Jeff Shelby - Thread of Hope

“Do you still blame me?” I asked.

She picked up her mug, then set it down without drinking. She folded her arms around herself like some cold wind had gusted into the restaurant. She stared at me.

“I don’t want to,” she said. “And most days, I don’t. I really don’t, Joe. I know you weren’t responsible. And I know what people suggested about you afterward was horrible. I never believed any of that. I hope you know that.” She shifted in the chair. “But there are some days that I need someone to blame.”

Tears threatened again in her eyes. Her shoulders and neck stiffened, filling with tension. Her mouth drew tighter. She couldn’t look at me.

“And then all I can think about is you and Elizabeth out in the yard,” she said, her voice breaking.

Her words weren’t anything I hadn’t heard before but they stung like I was hearing them for the first time and my gut rolled.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “I know how unfair that is. But I…” Her voice trailed off.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I understand.”

I understood because most days I felt the same way.

All I could think about was standing out in the yard with Elizabeth.

It was two weeks before Christmas and Elizabeth and I were standing in the front yard, trying to figure out where to put Santa.

“By the bushes?” I suggested.

Elizabeth rolled her eight-year-old eyes in a gesture borrowed from her mother. She brushed her dark brown hair from her forehead and wrinkled her nose at me. “Daddy. The cars won’t be able to see him.”

She was already frustrated with me in that we were a week late in getting the decorations out. Lauren was an attorney and had been gone the previous two weekends on business. I had been too lazy to pull them out of the garage in her absence. When it’s December and seventy-five degrees out, it’s tough to find the motivation to string lights and find the best place for a light-up Santa Claus.

Elizabeth gathered the four-foot Santa in a bear hug and awkwardly walked him out to the middle of the lawn. She set him down, put her hand on her hip, then nodded.

“Right here, Daddy,” she said. “This is where he goes.”

I knew better than to argue with her. She was as stubborn as her mother and when she made up her mind, it was done. She’d been that way since she was a baby.

I held up an extension cord. “We’re gonna need another one of these.”

She shrugged and smiled, her newly minted braces glistening in the sun. “Okay.”

I dropped the cord in the grass. “You watch Santa. I’ll get another cord.”

She gave me a mocking salute. “Ay ay.”

I shook my head and walked into the house and called for Lauren.

“I’m in the kitchen,” she said.

She stood at the counter next to the sink, a wooden spoon in her hand. She was covered in flour and sprinkles and cookie dough.

“Are we opening a bakery?” I asked. The aroma of freshly baked cookies made my stomach growl.

“Might as well.”

“We have another extension cord?”

“Why?”

I planted a kiss on the back of her neck before reaching into the fridge for a bottle of water. “Because your daughter has found the perfect resting place for Santa and that place requires another six feet of cord.”

She smiled and shook her head. “ Kid likes Christmas.”

“Kid likes everything.” I twisted the top off the bottle and took a drink. “But, yes, she really likes Christmas.”

“Check upstairs in the closet.”

“Ay ay.”

“What?”

I trailed my fingers from her shoulder to the middle of her back and felt her shiver beneath my touch. “Nothing.”

I walked back to the front door. Elizabeth was sitting cross-legged next to Santa, adjusting him ever so slightly.

“Mom says there’s one upstairs. Be right there, doodle.”

She gave me a thumbs-up. “Gotcha.”

I jogged up the stairs to the closet at the end of the hallway, between Elizabeth’s room and the spare bedroom. Her room was a disaster. Stuffed animals piled high in several corners, clothes littering the floor, an unmade bed jumbled with sheets and twisted-up blankets. She’d promised to pick up her room before we went outside and I’d forgotten to check.

I paused for a moment, thinking I should go down and bring her inside. Have her follow through on her promise before we finished. But, like I often did, I let it go. Elizabeth was a good kid. Easy going, even temperament, generally happy. She had her down moments-she was eight-but by and large, she was a really good kid. If the worst she ever did was fail to pick up her room after saying she’d do so, then we'd have a pretty easy time of it.

It was the weekend and she could clean it up when we were done.

I opened the closet and found the extension cord on the shelf next to several shoe boxes. I closed the door and went back downstairs.

“Find it?” Lauren peeked her head around the corner.

I held up the bundled cord. “Santa will now be properly placed.”

She smiled. “Awesome.”

I walked outside and squinted into the sunshine.

The Santa stood in the center of the lawn. Alone.

Lauren and I walked slowly through the hotel’s main level, aimlessly wandering through the long corridors of stores and restaurants. We used to walk like that a lot when we were together, quietly, holding hands. Now, both of us had our hands jammed in our pockets, a safe distance apart.

“Are you making a living?” Lauren asked.

I nodded. “Enough of one. I only take the money if I end up being of help.”

Her eyes flitted in my direction. “But you usually end up being of help?”

“Yeah.”

“Have there been any you haven’t been able to help? You said you found the one girl who wasn’t alive. But have there been any you haven’t been able to find?”

My hands pressed tighter against my legs inside my pockets. “No.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Really? Every job you’ve taken, you’ve found their child?”

A smile emerged on my face and it hurt, as if someone was pulling back the corners of my mouth with sharp hooks. “Ironic, huh? The only one I can’t find is our daughter. Anyone else, I can help them.” I swallowed the smile, didn’t want it near my face when I was talking about Elizabeth. “I just can’t help us.”

We walked for a few more minutes in silence.

“What are you doing now?” I asked.

“I’m still at the firm,” she said, her eyes straight ahead. “After you left, I took a six- month leave. I traveled a little, but basically did nothing.” She smiled a bit in my direction. “I put on almost thirty pounds.”

“You’re kidding.”

She shook her head. “Stopped running and just ate. Watched a lot of shitty TV.”

Lauren played volleyball in college and had always been one of the fittest people I’d known. She’d run two marathons before Elizabeth was born and then settled in to doing a couple of half-marathons a year after that. She'd been intrigued by the idea of doing an Ironman triathlon if she could ever find the time to train for one. I had never known her to be able to sit still long enough to watch shitty TV.

“Then I realized that I didn’t want to be some fat slob feeling sorry for myself,” she said. “I sold the TV.”

“You sold it?”

She nodded and laughed. “I hated that thing by the time I got to that point. So I sold it to some kid going away to college. Then I started running again. When I dropped the weight, I almost felt like me again.” She cleared her throat. “Then I went back to work. I’m a partner now.”

“Wow. That’s great.” I wasn't surprised. She had always been good at her job. She'd been good at everything.