“What’s y’all’s plan?” Teddy asked, casually rerouting the conversation to a safer topic. “DIA probably ain’t gonna be up and running again until tomorrow at the earliest… maybe longer if this second storm is as bad as they’re saying it is.”
“Yeah, we’ve been getting the updates,” Addie said with a sigh. “Everything north of Amarillo is getting hammered right now. Even if the second storm misses y’all, they’re saying it’s going to take a while to clear the roads. We’ve talked about just driving to Lubbock and spending Christmas with LuLu and Poppy.”
I’d been so focused on surviving my bizarre reunion with Teddy that I hadn’t stopped to consider that the girls might not make it at all. That the elaborate scheme they’d concocted to bring us together for Christmas might end with Teddy and me alone in his cabin while they celebrated with his parents five hundred miles away.
A part of me understood. The drive from Austin to Lubbock was about six hours and much less treacherous than the arctic hellscape they were watching play out on TV. But it didn’t ease the hollow feeling in my chest.
Teddy and I, trapped together with nothing but sexual tension and unresolved feelings to keep us company. Days of trying not to notice how his jeans fit or the way his arms and chest had somehow gotten bigger.
“Piper even offered to host a baking day at her and Uncle Dane’s house when we get there,” Sky added, stopping me mid-spiral. “We’re gonna make stollen, and struffoli, and some French sponge cake thing that we can’t pronounce.”
I forced a smile, even as my heart sank. “That sounds like fun.”
But it wasn’t fun. It was another Christmas where everything felt wrong. Another year of empty seats. Another reminder that we’d failed at keeping our family together.
My throat clenched painfully, my eyes burning with unshed tears. I’d been looking forward to my time with them for months, had spent weeks planning the perfect Christmas, buying gifts, memorizing allSky’s new dietary restrictions, and making lists of Addie’s favorite desserts for our baking day. All for nothing.
“Are you sure?” Sky’s expression softened with concern. “You look like you’re about to cry.”
“I’m fine,” I lied, the same way I’d been lying about being fine for the past two years. “Just tired. Think I’m still trying to get used to the altitude.”
Teddy’s eyes locked with mine on the phone screen, and for a moment, it was like he saw me. The real me. Not the version of me I’d played for the better part of three decades.
It nearly broke me. I could handle his anger, his frustration, even his desire. But this—this softness, this genuine understanding—threatened to dissolve what little composure I had left.
“It might not even happen,” Addie cut in, taking back the wheel. “LuLu said Piper was due at the beginning of January or something, so she could be in labor by the time we get there.”
Sky sighed in disappointment, only to perk up at something on the screen. “Dad! Tell me that’s not your Christmas tree in the background!”
Keeping his hand anchored to my thigh, Teddy twisted in his chair, following Sky’s gaze to the pathetic spruce in the corner of the living room.
“What about it?” he asked, his tone defensive.
“It’s naked!” she exclaimed, her horror evident even through the slightly pixelated connection. “And sad! I didn’t think a tree could look ashamed, but yours does.”
“Skylar,” Addie hissed through her teeth, but even she looked troubled by the state of the tree.
“It’s not that bad,” Teddy muttered, but his hand tightened on my thigh, like he expected me to back him up.
But it was that bad.
Because looking at that tree—listing to the left and half-strung with lights that weren’t even plugged in felt too much like a visual metaphor for our marriage.
Something that had begun with high hopes and the best of intentions, only to end up abandoned long before it was finished.
No ornaments. No star on top.
Just green branches and two people who’d given up on making it shine.
“That tree is a cry for help,” Sky continued, undeterred by her sister’s death glares. “You should do something with it.”
“Like what, take it out back and put it out of its misery?” he asked, though something in his tone suggested he already knew where the conversation was headed.
Sky threw her hands up in exasperation. “Decorate it! You know, like normal people do at Christmas?”
“We sent you two whole boxes of ornaments,” Addie added, her guilt-trip game as strong as ever. “Do you remember how much shipping costs from Texas to Colorado?”
“Sixty-three forty-seven,” Sky answered, nodding solemnly. “That’s a lot of ramen noodles, Dad.”
