“What?” He activated the seat warmers and started the engine.
“I love my ring. I love Duke’s pizza. And I love you.”
“In that order?”
“Ha. My boyfriend is…”
“Hilarious, I know.” He reached for her hand, turned it over, and kissed the old scars on her wrist. Tenderly. Softly. “I love you, Kate. I’m glad you like the ring.”
She could feel the weight of their three-year relationship and luxuriated in the warmth and familiarity of it as they headed towards Harvard Square.
It began to snow, fat white flakes flurrying past their windshield. The sparkling city contained all the magic of a fairytale, and Kate decided to tuck her worries away. Nikki McCormack would be okay. She shouldn’t feel guilty about taking a vacation—her first in years. You’re entitled to a life.
She glanced at the ring on her finger. Perhaps she should marry James. What was her problem? He was handsome and smart and one of the funniest people she’d ever known—he made her laugh from the gut, those genuine belly laughs— and she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. She just couldn’t bring herself to take the next step because… her sister, her mother. The lump of tragedies that sat like a disfiguring scar on her soul.
The Lexus straddled the off-ramp lane, and they took the exit to Harvard Square, which was snowy and all lit up. They drove down Massachusetts Avenue, past the crowded university campus with its centuries-old dormitories, and headed toward Arlington, Cambridge’s drab sister city. Before reaching the town line, they took a left onto a quiet residential street—still Cambridge, which mattered to James, that ever-important zip code—and found a parking spot in their brand-new neighborhood.
James propped their freshly minted parking permit on the dashboard, and they got out and inhaled the rejuvenating winter air. Kate’s worries receded. Soon they’d be rock-climbing in the Southwest, hiking through the red-clay canyons of Sedona, toasting spectacular sunsets, and tumbling into hotel beds.
But tonight it was snowing, and they were in chilly, intellectual Cambridge, and the moon was just a smudge behind the clouds. Snowflakes dusted their eyelashes. James took her hand and they navigated the icy cobblestones together, half-strolling, half-stumbling past the subdivided Victorians and Gothics, where Harvard grads and post-docs studied in lonely obscurity. The streets were eerily silent except for the whisper of falling snow and the occasional whoosh of tires spinning through slush.
At the end of the block, they turned the corner onto a centuries-old thoroughfare. Around each old-fashioned streetlamp was a halo of falling snow. Their renovated brick condominium was built in 1915, with granite steps and hovering gargoyles on the roof. Several months ago, they’d closed escrow on an incredible two-bedroom in this desirable location and had spent the past five or six weekends painting the walls designer shades of white and installing new light fixtures. A few days ago, they’d rearranged everything just the way they liked it, and now they were ready to enjoy the rest of their lives together. It was a bit overwhelming.
The ring. The condo. The two-week vacation. Might as well be married.
James opened the front door for her, and they stepped into the lobby, where the wood was dark-stained, the lights were elegantly dimmed, and the strange scent of cured animal skins and cracked leather pervaded the warm, stuffy air.
“Is it my imagination,” James said, “or are we the only tenants in the building?”
“I know, right?” she agreed. “Where is everybody?”
“How come we never see anyone? Where’s the welcome party?”
She glanced at the vaulted ceiling. “I guess we’ll meet them eventually.”
“I guesssssss,” he hissed in her ear, before launching into The Addams Family theme song. He grabbed her around the middle, and she caught a whiff of something smoky and elusive about him. He was an athletic man in his mid-thirties, with thick dark hair and warm brown eyes. In the summer, his hair was more golden than brown. He was a typical American male—virile, passionately intense about sports and video games, sometimes loud and opinionated, sometimes vague and introspective, always respectful and well-mannered. When she was with him, she felt indestructible. She supposed it was dangerous to feel that way.
She pressed the call button for the elevator. “Are you ready?” She showed him her ring. “Ready for couple-dom?”
“Readier than you, apparently.” He crossed his heart like a Boy Scout. “I will never use first-person-singular again.”
Kate laughed. Her phone rang, and she rummaged through her bag, but by the time she picked up, the caller had hung up. She checked the ID. Unavailable.
“Hey,” he said with mock suspicion. “Was that your other boyfriend?”
“Yeah, he’s so annoying.”
“I’m jealous. I’m supposed to be the annoying one.”
“You are. Hands down.”
The elevator creaked to a shuddering halt. It was one of those old-fashioned brass cages you had to operate yourself, prying the stubborn hinged doors open. They stepped into the slightly swaying cage, closed the jittery doors and pushed the button for the eighth floor. As soon as it began to move, they kissed passionately, groping one another like horny teenagers.
The elevator seemed to take forever to climb to the eighth floor. James grew gradually still as the brass cage swayed on its creaky cables—he had a deep-seated fear of elevators that wasn’t a secret to her. He’d gotten stuck between floors once as a child, while visiting his grandmother in New York City. He rang the bell and banged on the doors and hollered for help, while the elevator had slowly filled with smoke from a blown motor in the basement—long story, happy ending.
Now his lips tasted cold and ozone-y from the newly fallen snow. Her ring didn’t itch. Miracle of miracles. They were on their way up to their very own condo, just a stone’s throw from Harvard Square. She was thirty-two years old. She was deeply in love. She wanted this moment to last forever.
The elevator came to a halt, jerking on its rusty cables.
James winced. “I’ll have to get used to that.”
“Last stop, everybody out.”
They pulled the heavy brass doors open.
“Cheaper than a gym membership,” he quipped, flinging an arm around her.
They headed down the stuffy corridor toward their unit, their boots leaving crumbs of slush on the mauve carpet. Discreet indirect lighting hid the flaws in the elegant plaster ceiling. They stopped in front of their varnished door with its scratched brass nameplate that said 8D.
“Home at last,” Kate sighed.
The landline began to ring inside their condo as James fumbled with his keys.
“Okay,” she said. “Tell me again why we gave your mother our number?”
“Meh. Let the machine pick up.” James found it much easier to ignore his rich, leisured mom than Kate did. Vanessa Hill was like fingernails on a blackboard—grating. She often called to boast about the Boston charities she was involved with and all the non-profits she was on the board of, but she rarely asked James about his life, which bothered Kate more than it bothered him. He shrugged it off with the kind of resignation he reserved for airports and insurance forms.
He unlocked the door and they tumbled inside, a curl of light sweeping across the hardwood floor. It was dark except for a blue haze coming from the city lights below. James groped at the wall and found the switch, and the place lit up.
The phone stopped ringing.
“Ah,” she breathed.
“Nice,” he agreed.
They waited for the inevitable voicemail message, but Vanessa must’ve hung up. It wasn’t like her to be so non-verbose.
They peeled off layers of outerwear—unzipping, untying, unbuttoning.