5

Several lengths of wood, plaster, tools, and a stop at the liquor store later, we finally return home.

The weather has turned, it’s started to snow harder and the streets look dirty and slushy. Hopefully by tomorrow the drifts will be deep enough to hide the muck, and the world will begin to look white. In the meantime it’s just like me, bleak, although I hadn’t had much time today to dwell on the past. It was just a quick, fleeting ache, coming and going.

The hardware trip had been a drama. Chris had loved the warehouse from the moment we entered, which didn’t surprise me. I mean, he’s male, I guess. But I hadn’t been prepared for him to want to study every single item on every single isle. His questions were non-stop, and it felt like I was shopping with a five-year-old, constantly telling him to ‘put things down’ and ‘be careful.’

When we’d finally left, after hours and hours, having purchased a variety of things that I don’t think I’ll ever use, we’d had to navigate the trip home. My little car isn’t built to cart hardware or building materials. That’s what James’ truck had been for. Still, we’d managed to tie most of what we needed onto the roof, and the rest was sticking out the windows in a mostly illegal fashion. Luckily, we don’t have that far to drive, because the whole way I’d been scared I’d get pulled over, while at the same time trying to concentrate on staying on the road and answering the angel’s incessant questions — everything from why people shovel their drives, to my favourite foods. He said he knows all about humans. He’s watched us from afar. But his questions indicate he hadn’t been too diligent in trying to understand our rationale for most of the things he might have seen us do.

“Why do all the houses have sparkling lights except yours?” Chris asks as we pull into the driveway.

“Ah, they’re just seasonal. James used to put our Christmas lights up.”

“I can put lights up,” he says, turning to me as I switch off the car.

“Have you ever done it before?”

“No, but how hard can it be?”

“Mmm, I think fixing the ceiling might be more important. And anyway, I’m not really in the mood for festive cheer this year — and I’d only have to take them down again in a few weeks.”

“After the ceiling, then lights. A radiant woman like you should have a radiant home.”

“Please,” I sigh, shaking my head, “I’m anything but radiant.”

“To me you shine brighter than any star,” he says seriously.

“Yeah, right,” I mutter, getting out of the car and beginning to unpack as I mull over Joan’s ‘abandoned like an old tyre’ comment.

“You don’t seem comfortable with compliments,” he murmurs as he begins to untie the timbers. “Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I snort, “perhaps the fact that my husband of thirty years had an affair and left me for a much younger woman, but not before gaslighting me for a year or more and making me feel like I was a paranoid shrew.”

“Shrews, I’m told, make good pets,” Chris smirks.

“Rubbish,” I shake my head at him. “Where’d you hear that?”

“I made it up.”

I narrow my eyes at him.

“Be warned, I too have a propensity for exaggerating and can prank with the best of them, when I’m in the mood, so don’t try bullshitting a bullshitter.”

“If that’s the case, how will I tell if what you say is fact or fiction?”

“You won’t,” I laugh as I heft some bags and head indoors. “You know, I’m starting to think teaching you might be fun.”