whole thing, she thought. That's it.
It was not a thunderclap. It was only a plain, tired, rather ordinary idea, that came to her as she sat there, in a dim kitchen, in a sweatshirt. She had left a man who watched her, and she had been so proud. She had chosen herself. She had made a list. But she had gone on, all the same, in some small back room, doing the one thing that she knew how to do, which was to be so careful that nobody ever had a reason to be upset. She had learned it at six. She had learned it from a woman crying at a kitchen table, with a letter. She had never stopped. She had carried it, faithfully, from the first house to the second, and the third, and she had not known that it was hers.
He didn't make me quiet.
I've always been quiet.
He just was the first one who noticed, and said so, out loud, in a kitchen.
She sat there for a long time.
She went home for Christmas, because she had to.
It was a small, loud, damp, cozy affair. The house on Maple Drive smelled of cinnamon and wet wool and turkey. Eli had brought Danielle, who was short and square and unembarrassed and had a tattoo of a bee on her wrist, and who said, in the first ten minutes, with a mouthful of cheese, "I love your mom, she's terrifying." Her mother had strung lights round the porch. They were crooked. They blinked in three colors. In the front hall, on the shelf where it had always stood, the old record player sat with its lid up, and next to it, in a wooden crate, the albums, and Sarah stood a long time in front of it with her hand over her mouth.
Linda found her there.
"I thought you might want it," she said.
"Mom."
"It's yours. It's, I was going to give it to you for your birthday. And then I thought, no, she's got a, there was a reason. She'd not have a place." She came and stood beside her, in an apron, with a dish towel on her shoulder. "I thought maybe now you did."
"I don't."
"You've got an apartment."
"It's not, it's not for a, I don't know if I can."
"Hear it?"
"Yes."
"You said you hadn't. In two years." She was quiet. "You said it to me in June."
Sarah did not answer. She was looking at the cover on top, a blue-and-brown picture, a woman in a sweater, with a cat. It was faded. It had a small tear in the corner. It was exactly the same as the one that a man had put into her hands on a sidewalk, in July, wrapped in crooked paper.
"I got one," she said. "For my birthday. A, someone found it. For three dollars."
"Did he?"
"Who said it was a, how do you."
"Sarah," said her mother. "I'm fifty-six years old. I was a nurse for thirty-five. I know when someone's been dumped."
"I wasn't dumped."
"Who left?"
"He did."
"Did you ask him to stay?"
She stopped.
She stood there. The whole house was a warm, loud, clattering hum around her. Somebody was laughing in the kitchen. A pot was boiling over. Her mother was looking at her, in the dimness of the hall, with that straight and steady and unembarrassed gaze.
"No," said Sarah.
"Why not?"
"I said, I told him to go."
"Did you want him to?"
"No."
"Then why?"
"Because I was so, he said that, he said I look at him like I'm waiting. For him to turn. And I thought, he's right. And I thought, if I ask him to stay, I'm, I'd be the one who, he'd have to, and I'd always be wondering if he, if he stayed because I made him." She heard herself. It was a very thin, high, childish voice. "I couldn't be the person who made him."
"That's a very odd way to put it."
"It's what happened."
"I'm sure it is." Her mother took the towel from her shoulder. She folded it, in half, and in half again, and held it against her chest. "I'll tell you what your father did. When we fought. When it was a real one, not the thermostat. When I'd said something I couldn't take back."
"What?"
"He'd walk out of the room. He'd go and stand in the garage for twenty minutes." She smiled. "And I'd stand in the kitchen, and I'd think, he's gone. I'd think, this is it. And then he'd come back in. Every time. He'd stand in the door. And he'd say, Lin. That's all. Lin."
"What would you say?"
"I'd say, come here."
She said it simply.
"That's the whole trick," said Linda. "I didn't know, for years. I thought it was about who was right. It isn't. It's that one of you goes to the garage, and one of you says, come here. And you take turns." She sniffed, and put the towel back on her shoulder. "It's not the person who stays who's the brave one. And it's not the person who goes. It's the one who says it."
"Says what?"
"Come here," said her mother. "Honey. It's only two words. Go and tell him."
His sister found him in the garage.
It was the twentieth. It was a bitterly cold afternoon, and he was working, because it was all he could do. He had a stripped frame on a stand, a red Raleigh, from the thirties, and he was scraping the paint off the head tube with a razor blade, in long slow careful strokes. He had been scraping for three hours. His fingers were numb. The dog lay on a blanket under the workbench, and a space heater ticked, and the radio was on very low, and she came in without a sound and stood by the door.
"Danny."
"Hi."
"That's the third."
"The what?"
"Bike. You're on your third. Dad says you've got four in the garage, and a rack of, he says he can't get to the lawn mower." She came and perched on a stool. She had brought Owen, in a snowsuit, who was asleep on her shoulder, with his mouth open. "He's worried."
"Dad's not worried."
"Dad hasn't slept. He sat in the car outside your house for an hour last week, because he was afraid to knock."
Daniel put down the blade.
"He didn't."
"He did. He told me. He said, I'll just look at the light. And he sat there. And the light was on. And he thought, he's alive. And drove home." She gave a wet half laugh. "He's your father. It's what the men in this family do."
"That's not funny."
"No. It isn't."
"I'm not going to talk about it."
"Okay."
"There's nothing to talk about. It's over. She told me to go. She said she'd rather be alone."
"She said that."
"She said it very clearly."
"And you went."
"I'm not going to, I wasn't going to stay. After that. I'm not going to stand in a room, and be told, I'm not going to be someone's." He scraped viciously at the paint. "I'm done being the man who waits."
"Is that why you went?"
"What?"
"Because you're done with waiting?"
He stopped. He lowered the blade. His sister was looking at him, with her head on one side and her son in her arms, and there was no smile at all on her face. It was gray and tired and absolutely straight.
"I want to ask you something," said Nina. "And I want you to think before you say it. I think you might not like it."
"I'll like it fine."
"You always say you're afraid of being Carl."
"I'm not."
"You are. You've been afraid of it for six years. You've been so afraid that you've, you built your whole self out of not being him. You never say what you want. You never take up room. You don't tell a girl what you think, in case it comes out as an order." She drew a breath. "I don't think you're afraid of being Carl. I think you're afraid of being wrong."
"That's not."
"You are. You're afraid of it more than anything. You'd rather be a martyr than a man who got it wrong. So you go to a bench, and you say I'm not asking you for anything, and you're so good. You're so good, Danny, it's unbearable. And then it goes bad, and you sit in a car." Her eyes were bright. "And you never once say, I was scared, and I did a stupid thing, and I'm sorry, and I'd like to try again. Because that would mean you were a person."
"I did say that."
"You said it in a kitchen. As you were walking out."
He did not answer.
"You said I'm sorry I sat in the car. And then you left. You didn't say, please don't make me go." She shifted the baby. "I know what happened. I've had it from Tessa. I've had it from Mia. I know everything. I know you shouted, and she shouted. I know she said a terrible thing. And I know you said okay."
"I said it because I."
"I know why. You say it when something's, it's your, it means you're out." She leaned forward. "She wanted you to stay. I know it. I know it as I know my own name. She stood there in her socks and she wanted you so badly she couldn't, she couldn't ask. Because she's a person who's never asked. And you're a person who's never been asked. And you stood in a kitchen, the two of you, like a pair of people on opposite banks of a river, both so polite, both so decent, both waiting for the other one to swim."
It was very quiet in the garage.
The space heater ticked. A bit of snow blew in under the door. He looked down at the frame, the pale bare patch of steel, and the little curl of red paint on the floor.
"I can't make her want me," he said.
"No."
"I can't make her trust me."
"No. You can't." She was crying, a little. "But you can go and stand in a doorway. And you can say, I got it wrong. I should have fought. I'm here. I'd like to stay."
"What if she says no?"
"Then she says no. And you've said it." She wiped her face on Owen's hat. "It's still better, Danny. It's so much better. Than a river."
It was Ruth's, on the thirtieth.
It was nearly closing. The café was quiet, and half the chairs were up on the tables, and Mia was wiping the long wooden counter in slow circles with a rag. She looked up as the door opened. She had a new ring in her eyebrow, a green one, for the holidays. She stopped wiping.
"Hey," said Daniel.
"Hey."
"I'd like a chai."
"Oat milk."
"Extra hot."
"With honey," said Mia. She said it very softly. She did not smile. She stood with the rag in her hand, for a long moment, looking at him, and her eyes went bright. "Not sugar."
"Not sugar."
"Is it for the librarian?"
He had to stop and swallow.
"I'd like it to be," he said.
She made it without a word. She made it slowly, with a kind of tender ferocity, pulling the milk and the spice and the honey as though she were making a thing for a very sick person. She put the lid on. She wrote on the cup, in black marker. He did not look. She slid it across the counter, in its cardboard sleeve, and he saw that she had written one word, in tall capitals, with a heart.
GO.
"She tips in quarters," said Mia. "She's the best."
"I know."
"Don't screw it up."
"I'll try."
"Don't try," said Mia. "Do it."
It was a quarter past nine when she heard him on the stairs.
She was in the kitchen. She had been sitting at the table for an hour, in the gray sweater, doing nothing. She had her hands round a mug of tea that she had not drunk. She had come home from her mother's that afternoon with the old record player in the back of the car, and put it on the shelf, and not plugged it in. She had put the record beside it. She had sat down, and looked at both of them, a long while.
She heard the street door. She heard a step.
It was a slow one. It was not a man who was in a hurry. It came up the first flight, and the second, and paused on the landing, and she sat still, with her head up, and her breath held, and the radiator ticking. She knew it. She had known it for fifteen months. She would have known it, she thought, in a crowd of a thousand.
It stopped outside her door.
There was no knock.
She waited. She waited a full minute, with the blood pounding in her ears. She stood up. She did not know that she had done it. She crossed the little room, and stood in the entry, in her bare feet, with her hand on the wall. The light under the door was yellow. A shadow lay in it, long and thin and still, and she could hear a breath.
He knocked once.
It was very soft. She heard his voice. "It's Daniel," he said, through the wood, which was foolish, because she knew.
She did not move.
It was a strange thing. She had thought, for three weeks, about what she would say. She had said it, over and over, in the shower, and in the car, and in the stacks. It was a good speech. It was clear and honest and brave. And now she stood in her own entry with her heart going like a fist against a door, and found that she could not remember one word.
Say it, she thought.
Come here.
She put her hand on the wood.
It was cool and a little rough. She laid her palm flat on it, and on the other side, near, she heard him do the same. She heard the soft small sound of a man's hand on a door. She stood there for a long time, with her forehead nearly touching the grain, and her eyes shut.
And then she heard him sit down.
It was a slow slide, with a creak, as a person lowers himself onto a stair. He was out there on the landing. He had put down his back against the wall. She heard a paper cup go down on the floor. And through the door, very quietly, she heard him let out a breath, a long, shaky, hopeless, patient breath, and not say anything at all.
She stood there.
She stood there for two hours.
She did not sit. She leaned on the door, with her shoulder against the frame, and her arms round her ribs. Now and then she heard him move. She heard the faint whir of the phone, picked up and put down. She heard the building shake as the late bus went by. At ten, the light on the landing clicked off, on its timer, and the line under the door went dark. She heard him not get up. She heard him sit on, in the dark.
He's not going to go, she thought.
He's not going to knock again. He's not going to say a word.
He's just going to be there.
It was not like waiting. She turned it over, slowly, with her eyes shut. It was not at all like the thing he had said in the kitchen, or the thing she had feared in April. There was no hook in it. There was no I'll stand here till you give in. There was only a man on a staircase, who had come to say that he was sorry, and had found that the door was shut, and had sat down on the floor to let it be shut.
He's letting me choose.
He's letting me, he's letting it be mine.
It was the whole thing. It was the very thing that she had asked for, on a bench, in April, with the river going by. It had never changed. It had only waited, patiently, in a different shape.
She put her hand on the chain.
It was cold. She slid it back. It made a small rasping noise. She stood with her fingers on the lock, and the whole building seemed to hush, and from the other side of the door, she heard him stop breathing.
She turned the lock.
It took a long time. She did it slowly, as one does a thing that one is not sure of. The bolt went back with a click. She opened the door about four inches.
He was sitting on the third step from the top.
He had his back against the wall, and his legs stretched out across the landing, and his head turned toward her. His face was white, in the light from her hall, and very tired, and unguarded. There were shadows under his eyes like thumbprints. He had a gray scarf round his neck, and a paper cup by his shoe. He did not speak. He looked up at her, from the floor, and every single thing he felt was lying on his face.
She looked at the cup.
"It's cold," said Sarah.
"I know."
"You bought it hours ago."
"Yes."
"You sat out here. In the cold. For two hours."
"Almost three," said Daniel. "I wasn't counting."
She made a small sound. It might have been a laugh. It did not seem to know what it was. She stood with her hand on the door, and the light behind her, and for a long moment neither of them moved. She thought of a lot of things. She thought of a waiting room, and a plastic chair, and a dollar. And she heard herself say, in a very low voice, in the tone of someone reading the last line of something she had not been sure she wanted to finish:
"Gus said twenty minutes."
He did not understand, for about one second.
Then he did. She saw it go through him, all at once, like warm water. It reached his eyes. It reached his mouth. It went down through the whole length of his body, so that his shoulders dropped, and his head went back against the wall, and he shut his eyes.
"Gus always says twenty minutes," said Daniel.
"It's never twenty minutes."
"No."
"It's never even close."
"I know," he said. "I'm willing to wait."
"I know you are."
She opened the door the rest of the way.
They sat on the floor of the entry.
They did not go inside. It was not a thing that either of them proposed. She sat with her back against the wall, in the narrow yellow hall, and he sat opposite, with his knees up, and the open door between them, and the cold air from the stairs coming in round their ankles. The cup stood between them. She picked it up. She took the lid off. She looked at it, a small round disc of pale brown, with a skin on it.
"Go," she read. "With a heart."
"Mia did that."
"She would."
"She said not to screw it up."
"What did you say?"
"I said I'd try." He rubbed his face. "She said don't try. Do it."
"She's very wise."
"She's terrifying."
She laughed. It cracked in the middle. She put the cup down, carefully, on the floor, and wrapped her arms round her knees. She looked at him. He looked at her. It was a long, plain, grave look, from a short distance, with nothing in it but each of the two of them.
"I'd like to say something," said Daniel.
"Okay."
"I'd like to say it without, I'd like you not to say anything until I'm done. I'll understand if you can't." He drew a breath. "I was wrong."
She did not move.
"I was wrong, in the kitchen. Not in everything. I think I was right that I was tired. I think I was right that it was hard. But I was wrong about what to do with it. I stood there, and I said okay, and I went. I told myself it was, it was dignity. It wasn't." His voice shook. "I was afraid. I was terrified. I'd just been told that the thing I wanted most in the world might not, might not be, and I'd rather leave than hear it. I'd rather be the one who went."
"Daniel."
"I'm not done."
"Okay."
"I sat outside your church hall. I did it because I, because you were so happy, and I'd been, I had a thought. Quite a clear one. She'll realize she can do better. And I couldn't, I just wanted to see. I wanted to see whether you'd go with him." He put his fist against his mouth. "That's what it was. It wasn't worry. It wasn't about Mark, or the dark. It was that I thought you'd leave. And I thought if I watched, if I was there, I could, I'd have a, I'd be ready."
"That's not."
"Please."
"I'm sorry." She pressed her lips together.
"It's a terrible thing to say. I know. It's a mean, small, frightened thing. I'm ashamed of it." He wiped his face. "And I'm sorry I made you feel watched. And I'm sorry that when you told me you were scared, I told you I wasn't him. Instead of asking you what it was like." He laughed, brokenly. "I'm a teacher. I'm supposed to be good at listening."
"You are."
"I'm good at it when it's not about me."
"That's most people."
"It's a, I'd like to be better." He was holding himself very tight. "That's all. That's the speech. I wanted to say that. I wanted you to know that I'm not here to, I'm not asking for anything. I came to say sorry. And to say, if you'd let me, that I'd like to try again. Differently. But only if you'd, if it's something you want."
"Is that all?"
"There's one more thing."
"Go on."
"I love you," said Daniel.
He said it plainly.
It was in the hall, in the yellow light, on a cold wooden floor, with a paper cup beside his foot. He said it as he would have said that it was snowing. It was not a declaration. There was no music, and no light, and no kiss. He sat there, a tired man in a gray scarf, with his hands open, and said it as one lays down the last coin on a table.
"I've been wanting to say it for a year. I couldn't. I thought it'd be a, that it would make you feel you had to. I thought, if I never said, you'd always be free." He looked at her. "I think that was a mistake. I think it's better that you know. Whatever you do with it."
She was crying.
She had not been aware of it starting. It had come up quietly, as water comes up in a footprint on a beach, and was running down her face and into her mouth, and she did not wipe it. She sat still. She felt the words go in, one at a time, all the way down, to a place that she had not known was empty.
"Can I talk now?" she said.
"Please."
"I'm going to say it badly."
"That's fine."
"I'm going to say a lot of things that, they'll come out wrong."
"Okay."
"I hid it. The coffee." She was shaking. "It's not that I didn't tell you for a good reason. I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to be upset. And that's, I've done that my whole life. I make everyone comfortable. I swallow it. I say I'm fine. And then I get resentful, and I don't know why, and I think it's them. It's not. It's mine. It's a thing I do." She drew in a long, shuddering breath. "And you saw it. You said so. You said I look careful. And I was so angry. Because it was true."
"I shouldn't have put it like."
"No. You should." She wiped her face at last, with the back of her wrist. "You were right. I've spent a year telling myself that I chose myself. I left Mark. I made a list. I thought that was it. I thought it was done. And I never noticed that I was still choosing him, every day, in my head. Just, the way he was. The careful. I never chose, I didn't choose the thing underneath."
"What thing?"
"Saying what I want."
It lay there between them.
"I want you to stay," said Sarah.
His mouth opened. Nothing came out.
"That's what I wanted. In the kitchen. I wanted it so much that I couldn't, I thought if I asked, if I said it would be, I'd be making you. And I thought you'd go. And I thought, good, then I'll know." She laughed, a high tearing sound. "It's the stupidest test. I've been running it my whole life. I make people leave, to see who stays."
"I should have stayed."
"I should have asked."
"We should have." He was laughing too, and crying. "We both stood there like a pair of, my sister says we were on opposite banks."
"Your sister's very wise."
"She's terrifying."
"They all are," said Sarah. "It's the women."
He put his head back against the wall. He shut his eyes, and a long wet breath went out of him, and she saw that his hands, which had been clenched between his knees, were beginning to open. They lay palm up on his thighs, big and rough and nicked, with the white scar on the thumb. She looked at them.
She did the thing that her mother had told her.
"Come here," said Sarah.
He opened his eyes.
"It's only two words." She was smiling, with her whole face wet. "It's a thing my dad used to, no. It's a thing my mom did. I'm, I'd like to say it. If you'd let me."
"I'd let you."
"Then come here."
He came.
He crossed the narrow floor on his knees. It took no time at all. It took about a year. She felt his arms come round her, and the rough wool of the scarf against her cheek, and the dear, familiar, dog-and-soap smell of him, and she put her arms round his neck and held on so tight that it hurt. He was shaking. She was shaking. They knelt there on a bare floor with the door open to a cold stairwell, and a paper cup knocked over between them, and a thin bright line of chai running slowly across the boards. She did not care. She had her face in his neck. She could feel his pulse.
"I'm sorry," he said, into her hair.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm so sorry."
"I know."
"I missed you."
"I missed you."
"I didn't know how I'd, I thought I'd die. I thought you'd, I thought I'd made it so you, that you wouldn't."
"I almost didn't."
"Don't say that."
"I have to." She drew back. She held his face in both hands. His eyes were red, and enormous, and wet, and she looked into them. "I'm not going to tell you it's fixed. I don't think it is. I think we'll do it again. I think we'll say stupid things. I think I'll hide something. And you'll sit in a car."
"I'll try not."
"I know. But we will." Her thumbs moved on his cheekbones. "It's, I think I thought love was a thing where you didn't. Where, if it was right, it would just be quiet. And I think now that it's not. I think it's a thing where you come back."
"Come back."
"You say come here. You say I got it wrong. And you do it again, and again, and, that's what it is." She laughed. "I think that's what it is. I'm not an expert."
"You're better than most."
"I'm a librarian."
"It's the same thing," said Daniel.
She kissed him.
It was a salt, wet, clumsy, perfect kiss, and it went on for a long time. When it stopped, they stayed with their foreheads together, in the narrow yellow hall, breathing the same air.
"I'm not ready to say it back," said Sarah.
"That's okay."
"It's not that I don't."
"I know."
"It's only that I'd like to say it when I'm not apologizing. When I'm not, when I'm not in a hall at midnight, with a cold drink, being sorry." Her voice shook. "I want it to be a thing I say because it's, because it's just true. And not because I'm afraid I'll lose you."
"That's the best reason I've ever heard."
"Will you wait?"
"I don't mind how long."
"That's a thing you say."
"I know. It's different this time." He gave a small, crooked, reddened smile. "This time you've asked."
She laughed.
She stood, and pulled him up by both hands. He rose, stiffly, with a groan, and stood rubbing the small of his back. "I think I've got a, I think I've got a floor-shape," he said.
"You were out there three hours."
"Almost."
"On a staircase."
"It's the best I've been in my life," said Daniel.
She picked up the cup. She carried it, and the lid, to the kitchen, and put them in the sink. She did not look at the apron, folded on the table. She stood there with her back to him, still, with her hands on the cold edge of the porcelain, and in a small, steady voice she said, over her shoulder, "There's a record player in the living room."
"There is?"
"My mom gave it to me. It's my dad's. I haven't plugged it in."
"Oh."
"I thought," said Sarah, "that maybe we might."
She turned.
He was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, in his scarf, with his hair on end. He did not say anything. She saw him understand. She saw it go through his face, one fine fine line at a time, as light comes through a curtain.
"I'd like that," said Daniel.
"It might not work."
"That's all right."
"It might be a bit of a, it's very old."
"Gus said twenty minutes," said Daniel.
She laughed. She came across the floor, and took his hand. And in the yellow kitchen, with the radiator ticking, and the clock on the stove at twelve past midnight, the two of them went through to the next room together, to find a cord, and a socket, and a needle, and a woman in a sweater on a window seat, and a rolling, yearning, falling piano, and a voice coming in underneath, that said, in a very old and level and gentle way, the thing that neither of them yet could.