Celestial
I know this house as I know my own body. Before I opened the door, I felt the presence within the walls the way the tiniest cramp in your womb lets you know to get ready even though it has only been three weeks since the last time. As I stepped into the vestibule, the skin on my arms puckered and pilled, sending rapid sparks crisscrossing along the pathways of my blood.
“Hello?” I called, not knowing what to expect but sure I was not alone. “Who’s there?” I may see ghosts, but I don’t believe in haints. A ghost is a memory made solid, while a haint is a human spirit got free from the body but traveling this earth just the same. “Hello?” I said again, not sure what I believed in now.
“I’m in the dining room,” boomed a man’s voice that was definitely of this world, familiar and foreign at the same time.
There sat Roy at the head of the table with his fingers laced and fitted into the cave between his chin and chest. My arms were full of silly groceries for my planned evening with Tamar: lime sherbet, prosecco, chocolate blended with cayenne pepper, and Goldfish crackers for the baby.
“You didn’t change the locks on me.” Roy rose from his seat, his face glowing with wonder. “After all of everything, you made sure my key would still work.”
He took the bags from my arms as though it were the most natural thing in the world, leaving me standing there with nothing.
“Dre is on his way to get you,” I said, following Roy to the kitchen. “He left today.”
“I know,” he said, the bag of food between us like a truce. “It wasn’t Dre I wanted to talk to.”
I rubbed my arms to quiet the tingling as he set the bag down on the counter and then spun toward me and spread his arms, grinning, showing the dark space in the bottom of his smile. “You don’t have love for a brother? I went through a lot of trouble to get here. Don’t give me that Christian side hug. I want the real thing.”
I walked toward him on legs that didn’t feel like my own. He closed his arms around me, and I knew that this was my husband, not some sleight of mind. This was Roy Othaniel Hamilton. He was bigger now than when he lived in this house, his body harder and more muscular, but I recognized his energy, almost on the verge of action. Unaware of his own strength, he grabbed me so hard that I felt a little dizzy.
“I’m home, Celestial. I’m home.”
He released me and I filled myself up with greedy gulps of air.
Roy’s face was broader and more lined than when I last saw him, two years ago. I let my hand go to my own face, smooth with makeup, and then I remembered my head, almost clean shaven. I almost felt that I should apologize, remembering how he used to roll a single strand of my hair between his fingers. Sometimes he said out loud that Roy III should inherit his eyes but my hair.
He was prepared for this encounter; the starch scent of his new shirt mingled with the sweet fragrance of barbershop ointment. I was caught flat-footed, looking and feeling like the end of a long day.
“I didn’t plan on waylaying you like this,” he said.
There should be a word, I thought, for this experience when you’re surprised but at the same time the moment feels completely inevitable. Sometimes you read about these sixties’ radicals who accidentally killed a cop, or maybe they did it on purpose, I don’t know. But they run away, get a new name, and lead a clean, boring existence. They put on weight; they shop at Macy’s. But one day, they come home and there is the FBI. Their faces, flat on newsprint, always look astonished but not surprised.
“I missed you,” Roy said. “I have a lot of questions, but I need to say first that I miss you.”
I could recite Andre’s speech like lines from a play, these words he and I determined had to be said. And wasn’t Gloria right when she said that telling this particular truth was a woman’s work? But I stood in the shade of my husband returned home, and I couldn’t bring myself to speak a single necessary word.
He led me to the living room, like this was still his house. He looked around. “This room didn’t used to be turquoise did it? It was yellow, wasn’t it?”
“Goldenrod,” I said.
“All this African stuff is new. I like it, though.”
Along the walls were masks, and on nearly every flat surface was a carving, all keepsakes from my parents’ travels. He picked up a small ivory figurine depicting a woman ringing a bell. “This is real, isn’t it? Poor elephant.”
“It’s antique,” I said, a little defensive. “From before elephants were endangered.”
“Not that this would make a difference to the elephant in question,” he said. “But I get your point.”
We sat down on the leather sofa and looked at each other. We let the silence grow thick, waiting for the other to break the peace. Finally, he scooted so close that our hips touched. “Tell me, Celestial. Tell me whatever it is that you have to say.”
I shook my head no. He carried my unguarded fingers to his lips and kissed them twice, then he rubbed my hands over his fresh-shaven face. “Do you love me? Whatever else is details.”
I moved my lips as wordless as a goldfish.
“You do,” he said. “You didn’t divorce me. You didn’t change the locks. I had my doubts. You know I did. But when I was on the front porch, I decided to try my key. It slid in easy and turned slippery like WD-40. That’s how I knew, Celestial. That’s how I knew.
“I didn’t walk all over your house. I waited in here because I know you don’t use these rooms. Whatever it is, I want to hear it from you.”
When I didn’t say anything, he said it for me. “It’s Andre, isn’t it?”
“It isn’t yes or no,” I said.
Then he surprised me by laying his head in my lap, reaching for my arms and closing them around himself like a blanket.