Short End of the Wishbone
(November 27, 2003)
"Spend Thanksgiving with me."
The words are out of her mouth before she has a chance to second guess or rethink, and the moment they are she begins to do both. Thanksgiving is four weeks away, and they haven't exactly been the type of couple to plan that far in advance or anything in advance or call themselves a couple really. Their 'dates' have been restricted to hospital visits and PT sessions and now that he's almost out of rehab, the occasional casual evening at home. Their own private Clay and Sarah world where they make sense, where the hands massaging her feet get a little stronger, a little steadier, every time and she catches herself thinking stupid things like how nice this will be when she's pregnant or if he'd ever give up his townhouse for something with three bedrooms.
His hands have stilled on her feet, and she holds her breath wondering if she just popped the soap bubble. Maybe he doesn't remember, maybe that afternoon doesn't stand out in his mind the way it does in hers. Maybe he has an entire set of family traditions she won't fit into. They've never been the type to tell "when I first noticed you" stories. It would be too depressing and remind her why they don't make sense outside this apartment. But this is a happy memory for her, and she hopes he kept it, too.
The hands, which had been so still, start to move again, long, teasing languid strokes, moving further and further up her legs.
"Clay." His name is a low, warning growl in the back of her throat, but he remains alarmingly unperturbed.
"Hush. I'm considering. It's been a long time since I've eaten turkey loaf. It might upset my fragile recovery."
"Oh!" She rolls up to lunge at him, only realizing a split second too late, its exactly the reaction he'd been hoping for when, with more grace and strength than she's seen since Paraguay, he catches her round the waist and pulls her in for a kiss that spirals into two, three, until she's stopped counting, stopped being irritated that he can push her buttons so well, and enjoys it so much.
Only lowering her back to the couch when the tigress has been tamed to a kitten, he leans over her, his fingertips stroking the hollow of her throat in mock contemplation as he drops an affectionate kiss on the tip of her nose.
"I take it my cranberries will not be coming out of a can?"
"Mmmhh," is the only response she has time to give.
----
She's more excited about this holiday than she wants to admit. It's the third time she's made this meal, and it's beginning to feel familiar, like one of those family rituals other people have. They went shopping over the weekend, braving the crowds to meander through the Safeway just as they had two years ago, only he doesn't have to ask her how she feels about butter, and when he questions whether she trusts him as he eyes a pomegranate, she says 'yes' without hesitation. It feels normal and natural, and she only thinks of Paraguay once, when she finds him stopped in front of the canned tomatoes, eyes unfocused, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his overcoat, and she has to call him Webb before he responds.
When the phone call comes on Wednesday she's halfway through cutting up the bread to leave out overnight for the bread-pudding and stuffing. She doesn't even have to pick up the phone to know who it will be, what he's going to say.
"I'm sorry, Sarah."
He's not. She can hear it in his voice, the adrenaline running just below the surface. His first field assignment back, he's excited and anxious and not sorry at all. So she takes a page out of his book and lies.
"It's okay. I understand." And she tells herself it is and she does, whispers to her heart that he needs this one, and it won't always be this way. But somewhere inside, the little girl who has grown too used to disappointment knows it will, knows she can only keep something if it's broken, and wishes Clay hadn't healed so fast.
A fit of rage overtakes her at that thought because it's horrible and selfish and oh so very true. Yanking open the refrigerator, she begins to chuck all the groceries they'd bought so carefully—the cranberries that started all this, gone; the high-end compound butter and specialty sausage, he made a side-trip to an out of the way deli to get, outta here; the pomegranates he assured her he had special plans for, into the trash they go. Bit by bit, piece by piece, she rids herself of Webb, and his influence, and her stupid hopes. Only stopping when she reaches the notebook, rumpled and food stained, and full of empty promises – "Now you know all my secrets." She presses the spirals into her flesh, hard, feeling the bite, the pain, that comes with this. She'll never know all Webb's secrets, there will always be more, but every piece of himself that he gives her feels rare, precious, and because of that she can't just throw it away.
Idly, she flips through the pages until she reaches the back, where she'd outlined her battle-plan of last year. There beside each line he's made notes, written their initials in quiet duty assignments, thought about how they'd work together. She rubs her thumb over the last line, the 'CW' scrawled beside the word cleanup, and the 'SM' beside one added word 'rest'. It's their Thanksgiving, the one they should have had, right there on paper, in black and white, and it means something that he wanted it, too.
She tucks the notebook back in her recipe box.
----
She goes into work on Thursday because she has nothing else to do, because she refuses to sit at home watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on TV and bemoan her fate, like some pitiful hausfrau. While she's working on the McCrary file, she alternately indulges in fantasies of Clay somewhere horrible where the only Thanksgiving meal is bugs, and hoping he misses her just as much as she misses him.
"Should I even ask where Webb is?"
"No," she responds without looking up. She doesn't need to see Harm's pity or his triumph because she's afraid she might think he was right. Silently she wills him away, and of course he walks into her office uninvited. He stares down at her for a moment, then grabs her coat off the back of the door and lays it across her desk. "Come on."
It's Chinese and not roast Turkey. There's fortune cookies rather than bread pudding, and absolutely no sausage and apple stuffing, but there's laughter and friendship, and Harm doesn't mention Clay again, and it's damn near perfect.
And she still misses the paper Thanksgiving she should have had.