“It’s already done. It’s been done for six months.”
“You could undo it.”
“You could accept it.”
“I’ll never accept it.”
“That’s your choice.” She paused, took a breath, brought the volume down. “That’s always your choice, Dutch. You refuse to accept change. And because you can’t, you never get over anything.”
“I don’t want to get over you,” he argued.
“You’ll have to.”
She turned away from him, pulled an empty box nearer the bookcase, and began filling it with books, although taking less care with them than before. She was now in a hurry to leave, before she was forced to say more hurtful things in order to convince him that their marriage was, finally and forever, over.
Several minutes of tense silence were broken only by the soughing of the wind through the trees surrounding the cabin. Branches knocked against the eaves with increasing frequency and force.
She wished he would leave ahead of her, preferred he not be there when she left the cabin. Knowing that it would be for the last time, he
might have an emotional meltdown. She’d been through such scenes before and didn’t want to experience another. Their leave-taking didn’t have to be bitter and ugly, but Dutch was making it so by resurrecting old quarrels.
Although clearly it wasn’t his intention, his rehashing of these arguments only underscored how right she’d been to end the marriage.
“I think this Louis L’Amour is yours.” She held up a book. “Do you want it, or shall I leave it for the new owners?”
“They’re getting everything else,” he said morosely. “Just as well throw in a paperback book.”
“It was easier to sell the furnishings along with the cabin,” she said. “The furnishings were bought specifically for this place and wouldn’t look right in any other house. Besides, neither of us has extra space, so what would I have done with it? Move it all out only to sell it to someone else? And where would I have stored it in the meantime? It made more sense to include everything in the sell price.”
“That’s not the point, Lilly.”
She knew the point. He didn’t want to think of strangers living in the cabin, using their things. Leaving everything intact for someone else to enjoy seemed to him like a sacrilege, a violation of the privacy and intimacy they’d shared in these rooms.
I don’t care how sensible it is to sell the whole kit and caboodle, Lilly. Screw sensible! How can you bear to think of other people sleeping in our bed between our sheets?
That had been his reaction when she’d told him her plans for the furnishings. Obviously her decision still riled him, but it was too late for her to change her mind even if she were so inclined. Which she wasn’t.
When the shelves in the bookcase were empty, save for the lone Western novel, she looked around for anything she might have missed. “Those canned goods,” she said, pointing to the grocery items she’d placed on the bar that separated the kitchen from the living area. “Do you want to take them with you?”
He shook his head.
She added them to the last box of books, which was only half full. “I scheduled the utilities to be disconnected, since the new owners won’t be occupying the cabin until spring.” Doubtless he already knew all this. She was talking to fill the silence, which seemed to become conversely weightier the more of herself she removed from the cabin.
“I have some last-minute items in the bathroom to gather up, then I’ll be out of here. I’ll shut off everything, lock up, then, as agreed, drop off the key at the realtor’s office on my way out of town.”
His misery was evident in his expression, his stance. He nodded but didn’t say anything.
“You don’t have to wait on me, Dutch. I’m sure you have responsibilities in town.”
“They’ll keep.”
“With an ice and snow storm forecast? You’ll probably be needed to direct traffic in the supermarket,” she said, making light. “You know how everyone stocks up for the siege. Let’s say our good-byes now, and you can get a head start down the mountain.”
“I’ll wait on you. We’ll leave together. Do what you need to do in there,” he said, indicating the bedroom. “I’ll load these boxes into your trunk.”
He hefted the first box and carried it out. Lilly went into the next room. The bed, with a nightstand on each side, fit compactly against the wall under the sloping ceiling. The only other furnishings were a rocking chair and a bureau. Windows made up the far wall. A closet and small bath were behind the wall opposite the windows.
Earlier she had drawn the drapes, so the room was gloomy. She checked the closet. The empty hangers on the rod looked forlorn. Nothing had been overlooked in the bureau drawers. She went into the bathroom and collected the toiletries she had used that morning, zipped them into a plastic travel case, and after checking to make certain that she’d left nothing in the medicine chest, returned to the bedroom.