Angels in the Snow (5 page)

Yet she still wished it could be how it used to be. She wanted to be madly in love with her husband, so that nothing else would matter. Only everything else
did
matter.

She shook her head in confusion, unable to decipher what she wanted anymore. She wanted to feel that old thrill when she saw Charles, the one that centered low in the pit of her stomach. And she wanted to know he felt the same thrill for her. But like the emotional part of the marriage, the physical side had suffered, too. Charles turned to her in bed as often as ever, but more and more she tried to avoid him. She felt so apart from him emotionally that the closeness of lovemaking seemed dishonest. Even when she longed for him, she felt compelled to push him away.

It was madness, and yet she couldn't prevent it.

She turned automatically to the task of putting away their clothes. His hung on the right side of the closet, hers on the left. She placed his other items in the three right-side drawers of the large dresser and hers in the other three. She even tossed her phone into a drawer. After all, there was no one she really wanted to talk to. On one nightstand went the book she was reading:
Luncheon of the Boating Party
by Susan Vreeland. On the other went today's
Wall Street Journal.
Finally she placed the empty luggage in the rear of the closet. Only when everything was well put away and she couldn't put it off any longer did she finally descend the wide stairwell.

The house was strangely hushed. Jennifer was on her phone, of course. Judith recognized the electronic tones of the game she liked to play. Alex was perched in a bay window playing the guitar. How quiet the instrument was when it was not plugged into an amplifier. She could hardly hear it.

Her eyes skimmed the room restlessly, unable to focus on anything. How would she manage an entire week here?

With a fortifying breath, she buried the thought. Her children deserved a good Christmas. Charles obviously was trying to give them one; she could do no less. Even if it were the last Christmas they would celebrate as a family, some good might come of it. By losing the perfect family image he cultivated so desperately, Charles might come to realize how important it was to look deeper than just the surface.

But somehow Judith doubted it.

“WE'LL ALL HAVE ASSIGNED CHORES,”
Charles said, pushing his half-eaten plate of food away. He bent over the list that lay next to his plate. Anything to avoid the flat expression in his wife's eyes.

“I'll keep the fires going. Alex will keep a path open to the car.” He looked up at his silent son. “I'll help you clear the driveway.” Then his gaze shifted to Jennifer. “You will be responsible for breakfasts and lunches. That includes washing dishes, too.”

“But Dad! That's not fair!” Jennifer cried. “Alex gets to play in the snow but I get all the cruddy work.”

“Everyone keeps their own rooms neat and their beds made,” he went on, ignoring her outburst. “You'll do dinners, Jude. Now, have I forgotten anything? Oh, yes, we'll all decorate the Christmas tree. Together. And we'll all go out tomorrow to pick one out and chop it down.” He looked around at his family, willing someone to break the awful silence.

“Can I be excused?” Alex didn't wait for an answer but scraped the chair back, nearly toppling it as he stood up. Jennifer was quick to follow. The one grabbed his earbuds and phone, and retreated to the window seat he'd claimed earlier as his own. The other made a beeline for the television, rapidly flipping channels until she found something to watch.

“Lower it, stupid!” Alex shouted.

“Turn up your so-called music,
stupid,
” Jennifer retorted.

Charles suppressed an urge to send them both to their rooms. Instead he stood up and began stacking the dishes. “Let's wash them together, okay?” He glanced briefly at Judith, then back at the dishes. He was so scared that his hands were shaking, but his very fear drove him on. He would not let their marriage end, no matter what she said. Somehow he would relight that spark. Somehow he would make her remember all the reasons she had once loved him. Long ago, before the children had been born, they'd washed dishes together every night. Although he didn't expect his gesture now to win her over completely, he at least hoped it would be a start.

If he could simply hold his emotions at bay he knew he could succeed. It was just like closing a deal with a reluctant seller. Bit by bit, point by point, as long as he was careful and thorough, and never gave up, he could make this sale. He'd retrieved enough deals from the brink of disaster to know it could be done. But only if he remained calm and in control of himself.

That would be the hardest part.

“Well,” he prompted her with a determined smile. “Are you going to relegate me to dishpan hands all alone?”

When she met his gaze with a forced smile of her own, he didn't know whether to be relieved or let down. “Do you want to wash or dry?” she asked.

“Whatever you say.” He bobbled a glass but quickly caught it. “Maybe we can find a radio station playing Christmas carols.”

The kitchen was sleek and efficient, with just enough natural wood to prevent it from appearing completely austere. The sink was a gleaming white three-bowl affair with the very latest in oil-rubbed bronze fixtures. It wasn't designed for washing dishes by hand, for there was no provision for a dish drainer. Dishes were meant to go directly into the dishwasher. But Charles found an old-fashioned square drain rack in one of the lower cabinets and positioned it in one of the sinks. Two dish towels lay in the back of a drawer.

“I'll wash,” Judith said as she filled the sink.

“Do you want gloves?”

“No.”

He watched as she placed dishes in the hot soapy water. Her hands were so graceful; they always had been.

He leaned past her to reach the mini-entertainment center built into a wall cabinet. They both jumped as sound filled the room, and Charles quickly lowered it. He punched the scanning bar several times, leaping from some sports event to a weather report and then some preacher, before the radio honed in on seasonal music.

As the strains of “The Holly and the Ivy” filled the kitchen, for the first time that day Charles felt himself begin to relax. The tune was so upbeat and joyous, even though this rendition had no words. Were there any words to this song?

“Does this song have any words to it?” Judith asked.

Charles laughed and took a glass from the rack. “I was just wondering that myself. I know the melody, but I can't remember any words.”

There was a short silence. She handed him another glass. “Do you think we could talk Alex into playing a few Christmas songs?” she asked in a noncommittal voice.

A sudden poignancy filled Charles's throat with emotion. “Remember the year Jennifer was born? We had Christmas Eve dinner with Doug and Cora. Cora was playing carols on that old piano she used to have.” He slowly dried a plate. “Alex was just a little thing.”

“He was three.”

“Yeah. Three years old. Remember how he stood on the piano bench next to Cora, singing his little heart out?”

“On the first day of Christmas my two loves gave to me, a party in a pear tree.” Judith sang the version Alex had so innocently entertained them with those many years ago.

“A party in a pear tree,” Charles repeated. “I wonder if he remembers that.” He reached for another plate and his hand touched Judith's wet fingers.

She released the plate and concentrated on the silverware. “That song has always been hard to remember—all those verses.”

“Yeah.”

The strains of “The Holly and the Ivy” were replaced by the smooth baritone of Bing Crosby. “Looks like we'll definitely have our white Christmas this year,” Judith remarked.

“Yeah.”

They worked in silence, finishing the silverware and the casserole dish. From relaxed to edgy, somehow they were back to where they'd been before, and Charles didn't know how it had happened. He fiddled with the dishcloth after the last dish was dried.

“Judith,” he began abruptly. “I want this Christmas to be good for all of us. I think . . . I think that pretending to get along is not a good solution. We need to talk about why you're so unhappy. Why you're so unhappy with our marriage—and with me.”

He was trembling inside by the time his words were finished. They had to be said and he needed her to respond. Yet he was petrified with fear at the prospect of her answer.

Judith reached for her rings on the windowsill. One by one she slipped them on. The art deco one of onyx and baguette diamonds. The pearl one. And finally her wedding band. Then she looked up at him.

“We need to talk? Yes, I suppose we do. But are you willing to listen, to hear what I say and not talk over me?”

“I
am
listening, Judith. I am.”

“Okay, then.” She lowered her gaze, took a deep breath, then looked up at him. “You're a workaholic, and you're never going to change—”

“I work hard, yes,” he interrupted her. “But we have a good life. You have the time and money to do any damn thing you want, Jude. Anything at all. I even offered to set you up in a business all your own, if that's what you wanted. I don't tie you down. The kids don't, either. Not anymore. Hell, you have more free time than any ten people I know!” He realized he was shouting when she took a step back from him.

“I'm not complaining about that. You're a good provider, Charles. I've never denied that. But when does it stop? When is enough enough? Our kids are growing up—and away from us. I've been raising our children alone, Charles. Alone. I feel like . . . like a single mother. So . . . why not become one?”

For a long moment he couldn't breathe. Couldn't believe what she'd said. “Jude. No.” He shook his head. “You'd abandon the kids—”

“I wouldn't be abandoning anybody,” she retorted in a frustrated tone. “Despite all your words to the contrary,
you
don't need me. And I'll still be there for Alex and Jenny.”

Charles stiffened. How could she be so blind? “I
do
need you,” he choked out in barely more than a whisper. “How can you think I don't?”

Her eyes welled with tears. “Not the way you once did.” She hurried away, leaving Charles alone. More alone than he'd ever been before.

He folded the dish towel in his hands, then refolded it again. He
did
need her, as much as he ever had. In even more ways than he had twenty years ago. How could she think otherwise?

Yet she did think otherwise, and that scared him. Even worse, however, was the question that he hadn't asked her: if she needed
him
anymore. He was too afraid the answer was no.

T
he house was warm. The fire blazed. The central heat was going full force. Though the snow came down in a thick white blanket and the wind howled around the corners of the house, the cold was kept at bay.

But inside his heart, Charles felt frozen; numb and shivering. All he wanted was to retreat to the bedroom and crawl into the bed. Maybe then he'd get warm. Maybe then he could find solace in the blankness of sleep.

But Judith was upstairs in their bedroom, and he was too afraid of another confrontation with her to risk going up there. Instead he scanned the meager offerings on the tall, narrow bookshelves and wondered if she would come downstairs again tonight.

“You've watched that dorky show for an hour. It's my turn now.”

“Says who?” Jennifer challenged her older brother.

“Says me, you stupid wuss.”

“You're the wuss—”

“Yeah, right. You're showing your ignorance,
wuss,
'cause the only wuss around here is
you.
Always has been. Always will be.”

“You're such a fool,” Jennifer spat right back. “Now, give me that remote!”

“Come and get it, punk.”

When Charles finally turned around to face his children, Alex was holding the remote control for the television up out of Jennifer's reach, taunting her with it. “Come and get it,” he egged her on.

“Daaaad!” Jennifer cried, stretching that one syllable into three. “Make him stop!”

“She's been hogging the TV ever since we got here. It's
my
turn.”

“For God's sake, can't you two ever cooperate? Here, give me that.” He grabbed the remote control unit from Alex, then punched at the various buttons until the television flicked off.

Charles turned and glared at his two children. “There will be no more bickering. Do you understand me? No more.” He took a frustrated breath, then made himself speak more calmly. “There's a bunch of games on that bottom shelf. Go get one and then sit at the table and play it. No!” He forestalled their protests before they could voice them. “I'm not giving you a choice in this. Now, go!” he thundered.