Page 48 of Meet Me at Christmas
“I’m going to go to my room to read,” Mama said, clearly excusing herself for their benefit, although Stella was hoping Mama’s presence would soften the blow of whatever Henry was about to say. “Anyone need anything?”
Stella shook her head.
After Mama left, he took another step toward Stella, invading her personal space. “We were married.” It wasn’t a question, but rather a statement, a fact. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I… Um…” she stuttered, feeling faint.
He reached for her hand and opened it, palm up, then placed his closed fist on top of her fingers. He released what he was holding, and his wedding band fell into her palm. Then he sat on the sofa and hung his head.
Stella moved closer to him. “What, exactly, did you remember?” Her inhales were shallow, as if she’d suddenly lost the ability to take a full breath.
His cheeks flushed, surprising her. “I got into bed like I always do and shut my eyes,” he said, peering into the fireplace. “But tonight was different. I had this overwhelming feeling that if I opened them, you’d be under the covers next to me.” He shook his head. “I remembered I had a wife who slept beside me every night. And I remembered that person was you.” He ran his hands through his hair in frustration, making her flinch. “I remembered I had a ring to prove it,” he continued, “and, trying to convince myself that I wasn’t delusional, I got up and fished around my top dresser drawer, and in the back of it my fingers hit a wooden box and I knew I was right. I pulled it out and there it was—the wedding band.”
Stella held up the gold band, her aching eyes filling with tears once more. She tried unsuccessfully to blink them away. She hadn’t seen that band since the day she left. “Do you remember anything else?” she asked, her voice too weak to come out as more than a whisper.
“No,” he said, sounding defeated. Then he looked up at her, vulnerability written on his face. “What happened to us, Stella?”
She hesitated, wondering if she should say anything, and if she did, what exactly she would say.
“And don’t give me that bull about me needing to remember myself,” he said, his jaw clenched. “I deserve to know.”
Stella rubbed her eyes, buying time. “You’ve remembered a lot today. And it’s late. Why don’t we get a good night’s sleep and…” She knew how weak the suggestion sounded.
“I asked Mary Jo and she wouldn’t tell me. She said you needed to do it.”
Stella swallowed. “We were really young…” That was all she could get out, the rest of the words stuck in her throat, the absolute anguish of that day hitting her like a tidal wave.
“Something happened, Stella. I can tell by the way you’re acting and by the way Mary Jo looked when I told her.”
Her lips parted. She wanted to say something to put him at ease, but what? “Why does it matter? It was in the past.”
“Why does it matter?” he roared. He stomped across the room and peered out the window at the black sky then whirled around. “We didn’t work out, did we, Stella?”
She stood there in her pajamas feeling more vulnerable than she ever had. This was her moment to fix what she’d broken, and she had no idea how to do it. “No, we didn’t. It was a long time ago.”
“You’re the first person I’ve felt halfway normal with since the accident, and when I go home at night, all I want is to see you again. Then I find out you and Ididn’t work…” He went back to the sofa and sat, dropping his head. “Did I do something wrong?” he asked without looking up. “Did I drive you away somehow?”
“No!” The shock of his question sliced through her, and she had to sit down next to him before her knees gave out. Although his pain was misdirected, seeing the hurt on his face took her back to that awful day.
“It was me, wasn’t it? I know I’m not the easiest person to be around.”
“No. No, it wasn’t anything you did,” she blurted, gripping his ring. “We got an annulment. I wasn’t eighteen when we got married.”
“You were in high school?”
“No. I skipped the fourth grade, so I graduated at seventeen.”
“Why didn’t we just get marriedafteryou were eighteen?”
“I… went off to Stanford and you joined the army.”
He shook his head, his shoulders dropping. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t?” she asked, hanging on to the quiet between them.
“That memory of you beside me in my bed felt like me and the life I’d choose for myself way more than anything I would’ve done in the army.” He got up and paced to the fireplace, facing the stockings Stella and Mama had hung.
Stella sat there in silence for a moment, his statement slamming her. “You loved being married. You were always a family man,” she said quietly, more tears surfacing. “Before your accident, you had an endless reserve of patience, and you wanted… a whole house full of kids.” Saying the words out loud brought a deluge of tears for what she hadn’t been able to give him. In that moment, she wished she could’ve given him his dream.
