Elin Hilderbrand - The Castaways

She doesn’t see you. And even if she does see you, she won’t let you in. She lives in a chamber where there is only enough oxygen for one.

Addison got off the treadmill shakily. He was going to have a heart attack. He staggered around on the AstroTurf carpet, disoriented for a second about which way was up. He collapsed onto the floor and put his head between his knees. His vision was blurred. Then he realized he needed his glasses! But he didn’t have the energy to stand up and retrieve them.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see the older gentleman.

“Are you okay?” the gentleman asked.

There was an audible gasp in the gym. Tess set her weights down on the bench.

“Addison!” she said. “What’s wrong?”

Well, he had trumped the kid in the knee brace. But Addison wasn’t after Tess’s sympathy; he had wanted to be impressive. He had wanted Tess to see that although he wasn’t careening down the side of a mountain at thirty miles per hour with two Popsicle sticks strapped to his feet, he was still an athlete.

“I’m fine,” he said, smiling. He could not see her expression, though she was standing right over him. “Never better. That was a great workout!”

Tess said, “You sure?”

“Sure I’m sure. I’m just cooling down.”

“Okay,” she said. “Great! I have three sets left. Bill is helping me with my form. He was on the ski patrol here, but he hurt his knee jumping from the lift. He was trying to rescue a little boy.”

Sounded like a load of shit to Addison, but he said, “Wow! Okay, I’m going to do some stretching and we’ll leave when you’re ready.”

No doubt about it: Addison was jealous.

Tess giggled. “It was so cute. Bill thought you were my husband .”

They walked out of the fitness center into a light snow. With the fir trees and the condo units looking like Alpine chalets, and the snow coming down so softly that the flakes seemed suspended in the air, it was so lovely and peaceful that when Addison spoke, he whispered so as not to disturb the silence.

“Do you want to go back to the condo to shower, or should we just go for our walk?”

“Let’s walk,” Tess said.

There was a path that led out of the condo complex and headed down, parallel to the mountain road. The path was in the woods, and there were small footbridges that delivered them over tiny streams.

“It will lead us into town eventually,” Addison said. “And you can call your kids and we can get some lunch.”

Tess linked her arm through his. “You are such a prince.”

“I aim to please.”

They walked along ten steps, and then twenty, with Tess’s arm twined through his.

This, for Addison anyway, was when it began. Because this was when he started to feel like he was fourteen years old. Tess’s arm through his was a distraction, but he realized he would be crushed if she separated from him. But then he worried: did she want to separate from him?

This was also when Tess asked, “How is Phoebe doing?” in a grave way, as though Phoebe had cancer. And instead of giving his usual sunshine-and-butterfly answer of She’s fine, great, really great, Addison expelled what felt like all the air from his lungs and said, “I just don’t know.” It was the honesty of his answer that opened the floodgates between them. They were going to talk, really talk, really open up, really share things about their respective marriages that they would never think of sharing with the rest of the group. He told Tess everything as they walked. It was easy, the words flowed out of him; he told her everything he would have told a therapist, but both he and Phoebe had given up hope in therapists. Addison and Tess crossed bridges and left matching sets of footprints in the snow. Addison found he couldn’t talk fast enough.

Addison told the truth. He said things like Phoebe is not the woman I married. She’s changed. But that doesn’t do it justice. She emigrated. She’s a refugee of her grief. It has colonized her, reorganized her. She’s different down to her cells, her molecules. And it’s eight years later. So it’s not grief anymore, it’s the drugs. The so-called medication, the substances applied to her pain. They are her captor now, and she suffers from Stockholm syndrome. She loves the drugs. They are more important to her than Reed ever was.

Tess knew how to listen (perhaps this was a result of having a classroom full of five-year-olds vie for her attention one hundred and eighty days a year). She did not automatically take Phoebe’s side, as Addison had expected (“Let me play devil’s advocate here…”). She was hearing Addison’s side; she was-still!-holding on to Addison’s arm.

Addison said, Our sex life is a shambles. Once, twice a year, and only when she’s been drinking.

Tess said, That must be difficult. To have this gorgeous woman right there in your bed and not be able to touch her.

I’m used to it, Addison said. That is the screwed-up thing. I am used to a crippled marriage.

They reached town-a charming covered bridge, a steepled church. Because it was a heavy-lidded, gray day, all of the twinkling Christmas lights were on. Snow-dusted wreaths hung from lampposts. They strolled past shops with cheese and chutney, maple syrup, nutcrackers, wind chimes, pottery, wine and spirits, specialty kitchen equipment, woolen hats, gloves, scarves, sweaters.

“Anywhere you want to go in?” Addison asked.

“Maybe later,” she said.

“Want to call your kids?” he asked.

“Yes!” she said. She decided to call from the middle of the covered bridge, leaning on the railing, overlooking the river. “It is so liberating to be here with you. Every time I call the kids around Greg, I feel guilty, like I’m sneaking a cigarette. Ridiculous, right? Because if anyone should feel guilty, it’s Greg.”

Addison let that comment hang for a second. Were they going to talk about it?

But at that second the baby-sitter answered, and Tess said, “Cassidy? Hi, it’s Tess! How is everything?”

She was visibly lighter when she got off the phone. “It’s snowing at home! Cassidy is taking them to sled at Dead Horse Valley, and then home to have hot chocolate and change into dry clothes. Then she’s taking them for dinner and a movie at the Starlight. They’ll be in bed at eight-thirty, which is very late, but what the heck, it’s vacation!” She grinned at Addison. She was wearing a red cashmere hat, and the curled ends of her dark hair poked out beneath it. She was lovely. Addison was overcome with the desire to kiss her. Kiss Tess MacAvoy! He was sure he would be struck by lightning or the railing he was leaning on (indeed, depending on for support-after the treadmill and three miles of walking, his legs were shot) would give way, dumping him into the icy river.

“What do you want to do now?” he asked.

“Lunch!” she said.

It was, they agreed afterward, the lunch of a lifetime. They went to a small French café called Nous Deux (We Two) that had a blackboard menu and banquettes that used to be church pews and were now upholstered in bright Provençal fabrics. The woman who seated them was the owner, Sandrine, a Quebecoise, Addison discovered, as he and Sandrine chatted for a moment in French. Sandrine was visibly delighted by Addison’s French. He asked for a table in the corner. He and Tess each slid onto a pew and Sandrine left them with the menus and the wine list.

Tess said, “You speak French so beautifully.”

“Six strict years with Madame Vergenot and two and a half years in Paris working for Coldwell. Would you like wine?”

“Wine?” she said, as if he were suggesting an all-night rave at an underground club on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. He remembered suddenly that this was Tess, who during the course of a normal week drank milk at lunch, out of one of the small cartons they gave the kids. But then she said, “Sure. Why not?” with a wicked little grin on her face.