“Thought I might find you here,” he said, stepping inside and letting the door close behind us. The soft glow returned, the music swallowing up the harsh corridor sounds again.
He sank into a pod swing hanging from the ceiling, the fabric cradling him as he twisted slowly. “This room… it changed everything for me. After Dad’s heart attack.”
I remembered that call. The first time Grace ever called him, the panic in her voice, barely held together.
“You told me I needed to be here, that work could wait but I couldn’t get back that time with my dad. Best advice anyone gave me.” He looked around the room—at the lava lamp, the fairy lights strung across a small tent in the corner. “Funny how you had to book my flight home, force me on that plane to see this room, and now here you are hiding in it.”
“I’m not hiding. I’m taking a break.” I gestured at my notebook. “It’s on my checklist.”
Alex’s mouth quirked. “You have ‘take a break’ on a checklist?”
“Hannah made me add it.”
“Smart woman.” He rubbed his face where the beard had left marks. “First time back in a hospital since your mom? But you showed up anyway. That takes guts, Connor.”
“Or stupidity.”
“Nah. Guts.” He let the swing rock gently, staring up at the ceiling. “You know what I realized when Dad almost died? When I was in here trying to remember how to breathe?”
“What?”
“That I’d been so busy trying to prove I could do it all, trying to show everyone I didn’t need help, that I almost missed…” He ran his thumb along his lip. “I was in a contract negotiation when Grace called. I sent her call to voicemail. Three times.”
The weight of that hung in the air between us.
“But you answered eventually,” I said.
“No,youdid. You interrupted the meeting to tell me.” He met my eyes, expression raw. “And that scared the shit out of me. I’d gotten so caught up in the grind that I’d almost missed the most important thing.”
I thought about my own schedule, packed with other people’s tasks. How often I’d been too focused on the plan, the schedule, the next thing on my list.
“How do you do it?” I asked. “Balance everything. The firm, Grace, Ruby, all of it. You’re managing what used to be a two-person partnership, you’ve got a kid now, you’re still…”
Alex laughed, but it wasn’t unkind. “You think I have it figured out? Connor, half the time I’m flying by the seat of my pants. Grace handles Ruby’s medical stuff because I can barely keep track of her school schedule. I missed a client deadline last month because I was at one of Ruby’s dance recitals.”
“I know, I tried to make sense of your filing system,” I said dryly.
He chuckled and rubbed his eyes, suddenly looking exhausted. “But when Dad was a patient here, when I was sitting in this room trying to figure out what the hell mattered, I realized I couldn’t live my whole life for someone else’s expectations. At some point you have to figure out whatyouwant. Not what’s practical or safe or logical. What do you actually want, Connor?”
I thought about Hannah this morning, the way she’d kissed me goodbye. The way my apartment felt empty now when she wasn’t in it. The way she’d made me add “take a break” to my checklist because she knew I wouldn’t do it otherwise.
The way she’d looked at me when I’d placed Mom’s angel on top of the tree.
“I don’t know,” I lied.
Alex gave me a look that said he wasn’t buying it, but he didn’t push. “Well, when you figure it out, don’t wait too long to go after it. Trust me on that one."
"Mom always said life’s too short to skip peppermint eleven months a year.”
"Your mom was an incredible woman," Alex said with a wistful expression on his face, as my throat tightened, knowing that he remembered her, that he still cared.
The door cracked open, and we both looked up. Grace stood in the doorway, backlit by the harsh corridor lights, her expression soft as she took in the two of us—Alex in the pod swing, me surrounded by fuzzy pillows.
“Sorry,” she said quietly. “Didn’t mean to interrupt, but we should head to Donnelly’s soon if we want to make setup time.”
“We’ll be right there,” Alex said.
She nodded and closed the door gently, leaving us in the soft glow again.
