I don’t have the heart to tell her what I told Vivian.
Then, in February, two people show up at once—a man in a florist van with a spray of hydrangeas and Rebecca, Foster’s wife, carrying a cardboard box of Harrison’s things from his office. “I thought you’d want these,” she says. She puts the flowers on the kitchen island and makes a pot of tea—I didn’t even know I had tea—and we sit on the teal barstools while she talks. I don’t think I say one word, but she doesn’t let that stop her. She tells me about her grandbaby’s first tooth and about Foster retiring soon and about the fashion show she’s helping produce for the Junior League.
“Caroline had her baby,” she says.
“Oh, I didn’t realize you knew her.”
“Small town.” She shrugs. I realize even if she didn’t know Caroline before, she’d know her now. Everyone probably knows of us all by virtue of what happened.
I know I should reach out to her. To Oliver. I still haven’t apologized. Or thanked him.
“Do you know if her brother—”
“He stayed on for a little bit. To help. And then left. Somewhere out of the country, I think?”
“Oh,” I say.
When Rebecca stands up later, she puts her hand over mine. “I do hope you’ll come back to teach the class soon,” she says. “The substitute has us painting a bowl of fruit.”
I look at her, considering. “I’ll be there on Wednesday,” I say. Not because of the fruit, but because I need to get out of my house.
When Rebecca leaves, I take the box to the den and start pulling things from it: Harrison’s Gollum bobblehead; the coffee mug I bought him for his birthday one year that says IT’S GOING TIBIA GREAT DAY; the Eagles Super Bowl Champs helmet paperweight he won in a bet against a colleague, a lifelong Patriots fan. I take my time, holding each item in my palm as if weighing its worth. And then—then—I spy it. Tucked in the bottom of the box, against the side, the slim beige rectangular device that was sometimes tossed along with his keys and wallet on the upturned cardboard box in the entryway or on the kitchen island or tucked in the side pocket of his laptop bag.
Harrison’s Dictaphone.
I stare at it, my breath catching in my throat. It’s a gift worth more than all of the others combined. Hurriedly, I gather the bobblehead and the cup and the paperweight and I go lie on our bed and curl around all of my husband’s belongings. I take a deep breath and press play. Harrison’s deep voice fills the room. December third, two thousand eighteen. Carotid endarterectomy. A mix of joy, grief and relief well up, pricking the corners of my eyes. I close them and listen to my husband methodically describe every step of his final surgery. And then I listen to it again.
And again.
And again.
And at some point, I fall asleep wrapped in the cocoon of Harrison’s steady voice.
* * *
The next day, I read the card that came with the flowers and learn they’re from Whitney.
He saved my son. I will forever be in debt.
I stare at it, trying not to be alarmed at my brief but fervent wish that Gabriel had died instead of my husband.
I go out to my studio. Instead of painting, I draw. On the floor. Next to the tiny hand, I add a big hand and then a face and then another one. And then another one. Every face is Harrison’s.
* * *
I think about moving. Back to Philadelphia. Maybe to Maryland, to be near Vivian and my dad. But then I’m back teaching my class every Wednesday and Rebecca starts showing up every week for tea and Raya drives up on her days off and Vivian keeps booking the next doctor appointments and coming in for them. In March, when the ground begins to thaw, I plant more greens in the garden. Swiss chard, this time, and broccoli, along with the spinach and lettuce.
And I tell myself it just feels like too much to change everything, but really, this is the last place I lived with Harrison and, ironically, it’s now the only place that feels like home. And so I stay.
In April, I feel the baby kick, like the faint flapping of a wing, but it was there and I sit, stunned. But still, I hold my breath.
* * *
One day, the sun is a ball of fire in the sky, scorching the earth. My class has been out of session for weeks; the start of fall semester is closer than the end of spring. I can’t get down on the floor in my studio anymore because my belly is too big, so I’m half perched on a stool—standing every few minutes to stretch my aching back—drawing on a sketchpad propped on an easel.
And that’s when I hear it, the crunch of tires on the gravel in the driveway. At first I think it’s probably a lost driver, or maybe a cable salesman trying to convince me to switch my provider.
I wait to see if whoever it is will just leave, but I hear the car engine cut off and a door slam shut. Footfalls crunch the gravel now, instead of tires.
And somehow, I know.
Slowly, I wipe the charcoal off my hands on a rag and walk toward the studio’s door, peering out the glass pane. The hood of the Prius gleams in the sun, confirming my prescience. I’m suddenly overwhelmed in my embarrassment that I haven’t reached out before now. I thought about it—a few times. But something always stopped me. I hesitate now, only for a second, and then I turn the handle and step out into the day, squinting against the rays of bright sun.
“Oliver.” His back is to me as he walks to the path toward the front door. He pauses, then twists his body toward the sound of my voice.
“Hi,” he says. He’s wearing a striped tank top with a pocket, army green pants, his Reef sandals. His hair is scruffier, his eyes still intense. And only then do I consider what I must look like. I’m wearing what I slept in—one of Harrison’s undershirts, stretched tight across my belly, and leggings. My hair, a messy topknot at the crown of my head. If the roundness of my belly surprises him, it doesn’t register on his face.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “About the . . .” I’m experiencing every emotion at once and they cloud my brain, make forming words an impossible task. A trickle of sweat crawls between my breasts. A plane flies far overhead, the distant hum of the engines the only sound in the air.
“I know,” he says. “It’s nothing.”
“I heard you were out of the country.”
“Costa Rica.”
“Coffee farm?”
“Banana plantation.”
And then we look at each other and I know I don’t have to say anything else. I don’t have to say how strange it is, the way the paths of our lives intersected. How neither of us could have ever guessed how it would have all turned out. How no one would ever believe us if we told them.