He called me three times on the way home. With my phone lying in the passenger seat, I watched his name light up on the screen through the dark. I was right, I had always been right, and I felt the hollow, aching satisfaction of knowing it. Everyone had set me up with their empty encouragement and false hopes, their talk-show platitudes about love and grace and understanding. But I knew what would happen.
Though it was only half past nine, my parents’ house was dark when I pulled up, with even the exterior lights turned off. It looked uninhabited compared to the neighbors’, whose front doors still glowed with welcome. My footsteps echoed uncomfortably on the stone floor in the kitchen, so I walked with deliberate force through the house and up the stairs, making my presence known. But no one stirred.
I lay in bed, unable to sleep, for what felt like hours. Letting myself relive those few blissful moments with Mark, I remembered the sensation of his bare chest against mine. It couldn’t hurt, I decided, as I allowed my hand to slip down my stomach, mimicking his. Only then did I sleep.
By the time I woke up, the house was empty again. I must have missed the morning clatter of Aunt Kathy and my mother as they prepared for the day, and of my father reading the paper at the kitchen table while eating his standard Saturday morning fare of a bagel, yogurt, and a cup of coffee. There was not a dish in the sink, the TV was off, and mail wasn’t scattered over the kitchen counter. Everything was static, still, and quiet.
Finally dialing into my voice mail, I listened to Mark’s message. Though he had called a total of five times, he had left only one voice mail. “Ellen, it’s Mark.” He sounded exhausted. “Please call me. I want to try to explain things.” And I could almost hear him say it; I could almost hear him telling me that I was great, really great. And that he hoped we could be friends, or even more. He just wanted me to know where he stood before things got too serious, before I got too attached.
. . .
“You realize that you could be totally wrong,” said Jill as she sat cross-legged opposite me on her huge velvet sectional.
I shook my head. “I’m not wrong.”
“I think you should call him back.”
“Okay, Jill, let’s just say that you’re right,” I began, playing the devil’s advocate, “and that there is some other reason why he didn’t want to be with me. It doesn’t even really matter, because after I flew out of his house like there was an air raid, I might have set off some psycho alarms, don’t you think?” That chick is nuts. Ted’s words echoed in my head. That was what he had said that night in the parking garage.
“I don’t know why you assume that you are the issue. Maybe it’s something about him.”
“Like what?”
“Maybe he has his own issues, Elle.”
I recalled Kat’s warning about how long he had to call me after our first date. He has three days. Tops. If it goes longer than three days, then he has some weird baggage… like a wife and kids.
Jill read the expression on my face. “What?” she asked.
“I don’t know. His place is pretty spartan. It doesn’t even really look like he lives there. There isn’t a dining room table or anything. It’s like…”
Jill’s eyebrows lifted. “Like maybe his wife has it?”
No, I thought. I couldn’t fathom that Mark—Mark—would have such a secret. This had to be about me. I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. We’re done.”
Jill somberly considered this for a moment. “All right, if that’s how you feel, you’ve got nothing to lose anyway, so why not hear what he has to say?”
I imagined Mark’s handsome, guilt-ridden face as he struggled to tell me the truth. “I just don’t want to hear another man tell me that he doesn’t want to be with me. Not yet,” I said, shaking my head. “I just don’t want to know the reason why.”
Jill looked away and I waited for her to contradict me, to offer me salvation. After a few seconds of silence I changed the subject. “I have to go with my parents to this party at the Arnolds’.”
“Why do you have to go?”
I worked my foot underneath one of Jill’s throw pillows. “Lynn invited me and so my mother begged me to accept. After the fiasco with Kat that night, my Mom’s being overly gracious.”
“Well, we’ll stalk the caterers with the passed hors d’oeuvres and shoot Parker dirty looks.”
“Wait—you’re going to be there?”
“I told you that.”
“No, you didn’t,” I said, marveling at Jill’s ability to omit critical information. I knew that she knew the Arnolds—everyone knew the Arnolds—but I had no idea she was going to be at the party.
She pulled her hair back into a ponytail, her shirt lifting enough to reveal the navy blue band at the waist of her designer maternity jeans. “Oh. Well, Greg’s father invested in Ed’s company way early on and they’ve known each other for years. Greg always goes, so this year I’m being roped into it.”
“Thank God,” I said, smiling genuinely for the first time all day. “That evening just got so much more bearable.”
. . .
On my way home from Jill’s, Luke called my cell phone.
“Fa-la-la-la-la,” he said. I could hear the cacophony of holiday shoppers in the background. “Guess where I am?”
“I don’t know, Luke. Where?” I wasn’t in the mood for games.
“Buying your Christmas present,” he said, sounding chipper and spirited. “We need to know your shoe size.” We. He and Mitch were now so totally together that all sentences were phrased in the first-person plural.
“Luke, you don’t need to get me anything.” It was my standard line, but I meant it this year.
“Oh, whatever. You’re always skulking around in those flats. You need some come-hither heels. Consider it a gift for Mark.”
“Luke…,” I started, but he wasn’t listening. I could hear Mitch murmuring in the background and Luke’s muffled voice.
“Mitch wanted me to ask you if you ever found out the Web address for Mark’s thing.”
I knew that the “thing” Luke was referring to was Mark’s nonprofit, but it didn’t matter anymore. “Actually, no. And I don’t think I will.”
“What do you mean?” asked Luke cautiously, finally reading my foul mood.
“It’s just… not going to work out between us.”
“What happened?” he asked, aghast.
“Look, I don’t really feel like going into it. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“Okay…,” said Luke reluctantly.
. . .
There were suitcases set out by the back door when I got home. Aunt Kathy was putting on her coat as she and my mother stood facing each other, both looking forlorn and anxious. Their emotions, whether good or bad, were always mirrored in each other’s expressions.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Aunt Kathy’s going home,” said my mother, putting on a brave face.
“Why?” I asked, shocked.
Aunt Kathy looked at me tenderly. “Y’all have a lot going on right now, honey. I think it would be best if it was just your family.”
“What do you mean? You’re our family.” I glanced from her to my mother, expecting her to voice a similar protest, but she couldn’t meet my eye. “What are you going to do for Christmas?” Libby was in Stockholm and Uncle Bill was somewhere off the coast of Central America.
“I’ll be fine,” said Aunt Kathy in the overexaggerated, syrupy southern accent that she and my mother always used when trying to be convincing. “Lord, I can’t wait to have a few days to putter around my house by myself.”
From behind me, I heard my father’s distinct, heavy footsteps.
“Are we ready?” he asked.
“Wait—you’re leaving right now?” I asked.
“Daddy and I are going to take Kathy to the airport. We’ll be back in about an hour,” said my mother.
My father picked up two of Aunt Kathy’s bags, then stood a few feet back while my aunt and I said good-bye. It was as if he didn’t want to get too close to anyone, as if he had some virulent and contagious virus. Once so indomitable, he now seemed almost meek.
“You have a wonderful Christmas, honey,” said Aunt Kathy, gripping my shoulders.
“You, too,” I said, bewildered and stunned. “I just can’t believe you’re going.”
“Say good-bye to your brother and sister for me.” And with that, the three of them disappeared.
There were dishes in the sink. I began obsessively washing them. Not just giving them a rinse and sticking them in the dishwasher, but cleaning and drying by hand. When that was done, I wiped down the already clean counters and vacuumed the floor before moving on to the living room. It was the first time I really noticed that there was no tree. It was a week before Christmas and there was no tree. There were no stockings and no nativity. There were no amaryllis bulging from their fleshy bulbs, ready to bloom. The lack of ornamentation immediately seemed like a flashing, foreboding symbol, a red flag that I had missed. Aunt Kathy knew everything there was to know about my mother, and, by extension, my parents. There was nothing I could imagine being beyond the pale of their relationship.
I got in the car and drove to one of the roadside Christmas tree stands that popped up around that time of year. As I stood looking at the trees, constrained by netting and leaning up against the A-frame display, I pictured my parents’ living room, with its huge cathedral ceiling and massive stone fireplace.
“What size you looking for?” asked a gruff man with a red beard shot with white.
“I don’t know exactly. Something big, though.”
“The biggest we got left is about twelve feet.”
“Perfect,” I said, wanting a tree to fill the space, to totally overwhelm and consume it.
He tied it to the roof of my car and I drove awkwardly but urgently toward home, wanting to get the tree set up before my parents returned. I would find the decorations in the basement. The tree stand was there, too. Everything was going to look perfect, I thought as my hands shook.
But my father’s car was already in the garage when I arrived.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked my mother. She was sitting in the living room, leaning forward with her elbows resting on her knees. Music was playing in the background, a modern recording of “Jehovah Jireh.” It meant “God the Provider.”
“Your father’s not feeling well. He’s lying down.”
“I bought a Christmas tree. I can’t get it in by myself.”
My mother took a deep breath. “Ellen, sit down.”
“What’s going on, Mom?” I asked, dreading her answer, realizing that no matter how old I got, my parents would always be my parents. I would always feel helpless and vulnerable in the face of their problems.
“Your father and I have declared bankruptcy.”
“Oh, Mom,” I whispered. By the look on her face, I could tell she was not done.
“We are figuring out what assets the bank is going to get. We are hoping to keep the house.”
“What?” I didn’t have the foresight to hide my shock or fear. “You might lose the house?”
She covered her eyes with her hand and I saw her mouth quiver. “Your poor father,” she said. “He’s worked so hard his whole life, and to be left with nothing is just…” Beyond words. His was the story you heard about on the news. The greedy developer who rode the real estate bubble to riches until it burst and he finally got what was coming to him. He was the villain, the fool, and the problem.
“What’s going to happen?” I asked, echoing the question that had probably been ringing in my mother’s ears for months.
“Nothing is definite. Your father’s been talking to the lawyers. They don’t usually go after your residence, but—” She swatted at the air, and I realized that my mother’s understanding of the situation was most likely minimal. “I guess we have a lot of equity in this place.” She laughed sadly. “Lord, you’d think that was a good thing.”
“Oh, Mom,” I said, putting my hand on hers. As I was trying to formulate the right words, ask the right questions, my mother turned to me with sudden urgency.
“Ellen, you just have to promise me—please don’t let on to your father that you know. He doesn’t want anyone to know yet.”
“Mom, it’s nothing to be ashamed of,” I said, but even as I spoke, I knew it wasn’t exactly true. Wasn’t failure—particularly financial failure—what men like my father were told to be ashamed of?
“Promise me, Ellen.” Her words were more emphatic, more desperate.
I nodded reluctantly. “Do you have a plan?” I asked quietly.
“I just have to pray.” Her head began to nod steadily. “We just have to all keeping praying.”
I was filled with a sudden and violent fury. I had expected her answer to involve payment plans, budgets, mentions of funds that were protected, untouchable—but prayer? It doesn’t work, I screamed in my head, wanting to shake her. It doesn’t fucking work. But I said nothing. My mother read the look on my face.
“What else can I do, Ellen?” she asked, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks. “Please, tell me, what else can I possibly do?”