52
A LITTLE TEAMWORK
ROWAN
I’m an idiot.
I don’t have to go to the gala alone.
While skipping it sounds good to me, that won’t fly with the team. But there’s someone I know who wouldloveto go to a big, festive Christmas party. And that someone lives with me.
As we’re walking Wanda that afternoon, and playing “Would You Rather: Christmas Edition,” Mia decides she’d rather have pointy ears than Rudolph’s red nose. “What would you choose?”
That word—choose—reverberates through me.
I made my choice. I chose to focus solely on my family. To make Mia my biggest priority. And she loves Christmas. She’s finally able to really celebrate it again, and honestly? I have Isla to thank for that. And soon, really soon, I’ll send her a proper thank you. Something more than salted caramels. Maybe some pretty new notebooks. Tickets to a Christmas concert for her favorite performer. Something that says I can’t stop thinking about her even if I can’t be with her.
And I can’t. I really can’t.
Love never works out. Someone always loves more, and someone always loves less. And someone always gets hurt. I just can’t put my heart on the line only for people to get hurt again. I’ll figure something out in the new year.
But tonight, since it’s Christmas Eve and I’ve been a shit dad in the past at holiday time—doing the bare minimum of hanging a few stockings and letting Matilda do the heavy lifting—I turn to Mia and ask, “Do you want to come to the gala with me?”
She stops at the end of the street and stares at me. “Where is my dad and what have you done with him?”
It’s adorable. The way she crosses her arms and scrutinizes me like she’s trying to find the real Rowan underneath some imposter. Wanda barks too. She doesn’t believe me either.
“It’s the new me,” I say, tapping my chest with my free hand, emphatic. “It’s the me who decorated for Christmas. It’s the me who got the tree. It’s the me who wants to take you to the?—”
“You’re taking Isla.”
And I wish I still were.
But I haven’t dealt with that little issue of telling my daughter what went down. I didn’t want to make her Christmas worse. I just…kind of hoped Mia wouldn’t ask again about the photo. Yesterday, when she brought it up, I punted with:Let’s talk about that another time.
I guess that other time is now.
“So here’s the thing,” I begin, and her shoulders slump.
“People only say ‘here’s the thing’ when they’re about to disappoint you,” Mia says.
Why does my daughter have to be so damn astute?
Wanda tugs ahead, eager to explore the scents buried under the snow, so we keep walking down the snow-lined street. “I realized that pranking my teammates with me fake-dating wasn’t very nice. So…we decided to stop fake-dating.”
It’s the truth. Even though those words rip me apart a little. No,a lot.
My daughter doesn’t need to know what I was doing with Isla after dark—on a train, in a sleigh, in the middle of a makeshift tree farm. She doesn’t need to know there were real feelings involved. She doesn’t need to know I made plans to see Isla again back in the city.
Plans I broke.
That’s adult stuff.
But Mia’s face still falls. Her shoulders sag even more. “Well…I’d rather you didn’t,” she says with a huff.
I bark out a laugh. “You’d rather I didn’t what?”
“Let’s pretend this is another Christmas Would You Rather.” She squares her shoulders. “Would you rather fake-date Isla or take me to the gala? And my answer is I’d rather you take Isla.”
