“I know. But we couldn’t make it work this year. After our cruise and the Europe trip this summer, I’m out of vacation days. We’d have had to fly back on the twenty-sixth, and it just didn’t make sense . . .”
I’m surprised by how much the words sting. I know that Irene doesn’t mean them to wound me—that they’re not even about me.
But it hurts to know that even my beloved Irene thinks so little of me that I’d let her miss Christmas with her family. That she didn’t even bother to ask.
I link my fingers and set my clasped hands on the desk, expression firm. “Irene. If I see you in the office a day before January third, you’re fired.”
She blinks. “Oh, but, Katie, I don’t have the days, and . . . HR—”
“HR, if they ask, which they won’t, will be informed that you’re working remotely, because that’s what I’ll tell them. But don’t get any crazy ideas. If I see a single email or message from you about work, you’re fired for that too.”
Stubborn as ever, Irene shakes her head. “The Hallinger case starts up first week of January. You’ll need me here to prep . . .”
I hold my hands out to the sides. “Actually, I’m all good on that. I just spoke with Jerry, and there’s a settlement on the table that for once is actually looking like a viable option. So we may just be a mess of paperwork that we can handle when you get back.”
Irene looks rightfully confused at my mention of settling. “But you never—”
I shrug. “The client hasn’t made any decisions yet, but no point in you hovering nearby while we wait.”
This is, of course, an outright lie. Irene is quite right; I never settle. And if I did, it wouldn’t be this case. My client is a small-time family company that the massive Hallinger conglomerate is trying to take out at the knees with a nonsensical patent suit.
I’ll take Jerry’s BS offer to my client because I have to. But I don’t expect them to accept because I sure as hell won’t recommend that they do.
Irene gazes at me steadily, and I realize she knows every thought going through my head, knows that I’m lying through my teeth.
She smiles. “Thank you.”
I smile back. “You’re welcome.”
It’s the least I can do for this woman. Irene is . . . how can I put this? A gift. She was the longtime assistant of the attorney who had this office before me. When he retired to Vermont the same month I started, Irene was packing up her desk, planning to follow her former boss’s steps into retirement.
Irene took one look at me, twenty-seven, newly orphaned, and as furious at the world as I was broken by it, and began unpacking her box.
She’s been my assistant ever since, playing the part of mother, friend, secretary, and cheerleader.
Though, dear as she is to me, at this time of year, I’m more aware that like family is not quite the same as actual family. Come Christmas morning, she’ll be where she belongs—with her daughter’s family in Boston, watching her grandkids tear into their Santa haul.
And I’ll be right where I belong—in the swanky apartment I’ve worked very hard to be able to afford, in the peace and quiet that was the consequence of all that hard work. Sometimes it feels like a reward; other times a painful trade-off.
Mostly, I try not to think about it.
Irene has an annoying way of reading my thoughts, and she seems to do so now because her eyes are narrowed behind her thick glasses.
“Come with me.” It’s more order than request, one that I hear every December, and because I’m used to it, I shake my head almost before she’s done speaking.
I smile to placate her. “I’m all set with my holiday plans, but thank you as always for the invite.”
“Plans.” She makes a dismissive sniff. “To be by yourself? Christmas isn’t meant to be spent alone.”
“Christmas isn’t meant to be a lot of things, but they happen anyway.” I generally soften my tone around Irene, but right now I let just enough of an edge slip in to let her know the conversation is over.
I appreciate Irene’s Christmas offer—I really do. But I don’t know how to explain that spending time with her family would only highlight my own lack of family.
Irene is probably right. Christmas isn’t meant to be spent alone. But it’s like I said before, life is a series of choices.
I have to learn to live with mine.
SIX
TOM
December 23, 11:31 a.m.
“Honey, tell me that you’re holding the ring bag carefully? With two hands.”
“Nope. Just idly twirling it by the very tip of my pinky finger, dangling it out into the street,” I tell my mother. “Is that a bad idea?”
She lets out a suffering sigh into the phone. “Everyone’s cocky about these things until they’ve been pickpocketed, Tommy.”
I smile. It’s been a while since I’ve heard this particular lecture. Or that particular nickname.
“Now, see, this would be the perfect time for that money belt I got you for your birthday!” she continues. “I know those reviews said that the chafing can cause hair loss on the abdomen, but if you think about it, it’s really a small price to pay for peace of mind and security of your valuables. And speaking of hair loss, in that last picture you sent, I noticed a little thinning at your temples. I talked to my hairdresser, and she gave me these drops to give to you . . .”
My mother, ladies and gentlemen. Meet Nancy Walsh.
Believe it or not, this isn’t the most awkward conversation we’ve had this month. Or even this week. On Monday, she sent me a photo of a mole on my father’s hip, asking if it had always been there. Because apparently I track these things.
Also, Dad was asleep at the time the picture was taken, and I can’t decide if that makes it better or worse.
Mom is, well . . . a mom.
She worries, she interferes—all because she loves hard.
Topics of concern range from her grandkids not having home ec as an option at school, unfamiliar moles, my sister’s inability to bake a cake that doesn’t “fall” in the middle, and when it comes to me:
The fact that I live in New York City.
I’m the only one of her four children who doesn’t live in the same time zone as her. Hell, I’m the only kid who doesn’t live within a thirty-mile radius of my parents.
And all of this manifests in her exaggerated concern about crime in New York. Shout-out to my mischievous younger sister for setting up a Google Alert for “New York City crime” on Mom’s phone, which, as you can imagine, means I get a lot of texts verifying I wasn’t in Morningside Heights at 3:00 a.m. or a bar in Alphabet City at midnight.
“Just promise me you won’t get on the subway while you’re carrying the ring,” she continues. “Did I send you that video about the subway pirates? I saw it on the YouTube.”
Okay, that one’s on me. Last Thanksgiving, I sent her a link to a YouTube cooking video explaining that you don’t have to cook the turkey in a bag anymore.
（Spoiler alert: We had turkey cooked in the bag.）
But the point is, I introduced her to YouTube. Which she’s very into, and the algorithm has been feeding her a steady diet of “the country’s on the brink of disaster” videos.