Free The Christmas Letters by Lee Smith Page A

I actually trusted Sandy—and why not? I had trusted him all these years.
    I kept smiling and smiling, and signing things. Everyone remarked upon how well I was “taking it.” I just kept on smiling. After smiling for three or four weeks I stepped on the scale one day and was amazed to see that I’d lost 20 pounds without even realizing it—that 20 pounds I’ve always been meaning to lose.
    I was really in bad shape. Every month after Sandy left, in fact, I’d look back and think, Oh, I didn’t even know what I was doing then. I was in such bad shape! Look how much better I am now. But then another month would go by, and I’d look back at myself again and think, Well, I really didn’t know how crazy I was a month ago! Lord, I was crazy then. But I’m so much better now. And then another month would go by, and . . . well, you get the picture. It has taken me a long, long time. And I’m still not there. I’m still not “adjusted.” I don’t think I will ever be “adjusted”! I don’t even know what this means anymore. I remember thinking (as I cleaned out the house and stuck everything into Village Self Storage, fueled by that crazy manic energy that comes with divorce) that I wished I could just put myself in there as well, to emerge after 5 or 6 years like Rip Van Winkle, miraculously “adjusted,” having avoided all the pain which I am still going through.
    I didn’t actually realize that the marriage was over, oddly enough (not when we signed the papers, not when we went to court —none of that really registered) until I walked through our empty house for the very last time right after the closing. As I left the lawyer’s office that afternoon and got in my car (Sandy got in his car, of course) I noticed that my house key was still on my key ring. Without stopping to think, I drove straight over there. I hadn’t been back for months, not since renting this nice little place in Oakwood.
    Real estate agents don’t waste any time—they had already hung a SOLD banner across the FOR SALE sign. It was April, and my bulbs were in bloom—all the daffodils in back, the crocuses by the mailbox, the tulips in their raised beds along the terrace. I had grouped them by color, and they looked like a proud little army on parade. The windows shone like diamonds —I guess they’d just been cleaned, for the new owners. I didn’t know anything about the arrangements for selling the house. Sandy had taken care of all that, as he had always taken care of everything. Why, he could have cheated me blind, I realized, though of course I knew he wouldn’t —Sandy was always very scrupulous about money (as opposed to his private life, more later on that!)
    For the first time, I wondered why I hadn’t insisted on being more involved, why I had been so happy to have things done for me, decided for me—so happy to relinquish control. Anyway, the house looked great. The trimhad been touched up, the terraces had been pressure-washed, the lawn service had obviously just been there.
    I unlocked the front door and opened it. It swung inward silently, giving onto the gleaming wood floor of the entrance hall, like the shining path in the Wizard of Oz, I thought briefly, crazily, and then I was walking the house, going into each room. It’s a huge house, of course, I’d forgotten how big it is. An afternoon hush had fallen everywhere, so that my heels clicked and echoed as I walked from room to room. The rooms are large and airy, beautifully proportioned. Sunlight streamed in the big windows and French doors, blinding me.
    There was not even a trace of us left. None of the family snapshots stuck up on the refrigerator with magnets; none of the terra-cotta pots that had held my spice garden on the kitchen windowsill; none of James’s tennis rackets which used to hang on the wall of his room; none of Andrew’s endless collections of stamps, of bird books, flower books, constellations; none of the twins’ endless array of old