Season of Salt and Honey (26 page)

Behind the cup of tea, in a brown cup with a matching saucer, is a small terrarium, round like a globe, with a circular hole cut in the side. The base is filled with dark soil, topped with velvety, bottle-green moss. There are plants, ferns perhaps, resembling tiny pines, reaching up to the top of the glass, and nestled among them, at the end of a path made from a dusting of sand and sprinkling of minuscule pebbles, is a tiny wooden building. It's been made by hand, the walls matchsticks stacked upon one another, windows no larger than a penny, a Tinker Bell–sized door. I reach in through the opening in the terrarium and touch the roof of it with the tip of my finger. It's the cabin. I sit back on the couch, the blanket dropping to my feet, staring at the little glass globe as though it's a dream.

There is still light in the sky. I stand and touch the outline
of my car keys through the fabric of my pocket. I tear a piece of paper from an exercise book I find on the dining table and write a note with one of Huia's colored pencils. A purple one.

Thank you.

I pour the cold tea down the sink and leave the note on the kitchen counter.

*  *  *

That night I lie awake and ignore Bella knocking gently on the door. I hear her and Daniel outside, worrying about me, deciding what to do, and then there is silence as they go back to their tents. Daniel doesn't play the guitar that night and I am glad of it.

I stare up at the ceiling, the wooden beams, the fine gray web in the corner where a spider has made her home. I cannot sleep and I don't even try. Instead, I take myself back to the days before Alex was gone. Those days that were so ordinary, but have become so sharp, so bright, in their recalling. I have picked through them before, over and over, looking for clues. Signs that he was going to die. Signs I should have noticed. The ticking of a deathwatch beetle. Stepping on cracks. Unlucky numbers. Black cats.

The weekend before, before everything changed, we went to brunch at our favorite café. It was the place I'd met Summer, who I'd then forgotten. Alex ordered the same thing he always ordered—the Big Breakfast without spinach, and an espresso. I asked for granola. We sat at the table by the window, watching people put their heads up close to read the menu taped to the outside of the glass. Watching families walk by with strollers, and teenagers in groups, and elderly couples with small, slow dogs.

“I met her here,” I tell him. He continues reading his paper, of course. He's in the past and I'm here. The Seahawks haven't lost yet. He's reading about the upcoming game, and where he is there's a chance they might win.

“Summer,” I say bitterly. “She came in with Travis and I met her. I forgot about it. Then I saw her again and we figured it out.”

Alex turns a page.

“She's here. We're both here. Isn't that something? Like a bad joke.”

He has a cap on—it's not quite, properly, spring—and a knitted sweater. He looks like a Gap commercial. His food will come in a minute and he'll smile at the waitress.

I lean in. “How long did you like her? How long were you thinking about her? Huh? Were you thinking about her when we were kissing? Are you thinking about her now?”

Alex is motionless. I want to reach over the table and strike him across the face. Watch the shock register. Watch the pink shape of my hand bloom on his cheek.

“I waited for you,” I hiss. “People thought I was crazy. Thought that if you really loved me you would have asked years ago.
I waited
. Putting up with your mom, the disappearing on weekends. I put up with you.”

Alex lifts his head and glances out the window. There's a woman looking at the menu, assessing and deciding. Her young son is holding her hand. The boy looks at me. His hair is sticking up like he just got out of bed, his cheeks as red as apples.

“I thought,” I start and then draw breath. “That time when you tried to teach me to surf . . . I thought that if I learned how,
maybe you'd ask me then . . . if I could be that girl. But I couldn't do it. I wasn't that girl.” I shake my head slowly. “Why did you ask me, Alex? Why, after all that time? To keep me here? To keep from feeling guilty?”

Alex tips his head back down to the paper.

My voice rises. “You can't propose to someone because you feel obligated. It's not enough.”

I think of the argument about the vows. Forever promises. About Alex agreeing to say whatever I wanted.

“What was going to happen after the wedding?” I shout. “Were you just going to keep on pretending it was all fine? That you didn't feel . . . trapped?”

The waitress comes over, carrying the Big Breakfast. Her name is Alice and she wears her dark hair in a braid that falls down over her chest, the tail curling around one breast. She places Alex's meal in front of him and he shifts his paper and grins at her. “Thank you, Alice.”

“Fuck. You,” I say to him.

Back then, in that moment, I'd wished for my food to come too. I'd been worried about fitting into the wedding dress, but Alex's breakfast smelled greasy and salty and good. He punctured a sausage with his fork, and I saw the juices spilling out and steam rising up. I was ravenous, wanted him to offer me some. His gaze was firmly focused on the plate in front of him. Sausages, eggs, buttered toast, grilled tomatoes.

“When did we stop talking?” I ask, but I already know the answer. A long time ago. Perhaps as far back as that trip to Italy. We talked less and less over the years. Because we knew each other
so well, I'd told myself. Because there were fewer stories to tell. Because we were part of each other's stories now, him in mine, me in his; there was no reason to tell them. Because there were no new stories. Because it was comfortable.

Alex looked up from his plate, his cheek full of food. “You all right, babe?”

“Yes,” I'd said. Stomach protesting otherwise. I'd looked at him, silently wanting him to share. Not asking. Wanting him to just know.

Now, in the cabin, sleepless and clear-eyed, I answer truthfully. “No.”

*  *  *

In the morning, Bella comes into the cabin and I make her an espresso without saying a word. I have barely slept. My head hurts.

Bella waits until I'm sitting with a cup steaming in front of me, then says, apologetically, “Papa and the aunties are coming. For lunch.”

“Seriously?”

“It's Sunday,” she says. She blows on her cup, the
crema
moving under her breath. “Where did you go yesterday?”

“Edison.”

“Edison?”

“Flourfarm.”

“To get bread?”

It's such an innocent question I want to laugh. Or cry. Probably cry.

“To see Summer.”

“Oh. Okay.” Bella brightens for a moment, then frowns. “Why?”

I swallow a mouthful of coffee and don't answer her.

“Frankie?”

She tries again, in Caputo-speak. “
Soru?
”

“She loved Alex.”

“What?”

“Summer loved Alex. She kissed him. They kissed.”

Bella blinks at me.

“How did you . . .?”

“Merriem said something. About Summer losing someone in an accident. I worked it out.”

I don't add that it made perfect sense. That it made everything suddenly clearer and brighter, casting blacker shadows.

“Holy Mother,” Bella says. “God, Frankie, that's awful.”

“Yes.”

“How do you . . . feel?”

“Not great.”

“No. No, not great. Of course.” She's nodding, her face a little pale.

“Angry. Sad,” I add. “I can't figure out which. Both, I guess. Confused.”

“Of course.” She shakes her head. “I'm so sorry.”

When I look at her she seems made of round things. Round eyes, round mouth, dark hair framing a round face. Like a child. I curse myself for the way I've been with her. The blame I've laid on her.
Blood is thicker than water . . .
Jack's the second person to say that recently. Guilt floods over me.

“I blamed you for kissing him. For trying to take him. And all that time . . .”

I can't finish. Bella looks like she might cry too.

“Oh,” she whispers.

“I blamed you,” I add, shaking my head at the ridiculousness of it. How obtuse I have been. “For everything.”

She blinks at me and shakes her head in reply. But we both know it's true.

“I'm sorry,” I say finally.

I go over to her and wrap my arms around her for the first time in a very long time. It's awkward for a few moments and then I feel her weight fall, gently, against me. She's still shaking her head and crying a little. I can feel the relief, tangible, moving through both of us.

“I just thought,” I hear myself say in a hollow kind of voice, “that if I had what Mama and Papa had . . . If I could just hang on to him . . . it would all be . . . but nothing is . . .”

Bella lifts her head and nods at me. Tears slipping down her cheeks.

• • • •

L
a domenica è sempre domenica—
Sunday is always Sunday. Whether you like it or not. And Sunday is family day. There's no written rule but there may as well be. I know that it won't just be Papa and the aunties coming to the cabin, but a mixed bunch of Calabresi and Sicilians; whoever is hungry, whoever wants to gossip.

When I don't see my family, on a Sunday, the cousins ask questions later.

“You weren't at Mass.”

“Where were you for baby Ella's christening?”

“How are you, stranger?”

A stranger, though I've seen them all just the week before. It's stifling.

Alex often went surfing on a Sunday and the timing wasn't coincidental. Before we were engaged it was easier because no one asked about him. Though we'd been a couple for a long time, and he came with me to other family functions, there was a silent understanding that we weren't yet betrothed and were, therefore, living in sin. The consensus seemed to be: don't mention it. But
as soon as we were engaged, Alex became a Caputo, whether it suited him or not. Suddenly everyone wanted to see him on a Sunday too. I reeled off reasons till they became excuses.

“He's surfing.”

“He's doing some work at home.”

“He's with his family.”

The last explanation was countered with, “Invite them too!” I could barely imagine Mrs. Gardner and my family together at our wedding, let alone sharing a casual Sunday lunch. I continued making excuses to my family while begging Alex to come along.

He just laughed. “They're your family. They want to see you.”

He didn't get it. And I couldn't explain that without him I was a fraction, not a whole. No longer good enough by myself. My family wanted to see him and hug him and know all about him. They wanted to ask about his work and slap his shoulders and make him eat more than he was comfortable eating. He was one of us now. They wanted to be in his life like they were in mine—pushing in, interfering, loving, scolding, soothing.

I'm buttoning a clean shirt when Papa's car pulls up. From the window I watch him shake Daniel's hand, then bring him into a manly kind of embrace, brief but firm. Daniel stands with his arms at his sides so Papa makes like cannoli pastry, curling around him. He doesn't seem to notice Daniel's face blush pink.

Papa kisses Bella and they go to his car to remove things from the trunk. Folding chairs, cases of Italian sodas, boxes of food in foil. Daniel rushes to help. Bella starts setting up a picnic area in front of the cabin. I step outside with spare rolls of toilet paper for the outhouse.

“
Buongiorno
,
cara mia
,” Papa says, like Mama used to say in her Calabrese accent.

“Hello, Papa.”

He comes over to give kisses on each cheek. I close my eyes. Papa's love is palpable.

“You look well, darling.”

“Thanks, Papa. How are you?”

He smiles. “Good,
duci
. Work is very busy. I miss you, of course, but I know Bella is here so that gives me some peace.”

Bella is unfolding chairs and placing them together in a huddle.

Papa clears his throat. “I was wondering if Merriem might be free for lunch.”

I study him. “Bella said she invited her. I think she's bringing bread.”

I haven't yet planned how I will handle seeing Merriem. How I will explain rushing out of her house. How things have changed. How tangled and clear it has all become.

“She needn't do that, we'll have plenty,” he says, then adds quickly, “I wanted to ask her about her vegetable garden. Do you remember the garden we used to have in the yard?”

I nod. Mama and Papa had grown their own eggplants, zucchini, tomatoes, and herbs. Then Mama died and everything went to seed. One year Bella cleared it and planted wildflower seeds; it must have been just before she became a teenager. Before hormones propelled her into drinking and dark makeup and hair that hid her face. She was an energetic and curious kid, Bella. She collected snail shells and grew sprouts on her windowsill, kept jars full of fallen feathers. The wildflowers had
bloomed that summer, lanky and thin stemmed, a dozen vibrant colors.

“I thought, maybe, I should replant it,” Papa says. His gaze seems to be a million miles away. “It has been a long time. . . . Anyway, Merriem was talking about crop rotation. She says it helps, a little, instead of so much pesticide. And it makes the soil more healthy. Maybe I should learn about that.”

“Merriem will help you,” I say.

“I've already bought some seedlings,” Papa admits.

“That's good, Papa,” I say, lightly patting his back, and feel him straighten, appreciatively, under my touch.

Bella holds up a box. “Want these out, Papa?”

“
Sì,
Isabella. Actually, wait. Vincenzo is bringing a table.”