Chapter 25
Connor
An hour and a half later, we’d finished the last room. Grace went to return some equipment to the nurses’ station, and Alex disappeared to change out of his Santa suit. I stood in the hallway, staring at my notebook.
Seventeen items, all checked off except one:
I’d added it last night because Hannah had insisted. You belong on your list too, she’d said as I’d obsessively rewritten the list for the third time.
It had felt indulgent then. Impractical.
Now, standing in a hospital corridor with antiseptic burning my nostrils and monitors beeping in my ears, it felt necessary.
We were six minutes ahead of schedule. I had time.
I followed Grace’s instructions—fourth floor, past her office. I nearly missed the door. The only indication of what lay inside was a brass plaque mounted at eye level: The Clarke Family Sensory Room
Clarke. As in Alex Clarke. His family had donated this.
I remembered now—last December, Alex’s dad had a heart attack during the sensory room dedication. Grace called with the news, and I’d told him to get on a plane.
And now here I was, standing outside it.
I pushed open the door and stepped into darkness.
A moment later, motion sensors triggered soft lighting.
A wall-mounted screen glowed with gentle, shifting patterns that reminded me of watching clouds.
In the corner, a floor-to-ceiling tube pulsed with purple light, floating beads rising and falling in hypnotic rhythm like some kind of oversized lava lamp.
Hidden speakers played quiet orchestral music that seemed to wrap around me, muffling the harsh hospital sounds from the corridor.
I sank onto one of the fuzzy pillows scattered across the plush carpet, watching those colored spheres rise and fall in the glowing tube. My shoulders dropped and jaw unclenched.
I pulled out my phone and set a timer for five minutes. And just… breathed.
Thought about Mom. About how she would have loved seeing Alex make those kids laugh today. He’d done different voices for each toy, even gotten that one little girl who hadn’t spoken in days to giggle so hard the nurses came to check her monitors. Mom would have been proud of Alex for that.
She would have been proud of me too, probably. For showing up even when it was hard. For putting someone else’s needs—these kids’ needs—ahead of my own discomfort.
But she’d also probably tell me I was being stubborn. That I didn’t have to white-knuckle my way through everything alone. That it was okay to take a break, to feel things, to let people help me.
Hannah’s voice echoed in my head, soft but insistent: You belong on your list too, Connor.
I watched the purple beads float upward, then slowly descend, over and over in an endless cycle. Felt my heartbeat slow to match their rhythm. Let myself sit with the discomfort—not trying to push past it. Just acknowledging it was there.
My timer hadn’t even gone off when the door opened.
Light spilled in from the corridor, and I looked up to find Alex silhouetted in the doorway. He’d changed out of the full Santa suit, now just wearing jeans and a Stanford sweatshirt, but his face had red marks where the beard had pressed into his skin.
“Thought I might find you here,” he said, stepping inside and letting the door close behind us. The soft glow returned, the music swallowing up the harsh corridor sounds again.
He sank into a pod swing hanging from the ceiling, the fabric cradling him as he twisted slowly. “This room… it changed everything for me. After Dad’s heart attack.”
I remembered that call. The first time Grace ever called him, the panic in her voice, barely held together.
“You told me I needed to be here, that work could wait but I couldn’t get back that time with my dad.
Best advice anyone gave me.” He looked around the room—at the lava lamp, the fairy lights strung across a small tent in the corner.
“Funny how you had to book my flight home, force me on that plane to see this room, and now here you are hiding in it.”
“I’m not hiding. I’m taking a break.” I gestured at my notebook. “It’s on my checklist.”
Alex’s mouth quirked. “You have ‘take a break’ on a checklist?”
“Hannah made me add it.”
“Smart woman.” He rubbed his face where the beard had left marks. “First time back in a hospital since your mom? But you showed up anyway. That takes guts, Connor.”
“Or stupidity.”
“Nah. Guts.” He let the swing rock gently, staring up at the ceiling. “You know what I realized when Dad almost died? When I was in here trying to remember how to breathe?”
“What?”
“That I’d been so busy trying to prove I could do it all, trying to show everyone I didn’t need help, that I almost missed…” He ran his thumb along his lip. “I was in a contract negotiation when Grace called. I sent her call to voicemail. Three times.”
The weight of that hung in the air between us.
“But you answered eventually,” I said.
“No, you did. You interrupted the meeting to tell me.” He met my eyes, expression raw. “And that scared the shit out of me. I’d gotten so caught up in the grind that I’d almost missed the most important thing.”
I thought about my own schedule, packed with other people’s tasks. How often I’d been too focused on the plan, the schedule, the next thing on my list.
“How do you do it?” I asked. “Balance everything. The firm, Grace, Ruby, all of it. You’re managing what used to be a two-person partnership, you’ve got a kid now, you’re still…”
Alex laughed, but it wasn’t unkind. “You think I have it figured out? Connor, half the time I’m flying by the seat of my pants.
Grace handles Ruby’s medical stuff because I can barely keep track of her school schedule.
I missed a client deadline last month because I was at one of Ruby’s dance recitals. ”
“I know, I tried to make sense of your filing system,” I said dryly.
He chuckled and rubbed his eyes, suddenly looking exhausted.
“But when Dad was a patient here, when I was sitting in this room trying to figure out what the hell mattered, I realized I couldn’t live my whole life for someone else’s expectations.
At some point you have to figure out what you want.
Not what’s practical or safe or logical. What do you actually want, Connor?”
I thought about Hannah this morning, the way she’d kissed me goodbye. The way my apartment felt empty now when she wasn’t in it. The way she’d made me add “take a break” to my checklist because she knew I wouldn’t do it otherwise.
The way she’d looked at me when I’d placed Mom’s angel on top of the tree.
“I don’t know,” I lied.
Alex gave me a look that said he wasn’t buying it, but he didn’t push. “Well, when you figure it out, don’t wait too long to go after it. Trust me on that one."
"Mom always said life’s too short to skip peppermint eleven months a year.”
"Your mom was an incredible woman," Alex said with a wistful expression on his face, as my throat tightened, knowing that he remembered her, that he still cared.
The door cracked open, and we both looked up. Grace stood in the doorway, backlit by the harsh corridor lights, her expression soft as she took in the two of us—Alex in the pod swing, me surrounded by fuzzy pillows.
“Sorry,” she said quietly. “Didn’t mean to interrupt, but we should head to Donnelly’s soon if we want to make setup time.”
“We’ll be right there,” Alex said.
She nodded and closed the door gently, leaving us in the soft glow again.
I checked my phone. My timer had gone off three minutes ago. I’d been so absorbed in the conversation I hadn’t even noticed.
I opened my notebook and checked the box next to Take 5 minutes alone if you need it.
Hannah was right. I belonged on my list too.
“Come on,” Alex said, unwinding himself from the swing. “Let’s go see your girl and pretend to enjoy Christmas carols for a few more hours.”
“She’s not my—”
“Connor.” He gave me a look. “Save the denial for someone who’ll believe it.”
I didn’t argue. Just followed him out of the sensory room, back into the harsh lights and antiseptic smell of the hospital corridor.
But something felt lighter now, like I’d figured out how to breathe again.