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.”
“The last year of our marriage was hardly a marriage at all.”
I don’t say it to wound her. Or maybe I do. I don’t know. But her eyes go wide with unmistakable hurt before she quickly turns her attention back to her phone.
I suck in a deep breath of regret. “Hey. I didn’t mean . . .”
“It’s fine,” she interrupts, still looking down at her screen, even though it’s locked. “It’s hardly breaking news that you couldn’t stand me that last year because I wouldn’t drop everything I wanted to fall in line with everything you wanted.”
There’s another loud fart from the back row, and though we both lift our coat collars to cover our noses, we don’t pause the argument.
“I never asked you to drop everything,” I say. “I just wanted some sign that you even saw me. That I mattered at least as much as making partner.”
“You mattered,” Katherine says. “Of course you mattered, I just didn’t realize you needed to hear it every second of every day!”
“I would have settled for once a week. Hell, once a month. A quarter. Anything so that I knew that you were even there.”
Her laugh is soft and bitter. “You needed to know if I was there? I wasn’t the one that left, Tom. You bailed the second that marriage didn’t look like your perfect picture of it. By the time I realized you had a foot out the door, you were already gone.”
“That’s . . . not true.”
Is it? It doesn’t feel true, at least not how I remember it, but it’s also as much vulnerability as Katherine’s ever shown about the divorce, and it has me doubting . . . everything.
“Fine. Okay,” she says flatly.
I feel something hollow in my stomach, sensing that she’s shutting down and pulling away again just as I was finally making some progress in understanding the mystery that is this woman’s heart.
“Kates . . .” The old nickname slips out, even though I don’t know how to finish the sentence.
“I’m fine, Tom.” She closes her eyes. “I got over it. Over you. I’m better than ever. You’ve got yourself a new perfect girlfriend to fit into your perfect life. I’m going to make partner. Everybody gets what they want. Everybody wins.”
I feel an almost uncontrollable urge to argue with her, even though I don’t know what about.
Katherine opens her eyes again. “Let’s call a truce and change the subject.”
“This has to be a first. You calling a truce?”
She looks tired. “Take the olive branch, Tom.”
“Fine. Subject change it is. Hit me.”
Katherine taps a finger on her chin, considering topics, then her eyes light up. “Do you think Lolo will pump?”
“Pump what?”
“Breast milk.”
I think I choke on my own tongue.
“Sorry.” She gives me a mischievous smile. “Am I rushing you? Have you not thought about occupying her womb with your seed?”
“Jesus,” I mutter.
“Sore subject? Does your seed not work? Or I mean . . .” she whispers. “Does it not . . . grow?”
“I am not talking to my ex-wife about my girlfriend’s womb. Or her . . . breast milk.”
“I bet they’re smaller than mine. I’ve got great cans.” She looks down at her chest and shimmies her shoulders.
My gaze drifts downward, because human nature.
She catches me looking and smirks.
“So.” She turns all the way toward me now, exuding a friendliness that makes me think I imagined our heated words just a second ago. “How’d you and Lolo meet?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Not here. Not now. Not ever. Not with you.
“No problem.” She starts humming loudly. I wouldn’t mind because it at least distracts from the relentless fussing babies, but it’s very loud and very off-key. She starts using her bag as a drum.
I give in. “At a bar.”
“A bar? Oh, swoon!” Katherine fans herself, flutters her eyelashes. “Did you ask her if it hurt when she fell from heaven?”