An American Marriage(85)

Celestial crossed her arms over her chest like she was holding herself together. “I know you said not to. But if you had been there . . .”

And now I held myself with the same posture, arms crossed and gripping my sides. “It wasn’t my fault that I wasn’t there. I would have been there if they had let me.”

We sat at that table, neither able to comfort the other, her remembering being a bystander to my mother’s suffering and me suffering because I was denied the experience.

She composed herself first, took the apple from the table, and sliced off another piece for herself and one for me. “Eat,” she said.

Night followed day, as it always does, and each night promised a day soon to come. This is something I took comfort in these last bad years. While Celestial showered, I called Big Roy, and I could hear the melancholy in the way he spoke our mutual name.

“You okay, Daddy?”

“Yes, Roy. I’m okay. Got a little indigestion. Sister Franklin brought me a plate, but I ate too much of it, too fast maybe. She’s not a cook like your mama but not half-bad.”

“It’s okay to enjoy it, Daddy. Go ahead and like her.”

He laughed, but he didn’t sound like himself. “You trying to marry me off so you don’t have to come home and take care of me?”

“I want you to be happy.”

“You’re free, son. That makes me happy enough for the rest of my days.”

Next, I rang Davina as the steam from Celestial’s shower wafted into the bedroom.

“Merry Christmas,” I said to her. In the background was music and laughing. “Is this a bad time?”

She hesitated, then said, “Let me take the phone outside.” As I waited, I imagined her with a tuft of tinsel glinting in her hair, her hand on her hip. When she came back, I tried to sound casual.

“I just want to say Merry Christmas.” I held the phone with both hands like I was worried that somebody was going to snatch it from me.

“Roy Hamilton, I have one question for you. You ready? Here it is: something or nothing. This could be the eggnog talking, but I need to know. What happened with us, was it something or nothing?”

This is how it was with women, pop quizzes with no right answer. “Something?” I said with a little question curling up like a tail on a pig.

“You’re not sure? Listen, for me, Roy Hamilton, it’s something. It’s something to me.”

“Davina, don’t make me lie. I’m married. I found out that I’m still married.”

She cut me off. “I didn’t ask you all that. All I asked is something or nothing.”

Twisting the phone cord, I recalled our time together. Could it have been only two nights? But those two nights were the start of the rest of my life. I crawled to her door, but I walked away on my own two feet. “Something,” I said, leaning in. “Definitely something. I wish I could say what.”

I hung up as Celestial emerged, looking herself like a Christmas present, dressed in a little lace-nightie thing that I recognized as something that I’d bought for her. She had complained that it looked itchy, meaning that it looked cheap. I had paid good money for it, but now that she wore it, I could see her point. She twirled. “Like it?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I do. For real.”

She lay back on the pillows like a goddess on her day off, her chest dusted with fine flecks of gold. “C’mere,” she said, sounding like someone on television, not like a real person in real life.

I went to her, but I didn’t hit the light.

“One more thing,” I said. “One more thing to clear the air. Okay? Before we do this, okay?”

“You don’t have to. Didn’t you say we’re starting fresh?”

I smarted at the word fresh. Back in Eloe, it meant not getting ahead of yourself. But I knew how she intended it. Fresh was this fantasy of entering a clean, uncluttered room and shutting the door behind you. “I don’t want to start fresh. I want to start real.”

“Tell me then.”

“Okay,” I began. “When I was in Eloe for those few days, I was in a hard place. It was a lot to deal with. There’s a girl. Someone from high school. She invited me to her place for dinner, and one thing led to another.” Strange as this may seem, my confession felt familiar, like a favorite pair of jeans. This dynamic was a holdover from before, when we quarreled as only lovers do. This time, Celestial had no right to be jealous, but since when do you need a right to feel the way you felt? I smiled a little, remembering the time that she threw away my slice of wedding cake and drank the rest of the champagne by herself. Maybe I missed the fighting as much as the loving, because with Celestial, I had never known one without the other. Our passion was powerful and dangerous as an unstable atom. I’ll never forget our kiss-and-make-up when she bit my chest, leaving a purple ring that gave me a good hurt for a day and a half. With a woman like that, you knew you were in something.

Celestial said, “How could I be mad at you? I’m not a hypocrite.”

I studied her face, which reflected only weariness. She may as well have shrugged. I had been gone a long time, but I still knew her a little bit. There are things in a core of a person that didn’t change. Celestial was an intense person. Yesterday under the tree, she fought to maintain her composure, to keep her fire in check, but I could feel her burning. “Georgia, do you know what I’m trying to say?”