Sarah St.Vincent - Ways to Hide in Winter

“Of course not.”

“Well, good.” She smiled. “But probably, you shouldn’t listen to me—this poor guy was up three times last night and I’m just full of sour grapes today.” Reaching across the table, she ruffled her son’s hair. “Really, though, I think you should go on another date with what’s-his-name. What do you have to lose?”

The characters on the screen held hands and began another song.

“I don’t know. I just don’t think it would work.” The tune was beginning to annoy me slightly, although I tried not to show it. “Besides, I find it hard to believe he’s anything more than a curiosity-seeker. I’m not sure what else he would actually want with me.”

“Bullshit. He obviously likes—wait.” Her eyes moved from the TV to me. “‘Curiosity-seeker’?”

“Yeah.” Internally, I scolded myself for having said it so openly. Deep down, I wasn’t sure I really meant it, and anyway there was no need to go digging up things we both so carefully left unexpressed.

“What are you talking about?” she asked. “Curious about what?”

I gave a small laugh. “You know,” I replied awkwardly.

“No, I don’t know. What are you, a carnival? Why would you be drawing curiosity-seekers?”

I didn’t understand why she was pretending not to know what I meant. But she was still waiting for me to go on.

“Because of what happened.”

She still looked perplexed.

I searched for the right words. “Because people think I was…involved. You know that. I’m sure you do.”

“Involved?”

“Well, I mean obviously I was ‘involved.’ But they think I’m responsible.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“You know.” I couldn’t bring myself to say for the accident , but I knew I didn’t need to.

She was staring at me.

“I don’t think they’ve decided exactly why or how,” I admitted. “I’m not totally self-centered; I know they don’t just sit around thinking about something that happened all those years ago to somebody else. But they have an idea that it’s my fault. That I did it. You know…on purpose. It’s not very fair, but it is what it is. I don’t blame them, but that doesn’t mean I have to let them hang around and make a fool out of me.”

“Kathleen,” she said, and I was surprised by how upset she sounded. “That’s crazy. Where did you hear this?”

“Nowhere, exactly. I just know. It’s all right—I don’t really care.”

“But it’s not true.” Her words were almost breathless.

I put the toy truck down on the table. We both looked at it.

“Honey,” she said. “I mean it. Go get the Bible from my parents’ room, and I’ll swear it to you. I see the same people you do, and I have never—never, never—heard anyone say anything even remotely like that.”

“They don’t have to say it. But like I said, it’s okay. Really, I don’t care.”

She sat back and looked at me.

“Is that what you think?” she asked finally.

“What?”

“Do you think you’re responsible for what happened?”

For a moment, I was left speechless. “Of course not. Why would I think that?”

She leaned toward me, folding her hands on her knees. “Because it would explain a lot.”

I drew back. “I have no idea what you mean.”

It was her turn to search for words that would somehow say what she wanted to say without actually saying it.

“You think I feel guilty about the crash?” My voice was higher than usual, incredulous. “Or the things that came before it?”

“It’s occurred to me to wonder.”

I sat still, feeling short of breath.

“The most frustrating thing,” she said slowly, “for me, as your friend, as someone who loves you and thinks you’re the smartest person she knows, is the way you’ve just sat back and let things happen to you ever since that time. That stupid store that takes advantage of you. Your parents who run around doing God knows what while you take care of your grandmother. All of it. You just let it happen and don’t fight it. It kills me. And I do ask myself why that’s happening.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, shocked and with rising anger.

She gave me a look that had miles of unspoken thought behind it. “I have trouble believing that.”

“The only thing I feel,” I replied forcefully, “is anger at that man. You have no idea how much. It burns me. It keeps me awake at night.” Even saying these things made a feeling rush to my head, something swift and blinding. “It’s the only thing I’ve ever felt and the only thing I ever will. I don’t have room for anything else. I’m sure I’d be a better person if I did, but I don’t. You don’t know what I’d do to him if I ever saw him again.” All those things I thought about at night, that I knew I shouldn’t think about, that I imagined happening to him. The ways I would make him plead for forgiveness that I would never give. The ways I would make him suffer. “I’ve never felt guilty—not for a second. Because I’m not. He is.”

She paused, clearly choosing her words carefully. “I know you say those things,” she said. “Or rather, I know you think them. But you loved him. At one time. You did. I remember it.” She searched my face, looking into my eyes. “And it was a loss, when everything fell apart. When he turned around and started doing all those things you think I don’t know about. You were devastated. You are devastated. But somehow, he made you think it was all your fault. And somewhere at the bottom of all that sadness you’re pretending isn’t there, I think you still think that. That’s what’s so hard.” She rubbed her eyes. “Sometimes, I think you still believe everything he ever said about you. And that you’ll stay where you are, day after day, year after year, just burning yourself up, because of it.”

The fury was so powerful I thought I would choke. “There’s not a thing,” I told her, “not a thing that man said that I believe. I hope he’s in a place where he’s paying for every word of it. I chose this. Everything you see me doing is my decision. I’m taking care of my grandmother because that’s what a good person does. I’m working because I have to work. And I’m out doing what I have to do and what makes me happy. It’s not for you to question that. It’s not for anyone to say I’m such an idiot that I’m still under that—” There was no word for him. “—That asshole’s spell.”

“Take it easy,” she said, reaching for my hands. “I’m not calling you an idiot. I’m just worried. I feel like I sit here watching you set yourself on fire day after day. You’re too proud to admit you’re in pain, so you’re doing more damage instead. Like some kind of—well, penance, almost. Something that only hurts you over and over. How am I supposed to stand back and watch that?”

I pulled my hands away, scowling even as my body cringed away from her, as if it feared what she was saying.

“You have no right,” I began, “no right—”

As I sputtered, trying to get the sounds out without losing control, Dylan upended his cup. The lid came loose, sending a wave of red juice over his arms and legs, the white carpet. Looking at it, and at us, he began to wail.

“Oh, shit,” Beth sighed. “Shit, shit, shit. Sorry, hon.” She touched my shoulder. “Just wait here, okay?”

But I didn’t wait. As she hurried into the kitchen, I stood up and walked out the door.

It was inventory time at the store. I spent my days in the back room, holding a clipboard as I counted the boxes, making note of what had expired, what needed to be ordered, what we had somehow accumulated too much of, like gummy worms. Although I wouldn’t have said so to anyone else, it was almost soothing, this responsibility for categories and numbers, for imposing order on the universe. I kept my mind fixed on the columns of handwritten figures, as if I were holding my breath, thinking about this task and only this task.