“Handle me?” I question, feeling my eyes bulging out of my sockets.
“You know what I mean.” She sighs as if hearing from me is more of an inconvenience than a relief.
This is useless. I knew going into this phone call that it wasn’t anger that was going to win. It would be her I-don’t-really-care-about-you attitude that made a heated rash begin to infect the flesh wrapped around my bones and bend my knee in surrender.
“Well, Mother, I guess I’ll be there if I can get there. Otherwise, Merry Christmas,” I huff into the phone.
“Merry Christmas, Katherine. Tell Boone, whoever that is, Merry Christmas, too.”
Then the call ends. Of course, she would offer politeness instead of concern and compassion. It was her way.
“Ugh!” I grunt before stomping my feet to release the tension that has been slowly strangling every muscle in my body.
“Everything okay?” Boone’s voice is a gentle relief after hearing my mother’s, like a soothing balm after having a knife plunged into you.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “My mother says Merry Christmas.”
“Oh, well that’s nice of her,” he replies while extending a fresh cup of coffee.
I roll my eyes and take the mug from him, inhaling the aroma that even makes my nostril hair perk up with excitement. Not that I have an obscene amount of nostril hair. I have the appropriate amount that is deemed acceptable. Although I’ve watched mybest friend, Laura, have her nostrils waxed. I didn’t even know it was a thing. When I’d told her that nostril hair serves a function, she’d rolled her eyes at me, going on about how unsightly it was. I hadn’t been brave enough to vanquish the hairs that facilitate proper air filtering, allowing my air to be cleaned thoroughly and naturally. I’d rather have a few nose hairs than be more susceptible to respiratory infections, but apparently, Laura didn’t care about respiratory infections enough. Waxed nostril hairs were sexier, she’d said. Although, I sure hope men aren’t looking up my nostrils.
“If you keep me in coffee, I may never leave,” I tease.
“If it keeps snowing like this, we’re going to eventually run out of coffee at the rate you consume it.”
I raise my mug. “You do not want to know who I am without caffeine.”
“Someone that makes irrational decisions? I’ve already met her.”
“Whew. I’m afraid I may have met my match in the honesty department. You remind me of my dad. I always knew who I was with him, and he always accepted me for the whole of me, instead of just the parts that seemed pretty.”
“You saidwas?” Boone questions.
“Lost him to cancer nineteen years ago,” I reply before taking a long sip of my fourth cup of coffee.
“I’m sorry.” His tone is genuine.
“I am, too, but I’m not sorry I got to be loved by him.”
And that is a truth I’d never shy away from. Yes, I’d lost my dad, and it had carved out a hole in my heart thathad made its beating a little irregular ever since, but I’d learned the new rhythm of it. It didn’t keep me from living; I just lived differently because I had been loved by a wonderful father.
I could live without him, but I tried to live better now because of him. I still wanted to make him proud. I wanted to forever be his Katydilla.
“I lost someone special, too,” Boone murmurs quietly.
I perk up at this, not because I want other people to experience loss like I did, but because this feels like a moment Boone is going to peel back something important to him, and I appreciate people when they are raw and real.
“I was married once. She died five years ago,” he reveals with a soft glow in his blue eyes. “I moved here afterward. She didn’t like the idea of living up in a cabin away from people.”
“I’m sorry, Boone. How long were you married?” I ask.
The way sadness pulls his lips into a smile gives me the impression that he’s learned how to braid grief into his life in a way that holds meaning, like I have with my dad.
“Three years,” he answers. “It was a car accident, actually.”
My gut radiates with heat as if I already know the rest of this story. Trepidation trickles down my spine in anticipation if he’ll confirm my suspicions. That she died at Christmastime, in a blizzard. I’m not sure I can press for the details since, well, look at me…I almost died in a blizzard at Christmastime, and here I am standing in this man’s cabin instead of his wife.
But I don’t have to press.
