Regretting You(58)

Jonah nods toward the garage. “I didn’t have time to run home after work. Mind if I try to unlock Chris’s toolbox?” I shake my head. Jonah heads in that direction, and I put Elijah in his bassinet. I move it to the far side of the living room so that the noise from the kitchen hopefully doesn’t wake him.

Jonah walks back into the house with Chris’s toolbox and carries it into the kitchen. I follow him to help him with the door.

I hand him a knife, and it only takes him a few seconds to pick the lock. After he opens the lid, he lifts the top tray out so that he can search through the larger section in the bottom.

There’s a perplexed look that suddenly appears on his face. That look prompts me to walk over to the toolbox and look inside.

We both stare at the contents that were hidden beneath the top tray.

Envelopes. Letters. Cards. Several of them, all addressed to Chris.

“Are these from you?” Jonah asks.

I shake my head and take a step back, as if the distance will make them disappear. Every time I feel like one of my many wounds might be starting to heal, something happens to rip it open again.

Chris’s name is written in Jenny’s handwriting on the outside of all the open envelopes. Jonah is sifting through them.

My heart begins to race, knowing there could be answers to all of our questions inside those envelopes. When did it start? Why? Was Chris in love with her? Did he love her more than he loved me?

“Are you going to read them?” I ask.

Jonah shakes his head with assurance. His decision is so final. I’m envious of his lack of curiosity. He hands them all to me. “You do what you need to do, but I don’t care to know what they say.”

I stare at the letters in my hands.

Jonah grabs what he needs from the toolbox and pushes it aside, then gets to work on the last stubborn door hinge.

I walk the letters to my bedroom and drop them onto the bed. Even just holding them feels too painful. I don’t want to look at them while Jonah is here, so I leave my bedroom and close the door. I’ll confront them later.

I push myself up onto the counter in the kitchen, and I stare at my feet, thinking of nothing but the letters, no matter how hard I try to think of something else.

If I read them, will it give me a sense of closure? Or will it only deepen the wound?

Part of me is afraid it’ll make it worse. The small memories I have make it bad enough, like the one I had this morning that almost brought me to tears.

Jenny and I were downtown last year, a week before Chris’s birthday. She was adamant about getting him a particular abstract painting she saw hanging in a store. In all the years I’d been married to Chris, I’d never known him to be interested in art. But the painting reminded Jenny of Chris somehow. I never thought much about it. After all, she was his sister-in-law. I loved how well they got along.

The painting hangs above the portable kitchen island I keep shoved against the wall.

I’m staring at it now.

“Jenny was adamant about getting Chris that painting for his birthday last year.”

Jonah pauses what he’s doing and looks over his shoulder at the painting. Then his eyes sweep quickly over me, and his focus is given back to the door.

“I told her he would hate it, and do you know what she said to me?”

“What’d she say?” Jonah asks.

“She said, ‘You don’t know him like I do.’”

Jonah’s shoulders tense, but he doesn’t respond to that.

“I remember laughing at her because I thought she was joking. But now, knowing what we know, I think she actually meant it. She was serious about knowing my husband better than I did, and I don’t think she meant to say that out loud. Now, every time I look at that painting, I can’t help but wonder what story it holds. Were they together the first time he saw it? Did he tell her he loved it? Every memory I have of them I thought was set in stone. But the more I think about it—about them—those memories are all changing shape. And I hate it.”

Jonah finally gets the door off the hinges. He props it up against the wall and then leans against the counter and grabs a Jolly Rancher. I’m surprised when he pops it in his mouth.

“You hate watermelon.”

“Huh?”

“You just ate a watermelon Jolly Rancher. You used to hate them.”

He doesn’t respond to my observation. He’s staring at the painting when he begins talking. “The night before they died, when we were all eating dinner at the table? Chris asked her if she was excited about the next day. And I thought nothing of it when she said, ‘You have no idea,’ because she was supposedly starting back to work the next day, and I assumed that’s what they were talking about. But they were talking about staying together at the Langford. They were talking about it right in front of us.”

I hadn’t thought about that moment. But he’s right. Jenny looked Chris in the eye and more or less told him she was excited about getting to sleep with him. Chills creep up my arms, so I rub them away. “I hate them. I hate them for lying to you about Elijah. I hate them for rubbing it in our faces.”

We’re both staring at the painting now. “It’s such an ugly painting,” Jonah says.

“It really is. Elijah could probably paint something better.”

He opens the refrigerator and pulls out a carton of eggs. When the refrigerator door falls shut, he opens the eggs and pulls one out, cupping it in his hand. Then he throws it at the painting. I watch the yolk trickle down the right side and fall onto the floor.