Chapter 4 - The House on the Hill
Across town, the living room on the hill went completely dead.
Elena stood by the hearth, the phone still clutched in her hand, the screen dark. The crackle of the birch logs in the fireplace sounded deafening in the silence that followed.
"Grace," Elena began, her voice trembling as she turned toward her daughter. "You don't understand the pressure I was under. I wanted—"
"Stop," Grace said. She held up a hand, her palm out, refusing to let her mother take another step forward. "Do not say another word, Mom. Do not make this about us."
Noah pulled his hands from his pockets and walked over to the dining table. The five place settings were still there, though the plates were now piled near the sink, half-rinsed. The fifth chair—the one at the head of the table where Miles always sat during Sunday dinners—had remained empty throughout the evening.
"You sat right there," Noah said, pointing a finger at the chair Elena had occupied during dinner. "You looked me in the eye when I asked why Miles didn't wait until after we opened presents. And you told me his friend was suicidal over a divorce. You invented a whole story about a man in crisis just to get Miles out of the room."
"I panicked!" Elena cried, the tears finally breaking over her lashes, streaking the foundation on her cheeks. "I didn't think he would actually pack a bag and walk out! I thought he would push back, I thought we would negotiate, but he just... he just left! What was I supposed to tell you? That I asked your stepfather to disappear on Christmas morning? How would that have looked?"
"It would have looked like the truth," Peter said from the hallway archway.
Elena whirled on her ex-husband. "You stay out of this, Peter! You don't have a right to judge me in this house!"
Peter didn't raise his voice. He took three measured steps into the living room, his hands resting lightly on the belt loops of his flannel trousers. He looked older than his fifty-two years, his shoulders rounded, but his gaze was steady and sorrowful.
"Elena," Peter said softly, "this isn't my house. It never was. But I am the father of these kids, and I've spent nine years trying to rebuild a relationship with them after our marriage fell apart. Do you know how hard it was for me to accept Miles's invitation?"
Elena stared at him, stunned. "What?"
"I was terrified to come here," Peter admitted, looking toward Grace and Noah. "I felt like a failure coming back into this town, staying under the roof of the man who took care of my children when I was too sick and too self-absorbed to do it myself. But Miles called me three weeks ago. Man to man. He told me, *'Peter, the kids love you. They want you there. Don't let your pride keep you from having Christmas with your family.'*"
Grace let out a ragged sob, bringing her hands up to cover her mouth. Noah turned his back to the room, resting his forehead against the cool glass of the window, staring out into the dark, snow-covered yard.
"Miles called you?" Elena whispered.
"He called me," Peter said. "He told me he would make sure I was comfortable. He asked what kind of coffee I drank. He made sure I knew that I was welcome here not as a guest, but as Grace and Noah's dad. He had the decency to treat me with dignity, Elena. And you used me as an excuse to kick him out into a winter storm."
Peter shook his head, looking around the beautifully decorated room with an expression bordering on disgust.
"I'm packing my things," Peter said quietly.
"Peter, the roads are iced over!" Elena shouted, her composure completely shattering. "The power is out across half the county! You can't drive back to Pennsylvania in an ice storm!"
"Then I'll sleep in my car at the gas station until the salt trucks come through," Peter said, turning back toward the guest suite. "Because I will not spend another hour under this roof pretending that this... this performance was for me."
"Grace! Noah!" Elena turned to her children, her arms outstretched, her voice cracking with desperation. "Tell your father he's being ridiculous! We're supposed to have brunch tomorrow! We were going to open the big gifts together!"
Grace looked at her mother. The anger in the young woman's eyes had curdled into something far worse: complete, absolute disappointment.
"I'm going with Dad," Grace said.
"Grace, no—"
"I'm going to pack my bag," Grace said, her voice dropping into a cold, terrifying monotone. "Noah and I can split a hotel room near the highway if the roads are bad, or we can go help Miles at the center. But I am not sleeping in this house tonight. I can't look at you right now, Mom. I really can't."
Grace turned on her heel and headed up the stairs, her footsteps heavy and deliberate on the hardwood runners.
Noah didn't say a word. He didn't yell. He didn't cry. He simply walked past his mother, avoiding her touch as she reached for his sleeve, and followed his sister up the stairs.
Elena was left standing alone in the center of the great room.
The fire popped, a shower of orange sparks drifting against the black iron mesh of the hearth screen. On the dining table, the empty chair at the head of the table seemed to take up all the air in the room.
Elena looked down at her hands. They were empty.
For eight years, she had believed she was the center around which this entire family orbited. She had believed that Miles was the steady, silent ballast—a man whose patience was infinite, whose boundaries were soft, whose presence could be arranged and rearranged according to her emotional convenience.
She had believed that because he loved her, he would always be there when she decided she was ready for him.
She walked slowly toward the French doors that led out onto the back deck. Outside, the ice clung to the branches of the birch trees, glittering like shattered glass in the outdoor security lights.
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Two miles away, in the basement of a brick church that smelled of bleach and old coffee, her husband was serving soup to strangers, and for the first time since she had met him, she realized she had no idea who he was when he wasn't taking care of her.
***
