It’s started to snow after all.
TWELVE
TOM
December 23, 12:59 p.m.
If you’d have asked me this morning if I was a good guy, I’d have said absolutely. I might even have been a little smug about it because, damn it, I really do try.
I hold doors. Call my mom. Give generously. Speak to my colleagues with respect, even Alan, who I once saw pull a Tupperware out of the office fridge, toss the sticky note in the trash, and then chow down on homemade lasagna that clearly wasn’t his.
Hell, if you’d have asked me an hour ago, I’d have said I was a good guy.
Right now, though? I’m a little less sure. As I step out of Katherine’s hospital room, I certainly don’t feel like a good guy.
And pulling out my phone to call a car seems to take superhuman strength, as though the universe is saying, Really? Really, Tom?
I ignore the universe and then wince because the surge rates are astronomical. And the wait time for a car means that even with the flight delay, it’s going to be close.
Katherine was wrong, by the way. I didn’t book this flight two years ago. Airlines don’t allow you to book flights more than 331 days in advance.
So. I booked mine 331 days ago.
It’s like I’ve said. I’m a planner. Most people find this fact to be somewhere between impressive and endearing.
Katherine, on the other hand, has always managed to make me feel like a jerk for it.
Which is unfair. It’s not as though I’m a prepper with a secret bunker stocked with beans and batteries. I just have a knack for looking ahead to the future and figuring out what needs to be done to ensure that I have the life I want.
I’m also pretty good at avoiding snags, dodging things that don’t fit into the plan.
But Katherine is a bit more than a snag. And though I’ve managed four years of dodging her, apparently my time is up.
Because while there are about a million reasons why I should be heading to the elevator, I find myself loitering outside her hospital room, blatantly eavesdropping on her conversation with the nurse.
A mistake. Because her quiet plea makes my chest ache.
“I can’t spend Christmas in the hospital. Please.”
I drag a hand over my face because I know—I am perhaps one of the only people on the planet who does—that her entreaty is more than the standard hospital aversion.
I never met Daniel Tate. Katherine’s father passed away a couple years before we met. If I’m being honest, I hate that I didn’t have a chance to meet the man who raised a woman like Katherine all on his own. A man who sacrificed everything to get her through law school. Who loved her, even when, let’s be honest, it wasn’t the easiest thing to do.
But I’ve heard enough of Daniel to feel like I know the important things about the man. I know he was short and fair and looked nothing like his daughter—Katherine got her dark hair and eyes and taller-than-average height from her mother, who passed away when she was a child.
I know that Daniel was kind and patient. That his favorite Christmas movie was Scrooge from the 1950s. And that he vehemently discounted Die Hard as a Christmas movie, and I regret never having the opportunity to state my case because I’m confident I could have convinced him.
I know that Daniel Tate got sick with terminal pancreatic cancer.
And I know that he died.
On Christmas.
In a hospital.
I close my eyes. Damn it.
My phone buzzes, notifying me of what should be good news. My Uber driver has made better time than estimated and will be here in three minutes.
I force myself to conjure Lolo’s face in my mind. My girlfriend, who at this minute is with my family, all of them eagerly awaiting my arrival. My girlfriend, who in two days will become my fiancée, and eventually . . .
My wife.
I set my hand on my computer bag, feeling for the slight bulge of the ring box, and let it serve as the impetus I need to move toward the elevator doors. To put my past behind me, once and for all.
Katherine will be fine on her own. She prefers it that way.
Something I repeat to myself over and over in the elevator. And as I wheel my suitcase toward the exit.
For good measure, I remind myself that the woman legitimately hates my guts.
My sticking around would merely be a selfish way of assuaging my own conscience.
And my leaving is the best Christmas gift Katherine could ask for.
There. My good-guy status is restored.
If only I could believe it.
The sliding doors of the hospital open, and even though I’ve seen the forecasts, the blast of snow that hits me in the face still catches me by surprise.
When I got to the hospital half an hour ago, flakes had just started to fall. Now, everything’s covered in white. Luckily, it looks to be a thin layer. Not the type to cancel flights. Not enough to prevent me from getting to Chicago to propose.
I don’t see my car yet, so I move under the awning to dodge the worst of the whipping snow. Two guys dressed in scrubs and winter coats are on their break, sipping from steaming paper cups.
“This is nothing,” one of them says in a bored voice, glancing out at the snow. “I thought this was supposed to be a blizzard.”
“Yeah, but it’s early yet,” the other says, looking up at the sky. “It wasn’t even supposed to start snowing for another couple hours, and an inch has already accumulated in thirty minutes.”
His companion gives him a look. “The weather guy from Channel Seven called. He wants his job back.”
The snow watcher smiles and shrugs. “I’m from Phoenix. The white stuff still fascinates me.”
“Well, I’m from Buffalo. Trust me, it gets old.” The other guy drains the rest of his cup and tosses it into the nearby trash. “I almost don’t mind getting stuck here for another eight hours.”
“You pulling a double?”
The first nods.
“That sucks. But at least you didn’t get the Christmas Eve shift. I hate being in a hospital for the holidays.”
“I can’t spend Christmas in the hospital. Please.”
I check my phone. Two minutes to go. Come on, Uber.
“Whenever my mom gives me shit for missing Christmas to work, I remind her I’m one of the lucky ones,” their conversation continues, torturing me. “Much as it sucks to be changing the beds, at least I’m not in one on Christmas.”
I swallow. Damn it.
I lift my phone once again. And when I tap the Delta app, I tell myself I’m checking availability on later flights only as a backup plan. Not the plan.
But when I try to come up with an excuse to explain to myself why I’m searching availability for two tickets to Chicago instead of one, I’m faced with the awful, unavoidable truth:
I’m taking my ex-wife home for Christmas.
THIRTEEN
KATHERINE
December 23, 1:04 p.m.
“Listen up, Tate. This is how it’s going to go, and if you argue, I swear to God, I really will strangle you with your shredded bra.”
I jolt awake.