Centerville

Chapter 23

232 Chapter 23 After Jack had gone back out to his car, Elizabeth carried the box of dishes into her kitchen, still feeling surprised by what had happened. She set the box on the kitchen table. The rain was coming soon, and it was badly needed. Patches of grass had gone brown, and her flowers , which she’d neglected, were beginning to wilt. If there wasn’t a good bit of rain, the leaves on the trees wouldn’t turn orange and yellow and red, and summer would only fade into winter. She slipped a dinner plate from the box, handling the other woman’s dishes carefully, holding them up to the light. In the past few days, she’d broken close to half the plates she and Carlton and the children had used over the years. There had been more dinners on those dishes than she could count, more evenings than she could remember spent together at this table. First it had been just she and Carlton. “What are we going to do with a whole big set like that?” Carlton had asked when she’d said she wanted to purchase eight settings. Neither of them had been able to imagine the family they would end up creating, but over the years, those dishes had covered the table, then filled the sink each evening. 233 As the rain began to fall outside, she wrapped a plate from Jack’s box in newsprint and tapped it gently with her hammer. It cracked easily. She took the adhesive and spread it over an area of the wall and began to arrange the pieces. One fit against another, never perfectly , but with jagged edges that would have to be smoothed later with grout. There was something in the action of fitting together irregular pieces, in the nesting of them, that she found so satisfying. There might be a protrusion or a crevice, but even the oddly shaped pieces could be blended with the rest, and sometimes they were the ones that made the pattern distinctive. The rain fell harder, insulating her, and as she worked, she noticed a small section of the mosaic that she didn’t recognize. Someone had taken the rest of the pieces from the coffee cup she’d broken a few days earlier and fit them together in a circular pattern in the far corner of the wall. The coffee cup had been a deep, transparent blue, and the circle alternated that color with the white grout. From where she stood it looked like a small, spinning Ferris wheel. There was a noise behind her, and she turned to see Bert had come into the room, newly showered, her wet hair wrapped turban -style in a towel. “I’m going back to school tomorrow,” Bert announced , as she opened the refrigerator and filled a glass with iced tea. “Are you ready?” Elizabeth asked her. “I don’t know,” Bert said after a long drink. “But I want to try.” They both turned then and looked out the kitchen window. The sky was dark, thick with rain. It was difficult to make out Carlton’s grill in the yard or the small dogwood tree. Elizabeth turned back to look at the wall. “Someone added a circle ,” she said. “There in the corner.” “I did,” Bert told her. 234 Elizabeth walked up and passed her hand over the blue and white pattern. “I think it’s perfect.” Bert smiled and walked to the front hallway. “Carl’s home. Maybe we can all eat supper together tonight,” she said, turning. Elizabeth nodded. “I’ll clear the table.” She put the box of dishes Jack had given her in the pantry and began to clean up the various small piles of glass, sweeping them into mixing bowls. At first it felt like a monumental task, but she warmed to it, moving more swiftly as the rain drummed against the house. Carlton was gone. Here were his shoes, which he’d left by the front door, and there were his rubber boots in the mudroom, which he would have worn on an afternoon like today. His work shirt hung on a peg next to his hat with the wide brim he wore for shade. He had disappeared in an instant, but here were all his things, as if he would be returning at any minute. Now she put on his blue...