For Molly

We stop at Dairy Queen instead of McDonald’s. It takes us thirty minutes out of the way, but neither of us say anything when Molly takes the exit. When the radio changes from 90s to 80s, Molly scans through at least thirty waves of static until she finds a station playing early 2000’s rock.

The cardboard box shivers in the backseat between our suitcases. A shiny red bow hangs from a piece of organic twine over the side. I can hear the foil crinkle when Molly adjusts the temperature to a perfect 70 degrees. We don’t need another Dutch oven or the accompanying wooden spatula set. They’ll be kept, I know it. Like the cast irons lying in the oven at home, they’re too nice to throw away.

I count the patches of snow along the highway. My hand is pressed over my mouth with my elbow propped up on the door. I keep my head angled down so I don’t have to see the sun creeping up over the horizon. Down this low, the dry grass of the foothills peek through the white. January is supposed to be wet. The yellow twigs and twirls of dead leaves will be buried in a few weeks. Then this stretch of road will look just like her parents’ driveway.

“There’s that steakhouse you wanted to try,” Molly says. “On the way into town. If we take exit 118…”

I peel my fingers away from my lips. “It’s fine, Molly. Let’s just go home.”

From my peripherals, I see her shoulders release. Her breath flutters out and out. I put my hand face up on the center console, but I can’t look away from the dried grass yet.

Her breathing hitches and her palm is clammy against mine. She threads our fingers together. Waits.

I squeeze my hand closed around hers. Only then does Molly begin to cry.

***

I don’t notice we’re having an argument until she takes the tea kettle off the front burner and carefully places it on the back one. She adjusts her robe without turning, her tangle of brunette hair twisted into a claw clip exposing a pale sliver of neck that’s slowly turning red.

“You don’t want to go. I get it.”

The worst part of arguments with Molly is that she doesn’t yell or cry or accuse. She retreats and shrinks and snipes. Usually, it’s enough to have me abandoning my toast on my favorite thrifted plate and rushing around the beaten butcher block island to take her into my arms.

This time, I carefully dust crumbs from my fingers before dropping my hands into my lap. “I don’t want to go,” I agree.

“I heard you the first time.” Molly is the magpie between the two of us. She replaced all the cabinet knobs with glass ones cut into gems last autumn. The late morning sun filters in through the skylight and catches on them, sending streaks of red and yellow flashing across the ceiling as she busies herself looking for a mug. “That’s it then. Conversation over.”

She drags the word into two syllables. O-verrr.

“I’m not wrong for not wanting to go,” I say.

She slams the cabinet. “I never said you were.” She’s got two mugs we bought at the last Christmas market in hand. She raises them over her shoulder to show me without looking. “Tea?”

“Please.”

The kettle isn’t whistling because it’s on the back burner. Molly stares at it. Her shoulders move very deliberately up and down. I count her breaths. I can’t draw my hands out of my lap. How long does it take for water to boil? Five minutes? Ten?

“They’re my parents,” Molly says. “Am I just supposed to never see them again?”

“No, I—"

“So it’s either you or them, is it?”

“You can go.”

“I just spend the rest of my life running back and forth between my wife and my parents then? Like a child of divorce? Two Christmases, two New Years, two birthdays—”

“Not two weddings at least,” I say.

Molly puts her hands on the counter on either side of the stove, bracing like a bear. “They sent us a wedding present.”

“They sent you a housewarming present,” I correct.

“You know what it really was.”

The bane of my existence. The set of cast iron pans were more than generous which means I can’t replace them or justify throwing them away. Not that Molly would have let me if I tried.

My voice is low. “I am not pretending your parents accept us, Molly.”

“They do accept us. In their way. As much as they can.”

“No.”

Molly rips around at last. The sun catches on her glass beaded earrings. Her chin juts out. “Yes. They invited you too.”

“Only because they know you won’t go if they don’t.”

“Exactly!” Her eyes are red and wide as she advances towards the table. Her hands fly through the air. “I won’t go if you don’t. I can’t. So please come to Christmas with me.”

“You thought they would change their mind,” I accuse. I pretended not to notice the devastation in her eyes as she looked to the empty seats. My heart ached, but I didn’t say anything and I should have. I say it now. “They didn’t come to our wedding. Your wedding.”

Molly bears over the table. “They’ll be sorry about it. They already are, they sent us a wedding gift—”

 My hands roll into fists. “It was a housewarming—”

“They’ve believed for over five decades, it takes time—"

“We don’t owe—"

“I don’t want to lose them!” Molly screams. She pants as if she’s run a mile. Her pupils are blown wide. “I love them. I want to keep this relationship.” Her voice cracks. “Please let me keep them.”

My heart melts even as it continues its race into my throat. I swallow it back down. “I’m not taking them away from you.”

“You are, you are if you don’t—” She breathes and doesn’t say the rest.

My nails cut into my flesh under the table. “You blame me?”

The water begins to jump in the kettle, roiling and popping.

“I just need one Christmas.” Her tone is noticeably softer as she sinks into the chair and reaches her hands across the table. When I don’t move, she keeps them there, ready for me to grab. “That’s all I’m asking for. One Christmas to show them how much I love you and how that is never going to change.”

I choke. “I—"

The kettle screams and Molly immediately leaps up to take it off the burner. She swipes at her eyes when her back’s turned. I stare sightlessly after her.

“You’d blame me,” I say. This time it isn’t a question.

The kettle squeals as the water inside slowly loses momentum. Molly gives no sign that she’s heard me. She re-ties her robe. “Six days – four days, even. We can take our time on the drive, make it a road trip.”

No. But…something lodges itself like a glass shard just behind my throat. She’s never blamed me for anything. Never found fault in my actions to the point that her eyes skitter away from mine when I ask her a question.

The kitchen turns cold as a crossroads, the skylight above her like the full moon. I was standing in her way.

“Okay,” I say. “Okay.”

Molly brings me tea. She kneels next to my chair as she sets the mug down. She draws my face towards her with a hand warmed by the hot water and presses her forehead to mine. “Thank you,” she breathes.

I kiss her. Her touch, her scent, her grounding reassurance…Warmth floods back between us as I follow her. I allow myself to hope. This could be good. One way or another. For Molly.

***

The day after we get back, I get up to make breakfast. Molly isn’t in bed. She’s not in the kitchen either. The cast irons aren’t in the oven. I stare at the empty space, noticing the charcoaled remains of our last attempt at pecan pie, for about ten minutes. Then I think to look at the door. Our suitcases are there, leaning against each other like children at a bus station, but the cardboard box is gone.

The house is dark. There’s snow over the skylight. Did Molly check it for cracks before we left? I hadn’t. It might leak in the spring. Which one of us would set the mop bucket under it? Which one of us would call the plumber?

Keys jangle and Molly opens the door. The hat she knit me for my birthday is pulled low on her brow and the scarf I made her after our first date is studded with snowball-sized snowflakes. A plastic bag crinkles in her hand. She stomps her boots outside before stepping in, closing the door, and catching sight of me. Her eyes drift up to the ceiling. “I checked it before we left. Seemed okay.”

“Where were you?” My voice is hoarse. I clear my throat. “I didn’t hear you get up.”

Molly sheds her layers. I count them as she goes. My windbreaker, the sweater she wore on the second night of our honeymoon, the long-sleeved shirt that we both have in the same color– “I had to go to the store,” she says. She pulls a Teflon pan out of her bag and holds it up like a tennis racket. “I’ve returned victorious!”

I don’t play along. “Where are the cast irons?” I ask. Fear jolts through me. If I look in her closet, what else will be missing? “The gifts?”

“The storage unit,” Molly says. She joins me in the kitchen. “Budge over.”

I move out of her way. Was she acting? Pretending we were okay? Did she blame me? “I wasn’t going to throw any of it away.”

Molly picks at the stickers on the new pan, her brow knit tight. “I know.”

“Then why…” I swallow and creep up to stand next to her. She pulls out the sponge, adds soap, and starts washing. I have to duck to see her face as she focuses on her task. “You love the cast irons.”

It is only because I’m looking for it that I see the crack. Her eyes well and there’s a hitch in her breath. “I do,” Molly says. Her voice trembles but her hands remain steady as she rinses the pan. “That’s true.”

“We can always go get them out,” I say and mean I would try again for you.

Her laughter is watery, but it is laughter. “Maybe later.”

“Later?”

Molly turns off the water. Hands me our new pan. Says, “Maybe when they quit making us homophobic eggs.”

I make us pancakes.