The woman in front of him is clipping her toenails, and the “big one won’t cooperate.” I know this because she’s announced it loudly. Several times.
There are four babies aboard. I like babies. A lot. I’m that guy who purposely never lets his smile waver when a stressed-out parent holding a crying newborn stops in the airplane aisle and points to the open seat beside me with an apologetic grin. It would suck to be that parent, and it would suck to be that gassy, hungry baby, so I try to be patient.
But you know what? Right now, it sucks more to be me. Because not one of these babies has stopped wailing, even though all four of them have had their diapers changed while on board, resulting in a smell that is almost, but not quite, worse than the onion rings.
Right on cue, someone lets out a long, noisy fart.
“Jesus, Tom.” Katherine pulls her coat collar over her face. “That one sounded wet. The ham is really doing a number on you, huh?”
“Not. Me,” I manage to say around my deliberate mouth-breathing. “This is all your fault.”
“Okay, I’ll grant you that some of this mess is on me,” Katherine says.
“You think?”
“But some of it’s on you too,” she shoots back.
“How the hell do you figure that?” I ask, genuinely affronted. Without Katherine, I’d be home right now, reassuring Lolo that she doesn’t have to actually wear the flannel snowman nightgown that my mother bought on Etsy, my stomach happily full of eggnog and a homemade meal.
Instead, my appetite has been entirely shot to hell by farts, stale onion rings, and the aftermath of funky ham, and I’m sitting beside a woman who, I’m just now discovering, has kept in touch with my family.
I can’t decide what bothers me more: that Katherine has been cozy with my family, or that they’ve been hiding it from me for years.
“Well,” Katherine answers my question in a deliberately patient tone, as though preparing to explain something very basic to a recalcitrant child, “the fact that we’ve been delayed—”
“Multiple times,” I cut in.
“The fact that we’ve been delayed multiple times is my fault,” she continues. “But the fact that we’re on your tight, arbitrary schedule? That’s on you.”
“Arbitrary—” I have to shut my mouth a moment to keep myself from sputtering. “I’m sorry, but do you think I’ve somehow exerted influence over the date of Christmas?”
“Ah, but it’s not just Christmas, is it?” she says, wagging an annoying finger at me. “It’s Christmas Eve. I mean, honestly, Tom, you’ve never been this weird about the twenty-fourth before. Do you have a hot date with the reindeer or something?”
My jaw works in a mixture of vexation, anger, and guilt. The first two—obvious, right? The last one, though . . .
I could tell her. I should tell her.
But here’s the situation. Not only am I faced with the discomfort of telling my ex-wife—even one who hates my guts—that I’m getting married again, but I also have to explain that I want to propose to Wife Number Two on Christmas Eve because it’s a long-standing family tradition. A family tradition that I didn’t adhere to, or even really consider, when proposing to Wife Number One.
I don’t know how I can possibly deliver that news without hurting her, and as much as I’ve thought I could happily strangle Katherine today, I don’t want to cause her pain.
And even if I could get around that hang-up by simply reminding myself that Katherine’s the type who appreciates straightforwardness, the truth is . . .
I don’t know how to explain.
Not to her.
Not even to myself.
As the infernal woman’s been reminding me every chance she gets, I’m a planner. Not because I’m uptight—okay, perhaps a bit—but because I love life. I knew even in my college days that I didn’t want to be that guy that woke up at forty, alone in his messy bachelor pad, and think, Damn, I better get a move on it!
I’ve known, more or less, how I want my life to go since I was a kid.
And in none of those daydreaming sessions did I imagine someone as difficult as Katherine by my side.
To this day, I have no idea why I couldn’t take my eyes off the loud brunette on the street ordering me to go find some legume butter. And I have no idea why, after the poor guy with the gum on his shoe escaped her clutches, I asked her out for a drink and held my breath to hear the answer.
And most especially, I don’t know why six months after that, while sitting beside her on the couch, listening to her tirade on why Star Wars: A New Hope is actually a fantasy, not a science-fiction movie, I looked over at her shoveling chow mein into her mouth with cheap chopsticks and knew . . .
That she was mine. And I was hers. In the forever kind of way.
Marry me.
I blurted it out. With no ring. With no plan. It wasn’t even posed as a question so much as a command mingled with a plea.
It was the middle of a swampy, miserable New York summer, and my family’s Christmas Eve tradition was the farthest thing from my mind. Even if it had crossed my mind, I wouldn’t have waited. Couldn’t have. As it was, the only reason we didn’t tie the knot at city hall as soon as humanly possible was because my mother threatened to disown me if she wasn’t present at the ceremony.
Katherine and I flew my entire family, as well as Irene and her husband, to Las Vegas. There wasn’t Elvis, but there was a tiny chapel, a lot of champagne, and some damn good memories.
That’s where I finally gave Katherine a proper ring. My maternal grandmother’s, left to the firstborn child in a tradition even older than the Christmas Eve proposal.
A ring that, in a surprisingly generous gesture, she insisted on returning to me after the divorce. “For your do-over,” she said.
My do-over didn’t want it. Funny how up until as recently as this morning, that fact had bothered me.
Sitting here now on this bus, I’m relieved I trusted my gut and got Lolo a new ring. The other one seems to belong to Katherine somehow. Even now. Especially now?
“Did I stump you?” she asks, interrupting my long silence. “Why do we have to be there tomorrow? Why not Christmas?”
I take a deep breath and turn my head to face her. To tell her . . . everything. To explain why Christmas Eve is important and that Lolo isn’t just a passing phase.
The words get caught in my throat because Katherine’s attention is on her damned phone.
Of course it is. My temper snaps.
“How about you give it a rest with that thing?” I say through gritted teeth. “I hardly think Harry’s going to call at ten o’clock at night.”
It comes out even harsher than I intend, and Katherine’s head whips up in surprise. “What’s your problem?”
“No, no,” I say snidely. “Not my problem. Yours. It’s the same thing that’s always been your problem. That damn phone that’s practically an appendage.”
“Ah.” Her voice is deceptively light. “Now, where have I heard this particular rampage? Oh, yeah! Only every single night for the last year of our marriage.”