He wanted to tell her that she’d been right all along.
Tom sat at the table,dressed for work, eyes fixed on nothing.
He ran a hand through his hair. He needed to leave for the office soon. Pretend to care about those dull schematics. Pretend to be a functioning adult.
Footsteps creaked down the hall.
Gerald appeared in the doorway, still in pajama pants and a T-shirt that saidWorld’s Okayest Dad.He looked at Tom and shook his head.
“Jesus, son. You look like you’ve been run over.”
Gerald poured himself coffee, black, and leaned against the counter. “You going to tell me why you’re haunting my kitchen at six in the morning?”
Tom gave a humorless laugh. “I ruined Christmas.”
Gerald blinked once. Then he took a sip. “Oh, for God’s sake.”
Tom frowned. “I did.”
“Okay,” Gerald said. “You ruined Christmas. Fine. So un-ruin it.”
Tom’s head came up, startled. “I can’t just?—”
“You can,” Gerald said, cutting him off. “You’re not dead, she’s not dead, and last I checked, Christmas comes around every damn year.”
Tom’s throat tightened. “You don’t understand. She—she threw it all out. The decorations, the lights. I took something she loved and?—”
“And?” Gerald raised an eyebrow. “You going to sit here and cry into your coffee about it, or are you going to fix it?”
Tom swallowed. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Gerald snorted. “Start the way she does. With your hands. You build for a living, don’t you? So build something. Make something. I don’t care if it’s crooked. I don’t care if it’s ugly. You think she gives a damn about straight lines? She married you, didn’t she?”
That caught Tom off guard. He almost smiled. Almost.
Gerald took another drink of coffee, then pointed the mug at him. “You want her back? Stop whining about ruined Christmas andfixChristmas.”
Tom stared at the table, the words settling deep, heavy but true.
He’d spent so long apologizing, drowning in guilt, that he’d forgotten the simplest part: Lauren didn’t need him to wallow. She needed him totry.
Gerald set his mug down and headed for the hallway. “And shave before work,” he called over his shoulder. “You look like you’ve been living under a bridge.”
Tom huffed out a breath—half laugh, half something close to relief.
Fix Christmas.
It was ridiculous. Impossible.
But he was going to try.
The smell hit him first:cinnamon, pine, glue, dust. The scent of her joy.
Inside was chaos—but not mess. Not anymore.
Not to his eyes now.
Ribbons tangled with fairy lights. Hand-painted acrylic snowflakes, every stroke careful and deliberate. A garland made from old holiday cards, the handwriting of friends and family looping across it like a shared history you could touch.
