Sea Glass_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [61]
The sound of surf inside her head makes it hard to think. She sits at the table and runs her hands over the embroidered linen. The tea things are still in the sink; nothing has been touched. Sexton did not come home and then go out again for a pint of milk. He did not come home at all.
She glances up at the cuckoo clock on the wall. Ten past six. She runs the water and begins to rinse out the cups. She has planned a Christmas Eve dinner of roast goose with raisin stuffing, scalloped potatoes, brussels sprouts, and a dish called Spanish Onion Supreme. She has the pies for dessert. Neither she nor Sexton is particularly religious, so they will not be going out again to midnight services — nor even, she thinks, to church in the morning. No, tomorrow they will sleep late, and then they will get up and have their coffee and wander into the front room to admire the tree.
He has had an accident, she thinks now. The Buick is disabled and is lying in a ditch at the side of the road. Sexton is hurt, writhing on a stretcher.
She puts her wet hands to her face. No, no, she won’t think like that.
Turning, she sees that Vivian has left behind a neatly folded newspaper on a chair. Her new friend must have had it in her hand or under her arm when she knocked on the door. Perhaps she was planning to read it in the waiting room at the airfield. Honora dries her hands, picks the paper up and unfolds it. New England Business Outlook Good, she reads on the front page, but then her eye travels to another headline on the same page: Fifteen Banks Fail to Open for Business. Honora sits down and turns the pages of the newspaper, looking at the advertisements to take her mind off the thought of the Buick lying in a ditch. Cudahy’s lunch tongue, 21 cents, she reads. Sardines are 13 cents. Silk dresses are $4.89. There are ads for waxed rolls, chiffon hose, and picoted underwear. For Camay and Ivory soap. Rayon bloomers are 49 cents. Legal Ruling Guards Purse of Husband, she reads. Head of House Made Immune for Purchase of Fur Coat. Again she glances up at the clock, which is moving at an agonizingly slow speed. She studies the want ads. Woman who can cook. Middle-aged woman wanted. Young girl. Girl for office work. Waitress. Salesgirl. Housekeeper.
She puts the newspaper aside and reaches for the packet of sea glass Vivian gave her. She picks up each shard and inspects it. The electric light changes the colors — makes the lavender pink and puts a sheen on the watery blue. She stands and walks into the front room to fetch her platter of sea glass. Under the tree are several wrapped gifts, presents from the large box that her mother sent, as well as the pen she told Vivian about and a vest that she knit for Sexton. She lifts the platter, carries it into the kitchen, and sets it on the table. She sifts through the pieces, several layers thick now on the china, and lets them fall through her fingers like water. She empties Vivian’s collection of sea glass onto the dish. The pieces jumble together, so that Honora can no longer tell whose are whose.
She hears the sound of a car on gravel, something between a purr and a rumble — a sound she would know anywhere. She runs into the hallway and opens the door and calls her husband’s name.
Sexton emerges unsteadily from the Buick. He turns and puts a hand on the top of the car, as if for balance, and for a moment he seems not to know that she is there. She calls to him again and, hearing his name this time, he straightens.
She takes a step forward, but he holds up a hand to stop her.
“Sexton, what’s wrong?” she asks.
“I’m fine,” he says.