Ignoring the pain in my chest, I cross the threshold.
His mom’s been here. The house is aromatic with cinnamon and sweet plums from Marijke’s signature cake. Where she got plums this time of year is anyone’s guess, but they can’t have been cheap.
It’s self-absorbed to imagine she’s happy I’m gone, but she might be, if she brought the damn cake. It’s been my favorite since the moment I tasted its buttery, jammy, subtly vanilla perfection. She told me the recipe was reserved for family. I told her I’d be honored to receive it as a wedding gift.
She gave us towels.
It was me who antagonized her first, though. The day Tobin took me home to meet his parents, he should’ve warned me not to ask all those questions about his dad, Tor—had he called to say he’d be late? Where did he say he was coming from? Should we text him?
Marijke got chillier with each successive blunder. I apologized afterward, but it was too late. My dogged trying didn’t carve one chip off her icy reserve.
Considering her feelings, I didn’t expect what happened next. Sure, Marijke had been hinting that she was tired of commuting so far to the store. I thought that meant she wanted to move to Grey Tusk. I was ashamed of being a little bit glad. No more excuses for her to stop in Pendleton on the drive from Grey Tusk Village to her house in Linton, a sweet little town twenty minutes north of us. No more of her loving on Tobin while refusing to look at me on those evenings Tobin invited her to stay for dinner.
The universe bit me in the ass the day she bought the house next door.
The minute she moved in—barely a month after our wedding, just weeks before Amber and Eleanor arrived—felt like the final minute Tobin and I had to ourselves. Someone was always texting or calling, preempting our priorities with sales shifts at Marijke’s pop-up events or appointments for Eleanor. If we didn’t answer the phone, they’d peer in the windows. If I said we were busy, they did end runs around me to Tobin, who always said we weren’t. Eventually, there didn’t seem to be much point in defending our alone time.
I kick my shoes into a corner. “How do you want to do this?”
He hesitates for a moment, then turns away. “I’ll stay on the couch.” His bare feet whisper against the hardwood, a trail of mountain air wafting in his wake.
Christ, his ass in those pants. I force my gaze away for the second time, making for the stairs. The sooner I get out of here, the better.
The house is booby-trapped with memories. Along the staircase are the photos I painstakingly hung, measuring and sweating while Tobin nuzzled my neck and asked whether I wassurehe couldn’t help.
At the first step: a grainy, awkwardly posed shot from the trip where we first kissed, the sunset painting us in burnished gold.
Step by step, year by year, the photos march on: skiing, dogsledding, our housewarming, our friends—well, Tobin’s friends—and Yeti. The last one was taken as we walked back up the aisle at our wedding, me beaming shyly at Tobin while he turned a laughing face to our guests. I can still feel the echo of that moment, the sweet certainty of love spiked with the intoxicating thrill of possibility.
I stroke the frame, melancholy. There are no more photos afterthe wedding, because there were no memories happy enough to look at every day.
With a sigh, I climb the last few steps to the bedroom.
Pulling my suitcase from underneath a mountain of backpacks and gear, I knock over an unlabeled box, tumbling its contents across the dusty closet floor.
A poster tube with a curled-up print of my favorite Lawren Harris painting for when I get an office with walls. A copy ofThe Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,because the classics don’t go out of date. Notebook upon notebook of ideas, inspiration, research, articles about successful eco-travel initiatives in places like Grey Tusk.
At first I kept the notebooks in my bedside drawer, ready for inspiration to strike. After a few years of pitching my ideas with no success, I moved them to the bookshelf. And then into a box at the back of the closet. When did I stop being the Liz whose ideas came from dreams, instead of desperation? Touching these books gives me a haunted feeling.
This stuff belongs to someone who died, and that someone was me.
I sweep the crap back into the box, but I can’t get the lid closed. I reorganize and squish and retry, but the genie won’t go back inside the bottle.
“Get in there,” I mutter, shoving the lid. One corner pops back up. “Getinthere, motherfucker.”
Before I know it I’ve got the box in both hands and I’m throwing it down the stairs.
The lid flies off immediately, catapulting over the railing to flutter to the foyer below.The Seven Habitstumbles down the stairs, floppy like a dead body. Spiral-bound notebooks cramped from years of darkness sense their chance, unfurling their wings in a cascade of glitter-inked pages.
“Are you okay?!” I can hear Tobin tiptoeing through the disaster area.
“Throwing out some garbage while I’m here! I’ll clean it up.”
I heft the suitcase onto the bed, tossing clothes and gadgets in that general direction. It smells like him in here. Spring means snow and pine are giving way to clean earth and green sap, with a healthy, musky base note of Tobin.
Despite everything, my nipples pull tight, a flush gathering between my legs from just thesmellof him rising from the bed.
But if sex were enough to keep us together, I wouldn’t be dumping my jewelry into a zip pouch.
