13thWR

Recovery / by Christian Simon

A simple Christmas dinner. Nothing fancy, except for the white linen napkins she was folding into swans. She could hear Harlan step from the shower. She could hear him puff and snap the bathroom door with his towel. She could hear the television he'd lugged into the den along with his bedding, his digital alarm clock. She could hear him say, as he stepped from the bathroom in his robe, his neck pink, his hair parted like a seagull sketched by a child, "Pretty. The napkins, I mean."

She did not feel insulted. It was the first positive utterance this house had heard in weeks, months. "Thanks. On the right color plates, they're supposed to look like they're afloat." She laughed, embarrassed. Folding napkins.

"Right." His eyes were on the swans she'd already made, a sizable armada afloat on the bedspread. "Do we have that many plates?"

She could tell he was nervous. He's not ready for a party, she thought, let alone a dinner for two. "Trial batch." She picked one to illustrate. "See? No neck." She pointed out some others. "Deformed. One wing."
He laughed too loudly. "We could order ribs from Nelson's," he said. "With lots of sauce."
She tensed a little. "I've got pasta on the stove."

He looked at her, tightened the sash on his robe. From the den came the clatter of something violent. "Sorry. I didn't know."

She listened to him say that and thought, he should get dressed now.
"A Christmas tree might be nice."

The idea appalled her. "No. Yes. They're probably all sold out."

Harlan dressed and went outside, returning twenty minutes later with a felled pine, a sapling still, the needles dusted with snow. He'd cut it down with his chainsaw; she'd heard it yowl as she stood stirring her pasta. They set the tree in the living room and capped the top with a single swan napkin. That was all. "It suits my mood," Harlan said, standing back.

"Mine too," she said, working the muscles behind her neck.

"Back ache?"

"I'll check the pasta," she said and turned to go. Then she stopped, her back to Harlan. "Yes. It does."
His kneading was too tender, too considerate. Still, she stood and let him reconnect with the feel of her clothing, her collar bones. His hands smelled of gasoline and pine resin. They smell good, she thought. They smell okay.