Neal had been sitting right next to her that day, when Alice was born.
He was sitting right next to her now. Georgie’s hands were strapped to her side, and he was holding one.
Georgie knew something was wrong this time because the incision happened, and she felt the pressure of the doctor’s hands inside her—but then there was no baby. There was no rush of movement. The nurse who was supposed take the baby away stood tensely behind the doctor (and the intern and the two medical students), empty-handed.
Georgie knew that something was wrong because of the tension in Neal’s jaw. Because of the way he was watching everyone.
She felt more pressure inside—more hands, more than just two.
The anesthesiologist kept talking to her in a low murmur. “You’re doing just fine, Mom. You’re doing great.” Like it took special talent to lie still on the table. (Maybe it did.) She was poking Georgie’s chest with a toothpick. “Can you feel this?” Yes. “Can you feel this?” No. “It might feel like you can’t breathe,” the anesthesiologist said, “but you can. Just keep breathing, Mom.”
They were all talking now, doctors and nurses; everything that came out of their mouths was numbers. The table suddenly ratcheted upwards, so that Georgie was lying at a mild incline, her head toward the floor.
This isn’t good, she thought calmly, looking up at the lights.
It seemed smart to stay calm in this situation, with her body wide open, her blood pumping who knows where. She could see someone’s arm reflected in the light fixture above her—the sleeve was red.
Then Neal squeezed Georgie’s hand.
He’d turned away from the doctors and the place where the baby was supposed to be, and was hovering over Georgie’s shoulder. His jaw was tense, but his eyes were fierce and open.
Maybe this was why Neal always had his guard up. His eyes, unguarded, could burn tunnels though mountains.
Georgie kept breathing. In, out. In, out. “You’re doing great, Mom,” the anesthesiologist hummed. Georgie knew she was lying.
Neal’s eyes were pouring fire on her. If he always looked at Georgie like this, it’d be uncomfortable. If he always looked at her like this, maybe she’d never look away.
But she’d never doubt that he loved her.
How could she ever doubt that he loved her?
Neal was saying good-bye to her with that look. He was begging her to stay. He was telling her that she was doing just fine—just keep breathing, Georgie.
How could she ever doubt that he loved her? When loving her was what he did better than all the things he did beautifully.
The anesthesiologist pushed a plastic mask onto Georgie’s mouth. Georgie didn’t look away from Neal.
When she woke up, later that night, in a recovery room, she realized that she hadn’t expected to.
There was a hospital bassinet pulled close to her bed, and Neal was asleep in the chair.
CHAPTER 34
The airport had brought out cots and laid them out in the hallway between gates. It looked like an army field hospital.
Georgie didn’t feel like she could sleep in front of strangers like that—or at all, tonight. Though she wished she had a blanket. . . . If any of the airport stores were open, she’d buy one of the giant blue and orange Broncos sweatshirts in the window displays.
People were sleeping around her, too, in chairs, and against the wall. They slept with their heads on their purses and their hands on their carry-ons. Like they were worried about pickpockets. Georgie wasn’t worried about pickpockets; she had nothing to steal.
It must be late. Or early. Georgie’d lost track of time completely—she kept checking her dead phone out of habit. The airport hadn’t dimmed the lights, but it was still too dark to read without a book light. The wind seemed to be pushing the darkness into the terminal.
There was a lull in the storm. Or maybe it was just dying down—Georgie didn’t know how blizzards were supposed to end.
There was a gate change, then another wait. Then she was boarding, only half-conscious of which flight was hers and where it was going.
“Omaha?” the flight attendant asked when Georgie stepped onto the plane.
“Omaha,” Georgie replied.
The plane was only about fifteen rows long, with just two seats across. She’d never been on a plane this small; she’d only heard about planes this small when they crashed.
Georgie wondered if the pilots were as tired as she was. Why even bother taking off, at this point? In the middle of the night? Unless the flight crew was heading home, too.
WEDNESDAY
CHRISTMAS DAY, 2013
CHAPTER 35
The sun was rising when they left Denver, and now Omaha was a blinding white below them. Georgie gripped her armrests through the landing and stood up in her seat before the seat belt light went off.
She’d done it. She was here now. She was close.
Alice. Noomi. Neal.
The Omaha airport seemed abandoned. The coffee shop was closed. And the little magazine stand. Always before, when Georgie’d walked past the security checkpoint, Neal’s parents—or just his mom—had been waiting right there, in the little row of chairs.
There was only one person sitting there today. A young woman in a heavy purple parka. She jumped out of her chair and started running toward Georgie. Then someone else ran past Georgie the other way—the boy from the Denver airport who’d lent her his phone.
The girl jumped into his arms, and he swung her in an ecstatic, lop-sided circle. The joy of it hit Georgie like a shock wave. The boy’s duffel bag fell to the ground. His face disappeared in the girl’s long, wavy dark hair.
Georgie walked past them, holding her breath.
Keep moving. So close. It’s almost over.
The main terminal was empty except for the dozen or so people from Georgie’s plane and a security guard. If the girls were here, Georgie would have let them run ahead. Alice could even have done cart-wheels, if she wanted. There was no one in the building to bother.
Georgie started running down the escalator. She was close. So close. She ran to the exit and pushed through the revolving door—then stopped.
Everything was covered in snow.
Like—well, like on TV. The parking garage across the street looked like a gingerbread house topped with thick white icing.
The snow looked as soft as icing. Smooth, but almost furry. She pushed through the doors and stepped outside, feeling chilled through after her first inhale. (Her T-shirt wasn’t any protection from the cold. Her skin wasn’t any protection.)
God. Oh my God. Have the girls seen this?
Georgie leaned over an empty planter, pressing her hand into the snow, watching her fingers make four canyons. The snow was light, but kept its form. She moved her palm up, shaping a soft curve.
She expected the snow to feel cold, but it didn’t. Not at first. Not until it started to melt between her fingers. She’d brushed some onto her feet, and they were cold now, too. She tried stamping the snow off her ballet flats, and looked up and down the drive for the taxi stand. There weren’t even any cars.
Georgie folded her arms and walked down the sidewalk, looking for a sign.
“Can we help you find something?” someone said.
Georgie turned. It was the ecstatic young couple. Still hanging on each other, as if neither of them could quite believe the other was finally here.
“Taxi stand?” Georgie said.
“You’re looking for a taxi?” the boy asked. The man. She should probably call him a man. He must be twenty-two, twenty-three; his hair was already thinning.
“Yeah,” Georgie said.
“Did you call for one?”
“Uh.” Georgie was shivering, but she was trying not to let on. “No. Should I call for one?”
The boy looked at the girl.
“There aren’t really taxis here,” the girl said apologetically—but also like Georgie might be an idiot. “I mean, there
are a few, if you call ahead. . . . But it’s Christmas.”
“Oh,” Georgie said. “Right.” She looked up and down the drive again. “Thanks.”
“Do you need to use my phone?” the boy offered.
“That’s okay,” Georgie said, turning toward the door. “Thanks again.”
She heard them talking quietly. She heard the boy say something about Joseph and Mary and no room at the inn. “Hey, do you need a ride somewhere?” he called out to Georgie.
She looked back at them. The boy was grinning. The girl looked concerned. They were probably part of some fresh-faced Nebraska death cult who hung out at airports on holidays, picking up strays.
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have a bag?” the girl asked.
“No,” Georgie said, then couldn’t think of anything to say next that could possibly make her lack of bag/coat/socks make sense.
“All right,” the boy said. (Georgie still couldn’t call him a man.) “Where to?”
“Ponca Hills,” she said.
The boy turned to the girl. They were all sitting in the front of an old red truck, the girl squished in the middle. The heat didn’t work, and the front windshield was already fogged over. He wiped it with the sleeve of his green canvas coat.
“That’s out north,” the girl said, taking out her phone. “What’s the address?”
The address, the address . . . “Rainwood Road,” Georgie said, relieved to remember even part of Neal’s parents’ address, then hoped that Rainwood Road didn’t stretch the entire length of the city.
The girl typed it into her phone. “Okay,” she said to the boy. “Turn right up here.”
Georgie wondered how long they’d been apart.
The boy kept kissing the girl’s head and squeezing her leg. Georgie looked out the window to give them privacy—and because the whole city looked like some sort of fairy wonderland. She’d never seen anything like it.
The idea that this just fell from the sky.
And then looked like that. Like Tinker Bell had painted it on. How did people ever get used to it?
Georgie didn’t realize at first that it must be difficult to drive in. They were moving slowly, but the truck still slid through a red light. “I can’t believe you drove in this,” the boy said.
“I wasn’t going to leave you at the airport,” his girlfriend said. “I was careful.”
He grinned and kissed her again. Georgie wondered if they were getting close to Neal’s neighborhood. Almost no one else was on the road. A few people were out shoveling.
They must be close. Georgie recognized that park. That bridge. That bowling alley. The girl gave the boy directions. Georgie recognized a pizza place that she and Neal had walked to. “We’re close,” she said, leaning forward and resting a hand on the dash.
“Rainwood should be your next right,” the girl said.
“Yeah . . . ,” the boy agreed. But the truck stopped moving.
His girlfriend looked up from her phone. “Oh.”
Georgie looked up the hill, but didn’t see what the problem was.
The boy sighed and scrubbed at his dirty blond hair, then turned to Georgie. “We might get halfway up that hill. But I’m not sure we’d get down. Or out.”
“Oh . . . ,” Georgie said. “Well. It’s close. I can walk from here, I know the way.”
They both looked at her like she was crazy.
“You’re not wearing a coat,” he said.
“You’re not even wearing shoes,” the girl said.
“I’ll be fine,” Georgie assured them. “It’s five blocks, tops. I won’t freeze to death.” She said it like she knew something about freezing to death, which she clearly didn’t.
“Wait a minute.” The boy got out of the truck, then hopped back inside thirty seconds later with his duffel bag. He unzipped it, and clothes spilled out. He started heaping them in the girl’s lap. “Here,” he said, pulling out a thick, gray wool sweater. “Take this.”
“I can’t take your sweater,” Georgie said.
“Take it. You can mail it back to me—my mom sews my address inside everything. Take it, it’s no big deal.”
“Just take it,” the girl said.
“I’m trying to think if I have extra boots. . . .” He shoved his clothes back into the bag. “I might have some waders in the back.”
The girl rolled her eyes, and for a minute she looked just like Heather.
“Or—why don’t you tell me where you’re going?” he said to Georgie. “I’ll run up to the house and come back with your shoes and your coat or whatever.”
“No,” Georgie said. She pulled the sweater on over her head. “You’ve done enough, thank you.”
“You can’t walk through the snow barefoot,” he insisted.
“I’ll be fine.” Georgie opened the passenger door.
He opened his door, too.
“Oh for Christ’s sake,” the girl said. “You can wear my boots.” She reached for the floor. Georgie noticed she was wearing a small engagement ring. “You can have them. I don’t even like them.”
“Absolutely not,” Georgie said. “What if you get stuck in the snow?”
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “He’d carry me across the city before he let me get my feet wet.”
The boy grinned at the girl. The girl rolled her eyes again and finished pulling off her boots. “Just take them,” she said. “He’s got it in his head that you’re our Christmas mission. If we don’t help you, he’ll never get his wings.”
Georgie took the boots. Knockoff Uggs. They looked about her size.
She kicked off her patent leather ballet flats—a birthday gift from Seth, so undoubtedly expensive. (Seth always bought Georgie clothes for Christmas, usually to replace the most pathetic item in her wardrobe. Good thing he didn’t know about her bras.) “You can have these,” Georgie said, “if you want them.”
The girl looked dubious.
“We’ll wait here for a while,” the boy said. “Come back if you need help.”
Right, Georgie thought, putting on the boots. If my husband doesn’t recognize me. If my in-laws don’t live there anymore. If everyone I know is either dead or not born yet because I ruined time. . . . “Thank you.”
“Merry Christmas,” the boy said.
“Be careful,” his fiancée warned. “There might be ice.”
“Thank you.” Georgie swung her legs out of the truck and jumped onto the ground, catching the door as her feet slid out from beneath her.
No one had shoveled yet on Rainwood Road. Georgie vaguely remembered that there weren’t any sidewalks; she and Neal had walked in the street that time they went to get pizza, their hands swinging between them.
The snow came up to the top of Georgie’s calves—she had to lift her feet high to make any progress. Her ears and eyelids were freezing, but after a block of climbing, her cheeks were flushed, and she was panting.
God, she’d never even been able to imagine this much cold before.
How could people live someplace that so obviously didn’t want them? All that romance about snow and seasons . . . You shouldn’t have to make a special effort not to die every time you left your house.
Everything was so quiet, Georgie’s breath sounded thunderous. She looked back, but she couldn’t see the red truck anymore. She couldn’t see any signs of life. It was easy to imagine that every house she passed was empty.
Georgie felt tears in her eyes and tried to pretend it was because of the cold, or the fatigue, and not because of what was waiting for her—or not waiting for her—at the top of the hill.
CHAPTER 36
Neal grew up in a brick colonial house with a circular driveway. His mom was overly proud of it; the first time Georgie visited, a few months after they got engaged, his mom told her the driveway was one of the reasons they’d bought the house.
“I don’t get it,” Georgie said later, after she’d snuck up from the basement to Nea
l’s room, and he’d shoved her up against the wall, under his Eagle Scout certificate. “It’s like there’s a road in your front yard,” she said. “How is that a good thing?” Neal had huffed a smile into her ear, then pushed the neck of her pajamas open with his nose.
Georgie walked up the drive now, wrecking the postcard perfection of the snowy front yard with her tracks.
She opened the storm door and knocked—the front door pushed open under her hand. Because in Omaha, apparently, nobody even closed their front doors. Georgie could hear Christmas music and people talking. She knocked again, peeking into the house.
When no one answered, she stepped cautiously into the foyer. The house smelled like apple-cinnamon Glade and pine needles. “Hello?” Georgie said, too quietly. Her voice was shaking, she’d tracked in snow—she felt like she was breaking in.
She tried it a bit louder: “Hello?”
The door from the kitchen opened partway, and the music—“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”—swelled. Neal stepped out. Half a room away from her.
Neal.
Milk chocolate hair, pale skin, a red sweater she’d never seen before. A look on his face she’d never seen before. Like he didn’t know her at all.
He stopped.
The kitchen door swung to and fro behind him.
“Neal,” Georgie whispered.
His mouth was open. Lovely mouth, lovely matching lips, lovely dents like handholds for Georgie’s teeth.
His eyebrows were low and stern, and when he closed his jaw, there was a tense pulse in the corners of his cheeks.
“Neal?”
Five seconds passed. Ten. Fifteen.
Neal right there. In jeans and blue socks and a strange sweater.
Was he happy to see her? Did he even know her? Neal?
The door flew open behind him. “Daddy? Grandma says—”
Alice walked into the room, and Georgie felt like someone had just kicked her in the back of the knees.