The Candle That Won't Stay Upright

The good plates live on the top shelf, behind the serving bowl that only comes out at Thanksgiving. She takes them down one at a time, two white plates with a thin gold rim, and checks each one for a chip she already knows is not there. Tonight is Valentine's Day, though the card from the drugstore is still in the drawer by the phone. The children are asleep. Their boots are lined against the radiator in the hallway, and the last light in their rooms has been turned off from the bottom edge of the doorway.

She sets the table on the kitchen counter, not the dining room. It is February, so the window is black by six o'clock, and the indoor dark is complete. In the basket on the shelf are red paper napkins left over from a birthday party. She unfolds two of them and lays them flat. They are creased, because everything in the basket is creased. She sets the plates in their places and then moves them half an inch. Forks on the left. Knives on the right, blades turned in. It is the same table where the children spread out their homework and where the mail is opened. She does not light the candle until he is downstairs.

The candle is the problem.

It is a thick red column from the drugstore, bought the week after Christmas, and it has never sat straight. No matter how much she softens the bottom over the stove, it lists to one side. This year she stands it in a little white dish and lets it lean against the salt cellar. When she lights it, the flame is upright even though the candle is not, and this seems enough.

Two places in a clearing

The steaks came out of the freezer at noon and were left to thaw on the counter, in the cold light off the snow. There are potatoes in the oven, and a salad she made with too much lemon, and a bottle of wine that cost less than the napkins. She pours two glasses so the wine can breathe, which it does not need to do. He opens the bottle with the corkscrew from the drawer that sticks. It is a small ceremony and it is theirs.

At a quarter past seven, he comes down. He had fallen asleep in the armchair, and he smells of sleep. He has not shaved. She notices but does not say anything. He helps her carry the plates to the table and notices, the way he always does, that the table is set for two but the other chairs are still there, pushed against the table, so the two places look like a clearing in a forest.

They eat by the candle and the overhead light, because the candle alone is not enough. The children do not call out. Once the heating comes on, the flame bends hard, then settles. She tells him about the argument she had on the phone with her mother, which is the same argument she had last month. He tells her about the man at work who keeps a bag of potato chips in his desk drawer. The steak is cooked more than they meant, and they do not talk about it. The meal is not special. This is part of the point. The good plates are not for the food; they are for the hour. He reaches out and straightens the candle with two fingers. By the time they are halfway through the steak, it is leaning again.

The dishes until morning

They scrape the plates over the bin. There is half a potato in the salad, a corner of steak, and a pool of red juice, and no one wants any of it. The dishes go into the sink, stacked exactly as they will be stacked in the morning, with the knives underneath the plates to keep them from falling.

Upstairs, the children have rearranged themselves. The floor of the older one's room is covered in things that were on the floor this morning. A thin blue line of nightlight is under the door. The younger one has kicked off the blankets and sleeps with his mouth open, like his father, minus twenty-five years.

Back in the kitchen, the candle has burned down an inch, and the wax has run over the side of the little white dish and made a shape on the table. There is a bit of red wax on the base of the salt cellar, from the year the candle fell over. They do not clear it. They leave the dishes where they are. This is the actual tradition, the one thing the good plates get to do all year: be left sitting in the sink overnight, unrinsed, like there is a housekeeper who will come at dawn. There is not.

In the morning, the kitchen will be full of the gray light of late February, and the water will be cold on the hands. She will run hot water and stand there while it warms, staring at the bowl of a spoon. The dishes will still be there when the first child comes in, in socks, asking for breakfast. But the night is still long enough. They close the kitchen door and go upstairs. The candle burns until the wax reaches the rim and the flame goes out on its own, long after the house is dark.