“It would serve you right, you know,” a low voice says from behind me. “If you were to fall asleep here, with no one to wake you up.”
My eyes pop back open again, and though my vision is blurry with the unshed tears, I know the voice. That horrible, wonderful voice.
I lift my face toward Tom as he comes around the bench to glare down at me. His expression is frustrated and stormy, understandingly so. Though when my eyes make it all the way to his, he blinks in surprise at what he sees.
I know he knows how close I’ve just come to crying, and that he doesn’t mention it is the kindest thing he’s done all day. Considering what he’s sacrificed, that’s saying something.
“I thought you’d left,” I whisper.
He runs a hand through his hair. “Thought about it. Changed my mind, for some unfounded reason. Then damn near broke my neck jumping off a moving train.”
For me. He doesn’t add it, but I feel it. Know it. Tom jumped off a train. For me. Just like he came to the hospital for me. Got off a plane. For me.
Because he’s St. Tom?
Or because of something else?
I so desperately want to ask, but I quickly wipe away my tears and say the expected thing instead.
“It’s a bummer you bungled it. The neck breaking, I mean.” I frown. “Wait. I’m not your emergency contact, am I?”
He lets out a genuine laugh. “No. God, no.”
I smile. “Yeah. Then bummer you bungled it.”
Tom lets out a defeated sigh and drops down onto the bench beside me. His shoulder presses against mine, but he makes no effort to move away.
Neither do I.
“Katherine?”
“Yeah.”
“I hate you,” he says without heat.
I smile a little and can’t resist saying, “And yet, you jumped out of a train for me.”
I await his comeback, but when he gives none, I glance over at him, surprised to see his expression serious, though no longer angry.
“Well, here’s the thing, Kates,” he says after a moment, still not looking at me.
I quickly turn my head away and face forward, the old nickname leaving me a little vulnerable. A bit yearning. “Katie” he uses because he knows I don’t like it. “Kates” is a different thing entirely. A name only he ever called me, a name that I’m not even sure he’s fully aware of, but that simply slips out when his guard is down.
“What’s the thing?” I nudge when he doesn’t continue.
This time it’s him who turns toward me. He waits patiently until I turn to look back at him. When I do, when our eyes meet, something shifts, the moment suddenly filled with memories, but something else too. Something trickier.
“The thing is,” he says softly, “I wanted to leave you. I meant to leave you. But then I realized how well I know you. And I know that if I left you here to die of your stubbornness, you’d commit yourself fully to haunting me for the rest of my days.”
He smiles, and there’s something wistful about it as his gaze roams my face. “Hell, sometimes I think that fully alive, you’ve found a way to haunt me anyway.”
My lips part in surprise at the comment, about what it reveals, and I look quickly away, not wanting him to see how much his words affect me. How much he affects me.
“See, I don’t know about that,” I say, pursing my lips, considering. “Purgatory has always seemed a little wishy-washy for my personality. I think I’ll just take the express straight to heaven, thank you very much.”
“That’s cute. That you think you’ll be headed up north when it’s your time.”
“Though,” I continue thoughtfully, ignoring him, “if I did decide to stick around, make your life miserable as a specter, I would make a pretty hot ghost.”
Tom snorts. “You forget I’ve seen you before your coffee and date with your hair straightener. I don’t think they have those or your phone in the afterlife.”
A fresh flood of memories rushes back to me uninvited. I never really thought about it during our marriage, but in hindsight, mornings were always our time. We’re both early risers by nature, and that precious hour before my phone started exploding, and before his did too—though he likes to pretend that it didn’t—that hour was always just about us. Connecting.
“So. Now what?” I ask.
“I guess . . .” He checks his watch. “We see about getting a rental car. Hopefully something with four-wheel drive to handle the snow.”
My eyes go wide. “You want to drive to Chicago? From here? In this weather?”
Fine, yes. I was wrong about the weather, and the meteorologists were right. Winter Storm Barry is, in fact, a total monster.
Tom tiredly runs a hand through his hair. “If you have a better plan, I can’t wait to hear it.”
“I do,” I snap. “Way better, thanks for asking. How about we get a couple of hotel rooms, book a flight first thing tomorrow, which will get us there before a car can . . .”
“Oh, brilliant! I’m so glad you’re here with these bright ideas, Katherine!”
My shoulders slump in defeat at the sarcastic bite of his words and what it means. “You already checked for flights, didn’t you?”
“I did. Last-minute tickets on Christmas Eve would have been a long shot even without all the canceled flights from the storm.”
“Well.” I bite my lip. “Well, what about first thing Christmas morning? The storm will have passed, and your family will understand—”
“No.” His voice is as harsh as I’ve heard it this entire trip. “I have to be there Christmas Eve.”
Tom stands abruptly, reaching for his suitcase. “That’s nonnegotiable.”
I stare after him, baffled. What in the world was that about? Tom likes Christmas Eve as much as normal people, but he’s never been a weirdo about it.
I narrow my gaze, suddenly very sure I’m missing something. Something that explains why he’s a little off, for reasons that have nothing to do with me.
Or at least not just me.
“Grab your precious phone and hurry the hell up,” Tom yells back at me. “I’m not waiting for you this time.”
Puzzled and a little disappointed at his sudden change in mood, I start to follow him. He pulls out his cell phone, his expression pensive as he reads whatever’s there.
And then some of my smugness fades as it hits me:
Tom’s been on his phone almost as much as I have during our little adventure.
Suddenly, my brain is desperate to know why.
Even as I’m pretty sure my heart won’t like the answer.
TWENTY-THREE
TOM
December 23, 10:02 p.m.
For a long minute, Katherine and I stand side by side staring at the sign on the rental car counter.
Sorry, no more cars available.
She’s silent for a moment, sharing in my shock. Then she opens her mouth, and before she can speak, I lift a warning finger. “Not. One. Word.”
I need a moment. Need a moment to process the reality that I’m standing in Buffalo with my ex-wife instead of curled up on a couch in Chicago, stuffed full of Mom’s pasta Bolognese with my soon-to-be future wife.
And that we’re increasingly running out of transportation options to get to Chicago.