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Probably.
“So. You ain’t together. So, what’s in Chicago that you’re in such a rush to get to by Christmas?” Gorby asks thoughtfully as he crumples the burger wrapper into a ball and hands it to me. I accept it and give it to Katherine.
“Lolo,” Katherine says matter-of-factly as she leans forward to tuck the wrapper into the little trash bag Gorby has strapped to the passenger side glove compartment.
“That a truck?” Gorby asks.
Katherine lets out a laugh, and even I can’t hide my smile.
“Gorby, you are a treasure,” Katherine says. “No, Lolo is Tom’s fiancée. Almost fiancée.”
“Thomas!” Gorby leans back to give me an appraising look. “You getting married?”
“That’s the plan.” My voice sounds flat, even to my ears.
“What are we talking, Christmas morning proposal?” Gorby asks.
“Christmas Eve. Midnight.”
Shock has me whipping my head toward Katherine. “You know about . . .”
“The Walsh Christmas Eve tradition? Please. Of course I know.”
“How?”
Katherine shrugs. “I helped your mom digitize all of her photos last year. They went back like a billion generations. It was sort of hard to miss.”
“Now, hold on.” Gorby puts a fist to his mouth and attempts to hold in a burp. He fails. “Why you so surprised that she knows, Tom? You kids were hitched, right? Didn’t she get the whole Christmas Eve rigmarole?”
“Thank you, Gorby,” Katherine says, leaning forward to peer around me and offer him a beaming smile. “Thank you for asking. Tom? You want to take this one?”
Shit. This conversation is long overdue, and yet right now, I’d rather be anywhere else.
“Don’t clam up now, Tom. This is great stuff,” Gorby says as he takes a long sip of soda. “We’re making good progress.”
“Progress?” Progress in what, the world’s weirdest couple’s therapy?
“Yeah, don’t clam up now, Tom!” Katherine gives me an encouraging pat on the shoulder and grins.
“Okay, fine. You really want to do this?” I ask her, raising a challenging eyebrow.
Her grin slips slightly because she knows as well as I do that we’re entering uncharted territory. But she must know too that it needs to be done.
“Rebecca and I are great listeners,” Gorby urges. “We have that Dr. Phil on all the time, and his rule number five for talking and listening is to be an active listener. Or was it rule number six?”
“Alright, Gorb. You asked for it.” I shift a little, putting my attention on him because it’s easier than looking at Katherine as I say this. “No. I did not propose to Katherine here on Christmas Eve, as is my family tradition.”
“I see.” Gorby nods. “And Katherine? How did that make you feel?”
He and I both look over at her.
She sniffs. “Indifferent. Once I learned about it.”
“Now, Katherine.” Gorby’s voice is slightly chiding. “We’re not going to get anywhere if we don’t get comfy with our feelings.”
“I don’t have those. Ask anyone.”
“Don’t,” I tell her quietly before I can think better of it. “Don’t do that. Don’t pretend you don’t feel. Not with me. Katherine, you want to know why I didn’t propose on—”
“Wait. Stop.”
There’s a desperation in her command that I don’t understand. That I need to understand. “Why—”
“Please, Tom.” Her voice is calmer now but just as firm. “Let’s focus on the future. So we can both just . . . move on.”
“I thought we were supposed to get comfy with our feelings?” I say with a smile, trying to coax her to smile back.
She doesn’t. “Listen. I didn’t bust my ass to get you home by Christmas Eve so you could wallow down memory lane. Okay?”
I say nothing.
“Gorby? Don’t you agree? That Tom needs to focus on moving on?” It’s more command than question, and a tense silence follows, interrupted only by Gorby giving his soda one final mega sip.
The cab remains quiet except for his blissed-out ahhhhhhh before he speaks. “Well now, see, I hate to disagree with such a pretty lady, but . . .”
Katherine leans forward again, shoots the driver a murderous glare. “Gorby!”
I smile in spite of myself because it’s the same voice she uses with stubborn witnesses, recalcitrant clients, and opposing counsels. It works in the courtroom, and it works here too because Gorby clears his throat and nods.
“Now, Tom,” Gorby says. “Confronting our ghosts is good, but we can’t live in the past. You see the difference?”
“I wasn’t—”
“You got your proposal planned?” Gorby continues. “Let’s do some exercises in that area.”
“Oooh, yes, let’s,” Katherine exclaims gleefully in an abrupt role reversal now that I’m in the hot seat and she gets to dodge the sticky emotional stuff completely.
“I’m good,” I say a little desperately. “I’ve done the proposal plenty of times in my head.”
Gorby is giving a rueful shake of his head. “Won’t work. Comes out different when you say it out loud.”
“Does it?” I snap, getting a little fed up with Gorby and his unsolicited advice that is digging into places I don’t want to go. “Says who? Dr. Phil again?”
