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Chapter 16

I don’t sleep. I can’t until I do it—until I make progress.

Sans the list. Sans using anybody to work out a behavioral change.

I just cut straight to the chase. To the sources of my struggles themselves.

First, it’s a call to Dom in Genie’s presence. And my mother’s. He answers on the third ring. And I tell him before he can talk that there is not going to be any further closure between us. That he’s a married man. And that I don’t ever want him calling me again.

My mother, whose eyes open a little bit as she listens to him backtrack and try to worm his way into a face-to-face private meeting, purses her lips and gives me a firm squeeze on the shoulder. When he starts to throw out aggressively defensive shots in a voice I know well but she doesn’t, her squeeze gets tighter.

She’s finally heard it. And leading to a more meaningful satisfaction than I expected, she apologizes for not ever quite believing me before.

Second is the email to Synon’s HR department, detailing the incident with my boss and sharing his explicit instructions for padding numbers and changing facts.

I feel knots in my stomach.

I’ve made enemies today, and that eats at me. But Mom says that feeling should fade with time. And as Yelensky says, “Tension is a part of life. Adversity doesn’t necessarily mean something should change. Doing the right thing openly almost always brings a few enemies.”

I definitely did not meet my goal of ten rejections by Christmas.

I definitely have not won my little game.

But I am making baby steps in overcoming my fears. And persevering in those baby steps—with friends and family at my side—is going to be the thing that gets me where I need to go.

I’m not so much saying no to everyone else as I am saying yes to myself. Yes to things that matter. A Christmas Yes List, of sorts.

And late in the evening, heart heavy about the failures but slightly hopeful too, I finally fall asleep.

It’s Christmas Eve.

I wake to the sound of utensils and pots and pans bumping in the kitchen below, disoriented about where I am and what is going on. The clock reads 6:32 a.m. The kitchen starts early at the farmhouse when there are two hundred pancakes to make.

Then I remember.

And feel a fresh, painful blast in my chest.

It’s torture pulling the covers off. Getting out of bed. But I force myself through the motions. Teeth. Hair. Dress. It’s an act of compulsion. An exhibit of self-control. A reminder to myself that as much as I don’t want to do anything, I will make myself go downstairs and partake in the day’s festivities—for the sake of my family as well as for myself. I will do better.

And I’m thinking through the work I will be doing in preparation for volunteer lunch duty today—the potatoes to slice, the meat to stew—as my hand slips down to the bottom banister.

Mom was right about one thing at least.

I did sleep better with a clear conscience.

Mom peeks out from the kitchen at the sound of my feet on the bottom floor, her apron on, hands busily wiping dry a pan.

“Oh, honey,” she says, then raises a finger. “Will you take this out for me?”

She hands me, of all things, a ceramic duck. A ceramic garden duck dressed in a Santa Claus robe.

“Where do I put it?” I say hesitantly as she drops it in my hands, and I realize, no, it’s not ceramic. It’s concrete. A heavy, festively decorated garden centerpiece in the shape of a pleasant duck.

“Just on the porch. Somewhere nice. You pick.” Before I can respond she’s back in the kitchen. Back to work.

With a little heavy lifting I crack open the door, push it wider with my heel, and take a step outside.

And see him immediately.