Page 72 of Later Bloom

Aubrey smiles at her plate. She feels nervous suddenly, but in a good way. Almost giddy.

She says, “I guess so, yeah.” Then she adds, “I’d love to head back up there with you for New Year’s Eve.” She tells herself she’s only saying this to help Louise out, and it tastes like a lie.

They take a break between the main course and dessert to move to the living room, drink some more, and open a few presents. The night edges closer and closer to familiar territory now, phrases Aubrey has heard a thousand times over, gentle pats on her arm, nods of pity and pinched lips. Her family is growing tired of pretending not to worry about her, so she excuses herself and climbs the stairs two by two to the second floor. Behind the third door on the left, what used to be her childhood bedroom is now a cluttered office, littered with her father’s textbooks and hoards of bills and papers he won’t ever glance at again.

Aubrey drops in his large leather chair and pulls out her phone. The screen lights up with one message, from Maggie, checking in and wishing her a merry Christmas. She’s attached a picture she took with her grandmother, blurry and poorly lit, and it makes Aubrey smile.

Then she holds her breath and clicks through to another contact and dials the call card. Very quickly so she doesn’t chicken out. He must be busy with family. It’s ridiculous calling him—they don’t really speak on the phone like this. But it rings once, and there he is.

“Are you okay?”

“Well, hi,” she replies, with a smile he can’t see. She’s so nervous her chest might split in half. Her heart fills her throat.

There’s a long pause. “Hi.”

“You sound a little panicked.”

“Sorry, I thought maybe you were calling because something’s happened.”

Aubrey’s head rests against the back of her dad’s chair. She stares at the piles of books stashed in corners instead of in the leftover space of his library shelves. “I’m fine,” she says. She allows herself a second. It’s been too long since she’s sat in a moment she enjoyed enough to want to linger in. “I think I just wanted to chat.”

He still sounds tense when he responds, “So your family’s not been too much of a pain?”

“Just enough. Had a bit of a breakthrough with Louise, actually.” Aubrey toys with a loose thread at the seam of her dress, wondering where Arthur is now, thinking of him at the inn earlier. “How’s your night going?”

“Okay. I went around to my parents’, we had dinner. I’ve just left.”

“Already?”

“Well, yes. The main event’s tomorrow night. A big thing in town.”

She wants to tease him, because she can’t imagine herself enjoying a big thing in town, but it suits him. She holds back. Instead, she says, “That sounds nice. Better than what I’ve got going on.”

“Mm. You ought to head back up here, then.”

“I just might.” She’s not sure why she won’t just say yes. It feels easier to leave it up in the air. Like he might not take off and vanish if she doesn’t commit to a return date. “Are you ready for the new year?”

“Sure.” He clears his throat. He’s outside and Aubrey can hear it now—the sound of his footsteps in the snow, cars driving by slowly. “Ready to leave this year behind, honestly.”

“Why’s that?”

“Just a few things I’m tired of holding onto.”

This time there is a much longer pause. Aubrey hates this silence so much. It’s heavy and stifling. She wants to fill it, will it away, drown it out. Her dress is too tight and too hot. She turns the little lamp on her father’s desk off and on again. “I hope you get what you want,” she says to Arthur.

“Right. Same to you. Listen—I kind of have to go, I’m getting in my car now. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

“No, no. I just felt we hadn’t talked in a while, I guess. But maybe it’s good this way. There aren’t that many things to chat about.”

He makes a noise, as if he’s about to say something, and cuts himself off. There’s the sound of a car door opening. “Okay. Well let me know if there’s anything. I’m here to help, whenever.”

“Sure. Thanks, Arthur.” It’s so rare she says his name. Before she can think herself out of it, she adds, “Thanks for picking up.”

For a moment she thinks the call has ended, but then he says, “Thank you for calling.”

The line clicks dead. Aubrey’s vision is blurry when she looks up.

Beyond the window, the view of the lamppost and the neighbours’ houses hits her in the chest. She hasn’t sat there and looked out at this street in a long time. When she was younger, she used to wonder when she’d finally bring a boy over to her room, and if they’d sit on her bed, and if they’d kiss and turn off the lights so only the glow from the street would filter in.