Page 109 of All the way home

“Sorry,” she adds, gentler. “I need to call Oscar.”

He nods.

All Rena can bring herself to feel as she stands and walks away is vague guilt.

Clustered around the kiosk by the information desk, a half dozen people in Christmas sweaters stand in a loose semicircle with music binders in hand.

Everyone around them seems to have found some kind of holiday cheer despite the grim circumstances—why can’t she?

A small crowd is already gathering around them as a man in an actual, honest-to-God top hat blows into a pitch pipe. There’s a suspended pause before they break into song.

“Have a holly jolly—”

Rena freezes.

That night. It’s that night all over again.

They’d been playing this song in the ER. That’s the thing that stands out. The bright and cheery chorus of “Holly Jolly Christmas” sat at the corner of her brow bone and blistered until her vision fractured, until she was standing there with her palms pressed to her eye sockets, choking down sobs.

Rena’s vision tunnels. The chatter around her blurs from voices into noise.

Static.

The hum of it is a slow weep, dismay diffusing through her inch by inch.

A sharp flash of teal registers amidst the otherwise gray terminal.

Kieran.

He’s standing in the entrance to one of the gift shops, gesturing with a tube of blue gift wrap as he talks to the cashier.

Predictably, Zach is still with him, but he seems different now. Slightly unraveled, not necessarily in an unpleasant way, more like someone released the tight knots that had been keeping him in one piece. It’s in the new looseness of his shoulders, maybe. Or the split-second flash she gets of clear, unguarded . . . peace. Before, it had seemed like that pinch in between his eyebrows was the only thing holding him together, but for an instant he seems almost content.

At the unguarded way Zach is watching Kieran while Kieran doesn’t see him, Rena’s hackles rise. Does Kieran have any idea what he’s doing? It’s only been a few hours, and Zach’s looking at him the same way Josiah had this summer. Amused, admiring, even if he’s trying to hide it. As though it’s safe, at best.

At worst—

That one call with Josiah is vivid in memory. He’d been drinking—he must have been, to call her in that state—broken, heaving sobs into the receiver like whatever he was feeling was going to kill him.

If she were a fraction braver, she’d stand up and say no. Not this. Don’t.

But she doesn’t, because Kieran would be furious, and they’d fight for real, and if that happened, Rena would fracture into a web of a thousand irreparable pieces.

Slowly, she walks away, then picks up speed until she’s power walking through the terminal, striding with no real direction until she gets past a wing under construction and finds a dark, quiet gate. It’s not empty—she doubts there’s anywhere left in the entire airport that’s truly abandoned—but the few people who are here have large headphones on. One or two are sleeping, draped over their suitcases. Rena finds the farthest corner and leans back against the wall. If she could just cry, she might feel better.

But she won’t. She knows she won’t. Fingers fumbling, she scrambles for her phone.

Siobhan won’t answer, because her phone is always on silent and probably jammed between the couch cushions. But Oscar will.

Rena hesitates only for a moment before she hits Call.

Oscar answers almost right away.

They’re both in frame when the call connects, sitting on the enormous squashy couch in their Toronto apartment. Siobhan has her cheek pressed up against Oscar’s, but at the sight of Rena she straightens, shoulders wiggling in typical Siobhan enthusiasm.

It is so good to see their faces. Siobhan’s cut her hair short again, so white-blond curls swing around her ears, wide smile showing off practically every one of her teeth.

“Hi!” Siobhan shouts, wrenching the phone from Oscar and pressing her face close to the screen, nostrils enormous.