“Look at what? . . . Oh, Lord—Bennett. I have to find something for Bennett.” Alice’s hands flew to her face as she realized she no longer knew what her husband liked, let alone his collar size. She reached for a set of boxed handkerchiefs on the shelf, decorated with a sprig of holly. Were handkerchiefs too impersonal a gift for one’s husband? How intimate could a gift be when you hadn’t seen more than an inch of his bare skin for the best part of six weeks?
She startled as Margery took her arm, steering her toward a quiet part of the men’s department. “Alice, are you okay? ’Cause you got a face on you most days like blinked milk.”
“There are no complaints, are there?” Alice glanced down at the handkerchiefs. Would it be better if she had his initials embroidered on them? She tried to imagine Bennett opening them on Christmas morning. Somehow she couldn’t picture him smiling. She couldn’t imagine him smiling at anything she did any more. “Anyway,” she said, her tone defensive, “you’re a fine one to talk. You’ve barely said a word the last couple of days.”
Margery seemed a little taken aback, and gave a shake of her head. “Just . . . just had a little upset on one of my rounds.” She swallowed. “Rattled me a bit.”
Alice thought of Kathleen Bligh, the way that the young widow’s grief would cast a pall over her own day. “I understand. It’s a tougher job than you think, sometimes, isn’t it? Not really about delivering books at all. I’m sorry if I’ve been miserable. I’ll pull myself together.”
The truth was that the prospect of Christmas made Alice want to weep. The idea of sitting at that tense table, Mr. Van Cleve glowering across from her, Bennett silent and simmering at whatever she had supposedly done wrong now. The watchful Annie, who seemed to delight in the worsening atmosphere.
Derailed by this thought, it took Alice a minute to realize that Margery was regarding her closely.
“I’m not getting at you, Alice. I’m . . .” Margery shrugged, as if the words were unfamiliar to her. “I’m asking as a friend.”
A friend.
“You know me. Been content my whole life to be on my own. But this last few months? I’ve . . . well, I’ve grown to enjoy your company. I like your sense of humor. You treat people with kindness and respect. So I’d like to think we’re friends. All of us at the library, but you and I most of all. And you looking this sad every day is just about breaking my heart.”
If they had been anywhere else Alice might have smiled. It was quite an admission from Margery, after all. But something had closed over these last months, and she didn’t seem to feel things in the way she used to.
“You want to get a drink?” Margery said finally.
“You don’t drink.”
“Well, I won’t tell no one if you don’t.” She held out an arm, and after a moment, Alice took it, and they headed out of the department store toward the nearest bar.
* * *
• • •
Bennett and I . . .” Alice said, over the noise of the music and the two men yelling at each other in the corner “. . . we have nothing in common. We don’t understand each other. We don’t talk to each other. We don’t seem to make each other laugh, or long for each other, or count the hours when we’re apart—”
“Sounds like marriage from where I’m sitting,” Margery observed.
“And, of course, there is . . . the other thing.” Alice looked awkward even saying the words.
“Still? Well, now, that is a problem.” Margery recalled the comfort of Sven’s body wrapped around hers just that morning. She felt stupid now for how afraid she’d been, asking him to stay, trembling like one of Fred’s spooked Thoroughbreds. McCullough hadn’t shown up. Sounded like he had been so drunk he couldn’t hit the ground with his hat, Sven pointed out. He most likely wouldn’t even remember what he’d done.
“I read that book. The one you recommended.”
“You did?”
“But it . . . it only seemed to make things worse.” Alice threw her hands up. “Oh, what is there to say? I hate being married. I hate living in that house—I’m not sure which of us is more miserable. But he’s all I have. I’m not going to have a baby, which might have