Chapter 34
Tom
Salt crunched under Tom's boots. The air had that clean, biting cold that made his lungs ache. They left the laundromat behind and walked past the old stores they used to know by heart.
“Look,” Lauren said softly.
Their old building stood in front of them, the red door faded but still familiar.
Lauren wrapped her arms around herself. “I loved it here,” she said. “It was small, and I felt… big. With ideas. With trying.”
She stopped.
“You made me feel stupid for trying,” she said.
“I was a fucking idiot,” he said.
She swallowed. “You called me cringe.”
Wind lifted a strand of her hair. She tucked it behind her ear, and that’s when he saw it: the thin gold band on her hand catching a reluctant shard of winter light.
She was still wearing his ring.
The recognition hurt and healed at the same time, like thaw.
Lauren's fingers moved to the band instinctively, twisting it the way she always did when she was thinking. For a moment, he thought she might take it off right there. Might hand it back to him on this street corner with the red door watching.
He wanted to reach for her. Wanted to pull her against him and promise he'd never make her feel small again. But he'd made enough promises. And he’d broken enough promises. There was no reason why she would believe him.
"I'm grateful," he managed. "That you're still wearing my ring. Even if it's just—even if you haven't decided."
Lauren looked at him then. “Do you remember when you gave this to me?" she asked.
"Of course I do.”
“It meant I was yours. That everyone would see it and know." Her voice was steady now, almost clinical.
“You’re still—"
"That's what I wanted at Christmas," she said. "Something that said…" She put her hand to her throat, placed one fingertip there. "Something that said you valued me. That I mattered."
Her eyes flicked up to his, searching his face.
“I’d built it up in my head,” she said. “Like an idiot. I was so sure. And then, on Christmas…”
Her breath hitched. “I felt so stupid.”
“Don’t,” Tom said, too quickly.
She turned away, pressing both hands to her face. Was she crying? Was he making her cry? It felt like his ribs were collapsing inward, crushing the air out of him.
“Stop.” His voice cracked.
“I saw that necklace,” she said, staring at the red door instead of him. “In your bag. I thought you bought it for me.”
Her laugh cracked down the middle. “Turns out I’m just an idiot with a good imagination. I kept picturing it, daydreaming about the way you would fasten the chain for me, in front of everyone. It was stupid. I was stupid.”
Tom’s mind stumbled—necklace?—then snapped into brutal, crystalline clarity.
Oh God.
She hadn’t wanted a check. She hadn’t wanted something practical or responsible or tasteful.
She’d wanted that moment—Jake standing behind Mia, fastening the clasp, everyone seeing, the whole room watching.
He saw Christmas morning again with perfect, punishing clarity: Lauren watching Jake open that box, her whole face changing, that tiny flicker of shock and hurt she’d tried to hide—
He felt sick. Actually sick—like the ground pitched under him.
Oh God.
He wanted to tear his hair out, claw back time, fall to his knees in the snow.
She had been waiting for him. She had been dreaming of him.
And he’d crushed that dream.
Tom took a step forward before he even realized he’d moved. He was floundering here, but he knew this at least. “I let you down.”
She shook her head, still not looking at him. “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have gone through your bag. I shouldn’t have—I shouldn’t have wanted it that badly.”
“Stop,” Tom said, voice raw. “If I had been even a fraction of the husband I wanted to be, it would have been your necklace. I would’ve bought it for you and hidden it away. You would’ve been right when you thought it was for you.”
He caught her hand in both of his. Her skin was cold—too cold—and he clasped it, warming it between his palms. He should have made sure she had gloves.
“All I’ve ever wanted, Lauren, since the day I met you, was to give you everything. Everything I could give you. Everything you could ever want. I never wanted to let you down.” His voice broke on the words. “And I’ve done nothing but that.”
He kept talking, couldn’t seem to stop. “You were never stupid. You were brave.”
Lauren looked at him at last, tears bright in the cold light. Her fingers felt so small in his. All he wanted to do was protect her, but instead he’d made her cry. It felt like his chest had been pried open with bare hands.
“I was a bad husband,” Tom said, the admission scraping out of him. “I was selfish and blind and—” He broke off. He'd sat there on Christmas Day and smiled when Jake fastened that necklace around Mia's throat. Had felt proud of himself for being so helpful.
Jesus Christ. Tom squeezed his eyes shut.
"I didn't realize," he said. The words felt pathetically inadequate. "Lauren, I swear to God, I didn't realize it was—I was holding onto it for Jake. I didn't—"
He thought about Lauren sitting there, watching that moment, the one she'd imagined for herself being given to someone else—
"I'm so sorry," he whispered, his hands around hers. "Lauren, I'm so—"
He wanted to fix it. To rewind to Christmas morning and do everything differently. To go back even further—to every decoration he'd dismissed, every handmade gift he'd tolerated instead of treasured.
But he couldn't. He could only stand here in the cold, holding his wife’s hand and finally—finally—understanding the full weight of what he'd done.
The drive back was quiet. Not awkward, just… spent.
Lauren stared out the passenger window, the winter light turning her skin pale gold.
Every so often, he caught her reflection in the glass.
Beautiful and sad. He felt an ache in his chest so sharp it bordered on panic—he wanted to fix it, to reach across the space between them and repair every shattered piece.
When he pulled into their driveway, the engine ticked as it cooled.
“Thanks for…” she began, then trailed off, looking down at her hands.
He finished for her. “For not being a total disaster today?”
That got the smallest smile from her—weary but real.
“I was going to say for the ride,” she said.
He smiled back. “You’re welcome.”
The duffel bag sat on the back seat, his clothes neatly folded inside, clean and dry.
He followed her to the door. The air smelled faintly of snow and laundry soap, that strange clean scent of winter mornings. She turned to unlock the door.
“Lauren.”
She looked back at him, her hair catching the light.
He didn’t think. He just stepped forward.
His arms wrapped around her. Her arms slid around his waist almost automatically.
She fit against him the way she always had. Her cheek against his chest. He rested his chin lightly on her hair, and the smell of her shampoo hit him with the force of memory.
For a long, perfect moment, the world went quiet. Just the steady rhythm of her breathing against him and the strange peace of holding her.
He felt her exhale, a small shudder against his chest, and his hand moved instinctively, slow and reassuring over her back.
“Hey,” he murmured. “You’re okay.”
“I know,” she whispered, voice muffled against him. “I just… forgot what this felt like.”
Tom’s throat tightened. “Me too.”
She drew back first.
As she disappeared inside, the door closing gently behind her, he stood there a moment longer, the ghost of her warmth still on his skin.
Tom sat on the floor of Lauren's childhood bedroom with his back against the bed, staring at nothing.
The quilt lay across his lap. He'd been holding it for—he didn't know how long. An hour? Two?
His phone buzzed. He picked it up, hoping—
Jake: Mom wants to know if you're coming to Thursday dinner
Tom groaned.
Thursday dinner. With his parents. Where they'd all sit around that pristine table and discuss appropriate topics in appropriate tones, and his mother would make cruel little observations about other people's choices, and his father would talk about restraint and sophistication and knowing when to stop.
He'd learned restraint, all right. He'd learned it so well he'd restrained himself right out of a marriage.
Tom pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.
The necklace. Jesus Christ, the necklace.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Christmas morning like a photograph he couldn’t tear up. Jake fastening the delicate chain around Mia’s throat. The room going soft and warm with sentiment. Everyone looking.
Lauren, watching.
His wife, with hope in her eyes he hadn’t recognized until it was too late.
She shouldn’t have had to tell him what she wanted. He knew her. Knew she lived for Christmas, for meaning, for objects that held memory and story. Of course a check wasn’t something she would treasure. Of course she wouldn’t hold that moment close to her heart.
He had been offered the perfect chance. Public and intimate. A gift worn against her skin—proof that she was chosen, claimed, adored. He could have stood behind her, fastened the clasp himself.
He groaned.
Why hadn’t he bought her something like that? It wouldn’t have been selfless.
He knew how much he liked seeing his ring on her hand. His ring, marking her as his wife. Something she wore because he gave it to her. Because he chose her. Giving her jewelry at Christmas could have been for him too. He could have said mine without speaking.
Tom pulled his knees up under the quilt, breath sharp. Tried to ignore how his pulse was thudding.
Instead, he’d written her a check.
He didn’t deserve this quilt. Didn’t deserve to touch anything she’d made with her hands. Every stitch was love, and he’d met that love with indifference, with embarrassment, with cowardice.
He was a small, spineless man who’d valued his parents’ approval over his wife’s heart. He wished he could unzip his own skin and crawl out of it, leave behind the pathetic idiot who’d ruined everything.
He put his head on he knees.
Tom genuinely couldn’t imagine how this could get worse.
Then he heard the front door.
Voices—familiar ones. Linda's bright tone, Gerald's lower rumble. The sound of suitcases being set down, keys dropped in a bowl.
Oh God.
Lauren's parents were home.
Gerald appeared at the top of the stairs, wearing an aggressively floral button-up vacation shirt. Behind him, Linda appeared in the same print—pink hibiscus exploding across the fabric.
Neither looked happy to see him.
“We need to talk," Gerald said, and it wasn't a request.
Tom followed them downstairs into the living room—that explosion of handmade everything that he'd judged so harshly a week ago. Now he knew that the room hadn’t been what was wrong. His outlook had been flawed.
Linda gestured to a chair. Tom sat. He clasped his hands between his knees like a kid about to get scolded by the principal.
They took the sofa across from him—a united front.
"Lauren told us what happened," Linda said. Her voice was steel.
"I know," Tom said. "I know what I did. I was—" The words tasted sour. He felt sick saying them, sick knowing they were true. "I was a fucking idiot and I broke her heart and I don't know how to fix it."
Silence.
Tom looked up.
He gestured helplessly at the house around them. "I told her she needed to grow up. To stop making things and just—just buy nice things like normal people."
He stopped. Pressed his hands over his face. He heard himself make a sound—half laugh, half choke. “I sound like my father.”
He tried to inhale but it came out as a shaky, humiliating sound. His chest felt tight, his throat raw. He wanted to look composed, competent, like the man they’d once trusted with their daughter. Instead he sounded like he was coming apart.
"I am going to fix this," Tom said. The words came out desperate, almost frantic. "I swear I'll spend the rest of my life proving—" His voice broke again. He scrubbed a hand across his face, eyes burning.
When he finally looked up, Gerald’s fists had unclenched and the stiffness in Linda’s shoulders had eased.
They exchanged a glance—one of those long, wordless conversations that said everything. A mix of exasperation, reluctant sympathy, and a dawning, collective realization.
"Son," Gerald said, and his voice cut through Tom's spiral. He didn’t look angry now. He looked… paternal. “You’ve got to pull yourself together."
Tom opened his mouth. Closed it.
Linda stood, smiling. “Right. I’m going to get dinner in the oven." She looked at Tom. "And then you can tell us exactly how you plan to win back our daughter."