Terry answered on the first ring. “Hi, Pookie! Great timing, I’m making turkey burgers.”
“Dad, can you grab Mom?”
“Sure, honey. Is something wrong?”
The rain started to relent. It was always so nice out after a deluge. The streets were washed clean and everything smelled earthy, like fresh shoots. Like new life. Savannah switched her phone to her other ear. “No. Nothing’s wrong at all.”
81
Liv went through the motions of her life. Fall was busy in a different way from summer. In Love in New York focused on meeting with prospective clients, doing early-stage planning for couples who were wedding next year, and finalizing the books. But Liv’s mind was never far from Eliot.
Eliot had been ill.
The thing that drove him to Savannah was fear of death. The terrifying realization that all the eternal-seeming roles humans create to order our experience—becoming a spouse or a parent or a business owner—were just ways to forget about our mortality. The temporariness and seeming insignificance of anything done on earth. Confronted with that, the man she’d married couldn’t inhabit his life anymore.
And he hadn’t confided in her about any of it. His wife.
In retrospect (the place Liv was almost exclusively spending her time), there was one moment where maybe, he was considering it. Around this time last year, when the temperature had just started to drop. He’d come home late, puffing as he hung up his coat. (Out of breath from the five-minute walk from the subway. She hadn’t noticed.)
“Hey.” He greeted her with a paper-thin kiss.
“Where were you?” Her greeting. As cold as his lips.
He hadn’t replied, chatting instead with Ben about homework until Liv sent their son upstairs for a shower. Eliot opened a bottle of red and poured himself a glass. The house was cold, and quiet. “Liv.” He spoke the word in a way that was sort of… raw.
She was scrolling through her email, distracted. “Mm?”
“Do you ever think about your legacy?” He drew out a chair at the dining room table, sitting in Ben’s spot. “What you’ll be remembered for?”
Liv didn’t look up from her phone. “No.”
He was silent for a few minutes. “I don’t quite know how to say this—”
“Oh, shit. The Robinsons want to switch their hotel block from the Marriott to the Hyatt! Jesus.”
“Liv—”
“Yeah, I don’t really have time for your legacy right now.” Pushing off from the kitchen counter, she gestured at the frying pan. “There’s leftovers, but can you help clean up, please? This isn’t a hotel.” She went into the front office and shut the door.
Was that the moment? The moment her husband of twenty-two years tried to tell her something life-or-death, and she’d unequivocally blown him off?
Over admin. Over nothing.
He was suffering, and she didn’t know about it. He’d died alone in a midprice hotel room in Kentucky. The final thing he saw was probably boring beige blinds or a bathroom light, still on.
The way Eliot had decided to act didn’t exonerate his deception. But it did explain it. It evolved his absence. And she missed him. She missed him in a way she hadn’t in months. She missed his love of dill pickles and sour gummy worms. The way he could tell a story at a dinner party and have everyone in stitches. Even his mood swings. She just missed him.
Sam and Dottie started staying over half the week. Sam moved a bigger television into the den, and the flickering light from the screen reached further into the hallway. Pink socks and frilly girl’s underwear appeared in the laundry. Some mornings, Liv would wake to the smells of stocks and marinades Sam was preparing in the kitchen. Savory but alien.
One night, as Liv chopped carrots for the kids’ school lunches, she pictured Eliot, creeping up to the patio door and peering in. Would he recognize what he saw? Would he be relieved Liv had moved on? Or angry he’d been replaced?
The weather turned from fresh to cold. It was coming. One year without Eliot was coming.
It was the week before Thanksgiving. Sam, Liv, Ben, and Dottie were making homemade pizzas. Outside, it was windy. Cold air whistled under the windowsills.
“Let’s add some pineapple.” Liv rummaged through the pantry. “I know we have some.”
“Yuck,” announced Dottie. “No way.”
Sam laughed, grimacing. “Yeah, I think that’s a veto, love.”
“We like pineapple,” Liv prompted Ben. “Don’t we?”
But her son just shrugged, focused on adding cherry tomatoes. “Sam, is it true these are a fruit, not a vegetable?”
The wind howled. A swell of dark emotion rose in Liv’s throat. “You like it,” she said, louder. “We all—Dad and I—we like pineapple.”
“Okay, okay,” Sam said, surprised. “We’ll put it on half.”
“No,” Liv said. “All of it.”
A crack sounded from outside, followed by a smash. They all jumped, spinning in the direction of the backyard.
One of the limbs of the willow tree had come through the windows next to the patio door, breaking the glass. A gust of wind blew into the kitchen. Dottie screamed.
“It’s okay, sweetie.” Sam hugged her. “Just a fallen tree branch. Ben, why don’t you guys watch some TV while your mom and I fix this. Now, please.”
The kids headed off, rattled but thrilled for extra screen time.
Liv was already outside.
A sizable branch of the weeping willow had snapped off. One of its smaller branches had broken the window on the way down. Liv stood by it, dumbly, the wind whipping her hair.
“Don’t worry.” Sam examined where the fallen branch had come down, calling over the wind. “No real harm. I’ll call my tree guy to see what we should do.”
Liv sat down on the branch. It was the size of her torso and accepted her weight with a gentle give. She crossed her legs underneath her. This low to the ground, she
