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“That’s not what I’m asking.”
“Isn’t it?”
“The girlsdomiss you. You treated them like they were your daughters. You created a set of, of expectations, and now you’re just—”
“They’re not my daughters, Fran.”
That thumped me in the gut.
“I want to spend Christmas with my boyfriend. I want you to be able to move on, like I have. And I don’t think you can do that if I’m still in your life.”
I couldn’t explain why I did what I did next. I just hurt so much, so suddenly, and I was so angry and confused and unsure whether he was exactly right or being an asshole. So I opened my mouth and pulled a Liar Bob, pre-fairy transformation: “I’m actually moving on just fine. I’m seeing somebody too.”
“What?” He sounded way too surprised.
“His name is Dr. Stephen Florris.” Should not have given him a real name. Fuuuuck. “He’s my doctor.”
“Isn’t that a little unethical? Or a lot?”
“Wasmy doctor. Now we’re dating, so I have a different doctor. Dr. Richmond.”Stop talking, Jan Brady.
“Okay, well, I’m glad to hear that.”
“So even if you did come to visit, it wouldn’t affect my moving-on trajectory, because I’m happy in my relationship. And Stephen doesn’t think it’s weird that somebody who was an important part of my daughters’ lives for years would still come to visit them.”
Ben sighed deeply. Idiot that I was, I’d missed that sigh. “I’m happy for you,” he said. “Really I am. But I can’t do this. It’s too...painful, and awkward. And I just can’t.”
“All right.” A numbness was beginning to set in.
“And I think it’s best if, going forward, we don’t have any contact.”
I nodded, my hand frozen on a bag of turnip greens. People were starting to stare. I realized Ben couldn’t see me nod, and so I would have to say something. But it felt good not to move or speak or think.
“Attention holiday shoppers. Now you can jingle all the way to our bakery for some tree-light-ful holiday deals on cookies, cakes, and more!”
Once more, Ben and I waited in silence for the ad to finish. At least, I thought we were both waiting in silence. But when the cheerful voice stopped speaking, Ben had already hung up.
* * *
I was loading several bags of healthy food and one cake I’d bought at the tree-light-ful price of $7.99 into my car when a familiar voice said, “Holy shit.Fran?”
Familiar, but it took me a moment to place it because I hadn’t heard it in nearly two decades. As soon as I did place it, my stomach lurched. I debated jumping into the car and driving off and, I dunno, not stopping until I hit Indiana. But I did have to pick the girls up from school in twenty minutes. I turned, hoping I was mistaken.
I was not.
Standing in the parking lot beside a Toyota Camry nearly identical to the one he’d driven in high school, minus the deer dents, was Cassidy Sullivan.
“Hey.” I didn’t say anything else, because it seemed safer not to.
Cassidy and I had dated for a year and a half in high school. It had been an epic love, the sort you can only experience if you’re seventeen and high eighty percent of the time, or a discontented rich girl on board theTitanic. And it had, quite predictably, ended in tears.
I’d thought we’d be together forever, but I’d also thought, at various points in my life, that Sprite and Coke tasted good mixed together, that I would leave Christmas Valley and become a successful musician, that I could pull off a tweed jacket with elbow patches, and that Jill Stein might be the answer to America’s problems. So…
Cass was still gorgeous. As though he could ever not be. Age had transformed his boyish good looks into a rugged handsomeness. Under his coat, he wore the fitted cable-knit sweater and pressed chinos of a husband from aLand’s Endcatalogue, but he had the smile of a fucking rogue. His thick dark hair was parted to the side, and he was sporting a truly perfect amount of stubble. I wanted to fuck him in the filthy slush pile next to the handicapped spot.
Just kidding, I wanted to greet him with poise and dignity, then get in my car and drive back to my house and never venture into town again.
He set his bags in his trunk and came a few steps closer to me. Not as close as you’d come to someone you actually wanted to talk to, but closer than you’d come to, say, a man wielding a machete and shouting‘Turn back to God, America!’in Times Square. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
