That’s just an ol’ twig. You need glasses.
You’re the one who needs glasses—
She remembered their laughter … the way they’d sit on that muddy bank for hours, talking about nothing.
She followed the path back around the bend, and there was the house. For a second she expected it to look as it once had: a slant-sided shack with fake shingles; shutters hanging askew on cracked, dirty windows; a battalion of snarling pit bulls chained in the yard.
She blinked and the memory moved on. She was staring at the house Cal had built by himself, in the years after junior college and before marrying Lisa. He’d worked for a construction company back then. After a forty-five-hour workweek he’d piled on the extra hours at his own house, literally building the place around his drunken, useless father.
It was a small house that seemed to have sprouted outward, growing in a collection of sharp angles and awkward slants. Rooms had been added on as money came in, without real rhyme or reason. Cal had poured his energy into the place, trying to build for his family the home he’d never had. The end result was a quaint shingled cabin set on a patch of velvet green grass, surrounded by two-hundred-year-old evergreens.
As always, the holiday lights and decorations were world-class. Ellie always figured he went overboard to make up for all the years there hadn’t even been a tree in the living room.
The porch was studded with white lights; the railings were festooned with boughs. A giant homemade wreath decorated the front door.
Ellie expected to hear music seeping through the walls, but it was oddly still. For a second she wondered if they were home. She glanced behind her and saw Cal’s baby—the 1969 GTO he’d restored to perfection.
She knocked on the door. When no one answered, she tried again.
Finally she heard a thunder of footsteps.
The door wrenched open and Cal’s daughters stood there, huddled together, smiling brightly. Amanda, the eleven-and-a-half-year-old, looked impossibly grown-up in her low-rise jeans and studded silver belt and pink tee shirt. Her long black hair had been coiled into the haphazard braid that could only be made by a father’s clumsy hands. Nine-year-old Emily was dressed in a green velvet dress that was at least a size too big, and eight-year-old Sarah—the only child to have inherited her mother’s strawberry-blond hair and freckled complexion—hadn’t bothered to change out of her Princess Fiona pajamas.
At the sight of Ellie, all three smiles faded.
“It’s just Aunt Ellie,” Amanda said.
The trio mumbled “Merry Christmas.” Then Emily called out for her dad.
“Gee, thanks,” Ellie said, watching them walk away.
Cal came down the stairs. He was moving slowly, as if maybe he’d just woken up. His black hair was a tangled mess. Tiny pink lines creased his left cheek. He wore a pair of Levi’s so old that both knees were gone and the hemlines were foamy fringe. His Metallica tee shirt had seen better days, too.
“Ellie,” he said, trying to smile. As he passed each of the girls, he hugged them, then let them go.
“You look like hell,” she said when the girls were gone.
“And I was going to say how beautiful you are.”
Ellie closed the door behind her and followed him to the living room, where a huge decorated tree took up the entire corner. She set the bag of gifts down beside it.
Cal flopped down on the sofa, put his feet on the hammered copper coffee table. His sigh was loud enough to set a tiny ornament spinning and jingling.
Ellie sat down beside him. It confused her to see Cal this way. He’d laughed his way through too many hard times to fall apart now. If Cal could become fragile, then nothing was safe. “What happened?”
He glanced behind him, made sure no little ears were nearby. “Lisa didn’t come for Christmas morning … or dinner. She didn’t send any presents. I told the girls she’d call, but I’m starting to wonder.”
Ellie frowned. “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. I called her parents. She’s out with her new guy.”
“That doesn’t sound like Lisa.”
Cal looked at her. “Yes, it does.”
Ellie heard the wealth of pain behind those few words. She knew it was all Cal would ever tell her about his failed marriage. “I’m sorry.”
“You’ve been here before, right? A divorce is like a cut. It heals. That’s what you always said.”
The truth was, she had never been in his shoes. She’d never stayed married for more than two years, never become a love instead of a lover with her spouse. God knew she’d never had children’s hearts in her grasp. “I don’t think my marriages should be compared to yours, Cal. You might hurt for a long time.”
“Not loving her can’t be more painful than loving her was.” He stared into the fire.
Ellie let him have his time. In a way, it was like the old days when they were kids. They’d sometimes sit on that bridge all day and never say more than You got any more Bazooka?