Chương 14
Nathan approached.
“I suppose this is goodbye.”
“No,” Evelyn said. “Chicago is not that large.”
“Then what is it?”
“The end of being responsible for each other.”
He considered that.
“I was not very good at it.”
“Neither was I.”
Nathan looked surprised.
“I protected you from consequences until you became someone who expected protection.”
“That is not the same as what I did.”
“No.”
“Do not make yourself equally guilty to make me feel better.”
Evelyn almost objected. Then she nodded.
“All right.”
Nathan took a breath.
“I hope After Hours becomes everything you want.”
“It won’t.”
He frowned.
“That is not pessimism. Nothing becomes everything.”
A small smile appeared.
“You sound like your attorney.”
“She charges for that.”
Tessa called from the curb, “I have been double-parked for nine minutes, and your freedom is becoming expensive.”
Nathan looked past Evelyn and raised one hand to Tessa.
She did not return the gesture.
Evelyn stepped toward the curb.
“Ev.”
She turned.
Nathan’s face held grief, affection, shame, and the remnants of a question he had finally learned not to ask.
“Take care of yourself,” he said.
“You too.”
She walked away.
In Tessa’s car, the air conditioner blew too hard. A parking ticket was tucked beneath the windshield wiper.
“This is your divorce gift,” Tessa said. “You can pay it.”
Evelyn held the ticket.
“I thought you might bring champagne.”
“It is ten in the morning.”
“You work nights.”
“That is not how alcohol works.”
They drove to After Hours.
Luis had hung a crooked paper banner above the table. It read CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR LEGAL ADMINISTRATION because Tessa had told him what Priya said.
Evelyn laughed until she had to sit down.
They ate sandwiches. Helen came by with flowers despite knowing Evelyn disliked ceremonial bouquets. Mateo, the security guard from Nathan’s office building, arrived near noon carrying his old black coat.
“You never returned it,” he said.
Evelyn stared.
“I had it cleaned.”
“My wife said that was proof you planned to steal it.”
“I am sorry.”
“Keep it. I bought a new one.”
He placed the coat over a chair.
It still smelled faintly of cafeteria coffee.
After everyone left, Evelyn cleaned the table.
The room was quiet except for the refrigerator and a distant train. Sunlight moved across the floorboards. In the drawer beneath the counter, she found the velvet ring box among rubber bands, spare tape, and a screwdriver.
She had not opened it in months.
The ring lay where she had left it, the gold scratched from its flight across Nathan’s desk.
Evelyn carried it to the long table.
For a few minutes, she considered selling it. She considered mailing it to Margaret. She considered placing it in a safe-deposit box where it could become somebody else’s problem after she died.
Instead, she took out her phone and called Margaret.
“I have the ring,” Evelyn said.
Margaret was silent for a moment.
“I know.”
“It belongs to your family.”
“You were my family.”
“Was?”
“I am attempting not to make claims you have not invited.”
Evelyn leaned against the table.
“Did Nathan tell you to say that?”
“No. Nathan has stopped giving advice. It is unbearable.”
Evelyn smiled.
“I want you to have the ring.”
Margaret exhaled.
“I don’t want it.”
“Neither do I.”
“Then perhaps it has finally become only an object.”
Evelyn looked at the scratched gold.
“What should I do with it?”
“Whatever causes you the least trouble.”
It was the most useful advice Margaret had ever given her.
They spoke for another few minutes. Margaret asked about the kitchen. Evelyn asked about her therapy. Both questions were answered incompletely.
After the call, Evelyn returned the ring to the box.
She did not need to decide that day.
At six, guests began arriving for an evening class. A teacher from Evanston. Two roommates celebrating a promotion. A recently widowed man whose daughter had registered him without asking. Three nurses who knew Tessa and brought their own wine in travel mugs.
The widower stood near the doorway looking ready to escape.
Evelyn handed him an apron.
“I do not cook,” he said.
“Neither does half the class.”
“My wife did.”
“Then you know what food is supposed to look like.”
He gave her a suspicious glance.
“That seems inadequate.”
“It is a beginning.”
Luis called from the kitchen that the first tray was burning.
Evelyn turned.
“Lower the oven.”
“I did.”
“Then take it out.”
“I was waiting for permission.”
“You have never waited for permission in your life.”
The nurses laughed.
The widower tied his apron.
Evelyn moved through the room, checking knives, answering questions, rescuing butter from a microwave, and showing someone how to fold dough without crushing it. Nobody knew what the morning had been. Nobody needed to.
Halfway through class, rain began tapping against the windows.
A woman near the end of the table asked about the framed first-hotel menu.
“Were you a chef there?”
“Something like that.”
“Do you still work with the company?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
Evelyn looked at the menu, at her name printed beneath the glass, at the life it represented and the life it had failed to become.
“I left,” she said.
The answer was enough.
Near nine, the class ended. Guests carried warm bread into the wet evening. The widower stayed behind to wipe flour from his place at the table.
“You do not have to clean,” Evelyn told him.
“My wife hated leaving a mess.”
“You are allowed to disappoint her a little.”
He smiled without looking up.
“I suppose I am.”
After he left, Evelyn turned off the front lights.
She checked the oven, locked the back door, and placed the velvet ring box in her handbag. Not because she had decided what to do with it. Because she was ready to take it home.
Outside, the rain had softened to mist.
Evelyn put on Mateo’s old coat. The sleeves were still too short. She walked toward the train with the gold chain of her cream handbag over one shoulder and the smell of bread caught in her hair.
At the corner, she stopped beneath a streetlight and looked back.
After Hours glowed behind the dark storefront glass. Inside, the long table waited with twelve empty chairs, a scattering of flour, and one forgotten travel mug near the sink.
May you like
Evelyn considered going back for it.
Then she let it remain until morning and continued home.
