Averil Dean - The Undoing

From the mudroom, she heard the door open and close, a thud of boots on the floor and the nylon whisk of someone’s coat. A moment later, Rory came through the kitchen door, pulling off his cap as he ducked beneath the lintel. The ends of his hair were dusted with snow, his eyebrows threaded with ice. His bootless feet in purple socks made no sound, but the floorboards creaked a little under his weight.

He looked around the room, hands slung low on his narrow hips.

“Looks like a bomb went off in here,” he said.

Celia held up the tray. “I’m spackling. It’s a dirty job, et cetera...”

Rory hunted briefly for a glass, settled for a coffee cup and went to fill it at the kitchen sink. He drank off the water in five or six long swallows, his head tipping slowly back, then refilled the cup and stood with his hip leaning against the counter.

“Finally got the shed organized,” he said. “And I hung the new door. You would not have appreciated the spider situation out there.”

“Body count?”

“Twenty-six.”

“Yikes.”

Rory grinned. Nothing fazed him. Spiders, leaks in the roof, faulty plumbing, snarls of electrical wire. He tackled every job with the same easygoing confidence; it was all in a day’s work, whatever the day might bring. He had a way of jollying Celia and Eric along, his blue eyes crinkling around the corners, mouth curving open around the white gleam of his teeth.

Captain America, Eric called him. Here to save the day.

And Rory did seem unambiguously heroic at times. He radiated good intention and that comforting solidity a strong person brings into the room. It was almost impossible to imagine a situation Rory would not be able to handle, or that anything awful could happen while he was around. He made everything seem simple.

Celia waited while he drained his cup for a second time and set it in the sink. Now would be the time to bring up the topic of Julian. Knowing Rory—and her own inability to articulate the problem—this conversation could take a while. “I’m glad you’re here, because I want to talk to you.”

He came through the pantry doorway. She felt him approach and knew without turning her head that his mood had shifted. His cool cheek pressed against her temple.

“You can talk, but I’ll hear you much better in twenty minutes.”

He took the tray from her hands and set it aside, slid his hand around her head to turn her face to his. His mouth opened over hers, cold inside as if he’d been eating snow. His teeth felt sleek and hard under her tongue.

She shivered. “You’re freezing.”

“Warm me up, then.”

“Here? Don’t we know better than that?”

“Yeah, we definitely do,” he said.

She expected him to lead her out of the pantry and up the winding stairs. But he slipped his hand around her wrist, thumb to forefinger like a bracelet.

“They won’t be back for a while,” he said. “We have time.”

He pulled her against him so she could feel his erection at the small of her back. He traced the line of her neck with his lips and teeth, buried his nose in the hair behind her ear. His hands began a slow descent down the front of her body, then up again, under her sweater, a ticklish chill across her ribs. His palms were rough and calloused, so big that with both his hands over her breasts it felt as if she’d added a layer of chilled fresh clothing.

She sighed and turned her cheek to his lips. Easier—much easier—to set aside the conversation about Julian and just go along. Later she would tell him everything and they would figure out together what to do. It could wait a few minutes longer.

He reached down and unbuttoned her jeans. Hand-me-downs from Kate, painting clothes, so baggy that they dropped to her hips before Rory had even touched the zipper.

“Don’t turn around,” he said.

* * *

The lifts had been running sporadically all afternoon, stopping and restarting as inexperienced skiers skidded over the ice trying to round the tight corner at the end of the ramp. A wall of clouds poured like wet concrete across the sky and hardened around the mountaintop, leaking tiny pellets of hail that stung Eric’s cheeks and clattered over the vinyl seat of the chairlift.

He shouldn’t have come out today. It was Julian really who wanted to ski. He said that Kate was getting clingy and he needed a third wheel.

“I keep thinking I’ve got to cut her loose, but I’m not ready to have that conversation. I need a reason to procrastinate. You know how it is.”

Eric wasn’t eager for the day. There were a hundred projects waiting for attention at the Blackbird, and he’d barely gotten home after almost a month away. He’d felt guilty about it this morning, but Celia had only kissed his cheek and told him to go, have fun, nothing was so urgent that it couldn’t wait another day.

He had explained his reluctance to Julian as they sat in the mudroom pulling on their boots.

“Stay if you want, man,” Julian said. “But if she’s telling you to go...”

Outside they could hear the thud of Rory’s ax chopping wood. From the kitchen, the splash of running water and the clatter of dishes. Eric hesitated, elbows on his knees. Julian had paid for his trip to Alaska, for the cabin and the helicopter and the tickets and the food. It seemed ungrateful after only a few days back not to do him this one favor in return.

His thoughts spun in circles: go, don’t go, a dozen chattering reasons for and against. Impossible to think through the noise.

Julian got to his feet and pulled his cap down over his ears.

“In my experience, if a woman really wants to put you to work, you’ll know it. Today you’re getting a pass. I’d take it if I were you.”

He opened the door in invitation. A gust of frigid air blew into the room.

“Arctic,” Eric said. “Go ahead. I think I’m gonna add another layer.”

“Sure you are.”

“Give me five minutes. I’ll meet you at the bottom of Prospect.”

Julian went out, shaking his head.

Eric sat for a minute after he left, listening as he said goodbye to Rory. When the sound of chopping resumed, he kicked off his boots and went into the kitchen, where Celia was drying the last of the breakfast dishes. She was wearing a cotton nightgown and an ancient, enormous cardigan of moss-green wool. Her hair trailed down her back in a day-old braid.

He stole up behind her and slipped his hand under the sweater to cup her breast.

“Come upstairs,” he said.

The side of her cheek curved upward as she turned off the faucet.

“I’ve got exactly one hundred and forty-two things to do today,” she said.

“Hundred and forty-three.”

He kissed her warm ear. She tucked up her shoulder and turned to face him, smiling, but with one hand flat to his chest.

“Later, okay?”

“That’s what you said last night.”

She wobbled her head, acknowledging this.

“Are we fighting?” he said.

“No.”

“Then come upstairs and prove it.”

A flash of impatience crossed her face, so quickly he couldn’t be sure it had been there at all. She had pressed a kiss to his cheek and shooed him along, and he’d let himself be sent away because of the kiss and the smile—but now, on the stalled ski lift, it was that swift exasperation he couldn’t get out of his mind.

He tried to remember the tools of self-control: Think before acting. Count to a hundred, or five hundred. Talk it out. Call for help if you think it’s going sideways.

He peeled off a glove with his teeth and pulled out his cell phone. He dialed Celia’s number. It rang four times and went to voice mail. And not even her voice, but the canned response the cell came with.

He shoved the phone back into his pocket.