19. Family Saving Throw #2
And that’s the entire fucking problem.
I run my thumb slowly along the edge of my coffee mug, using the repetition to keep myself measured before I continue.
“I know you aren’t trying to punish us. I know this wasn’t intended to make Cami feel like she caused any of this. But regardless of the intent, we’re the people having the separate Christmas brunch.”
Silence settles around the table.
Margot looks down at her drink, while Dad exhales and reaches for his coffee.
My mother’s face falls further.
I continue before we get so focused on reassuring her that we avoid the point entirely.
“Ben is going to walk into the ‘normal’ Christmas dinner tonight. Mike and the kids will be here. Sarah and Theo will be here. Tori and their girls will be here.” I pause because saying it aloud makes the problem feel even clearer. “From Ben’s perspective, what changed? Who is the problem?”
My mother opens her mouth, then closes it again.
“That doesn’t mean you should exclude him,” Cami says quietly.
Every person at the table turns toward her.
She visibly dislikes becoming the center of attention, but she continues.
“I don’t want anyone thinking that’s what I’m asking for.”
“We aren’t asking for that,” I tell her.
“I know. I just—”
Micah settles his hand over hers on top of the table.
She stops speaking long enough to look at him and takes a breath before continuing, “I don’t want to be the reason your family is split.”
“You aren’t.” The answer comes out faster and sharper than I intend, enough that Cami looks at me.
I force my tone down before I add, “He did that. You didn’t.”
The words hang over the table for several seconds.
My mother wipes quickly under one eye.
Margot finally speaks. “Ronan is right about one thing.”
I look toward her.
Margot’s attention is on our parents instead. “This does make it look like Ronan is the black sheep. Like he is the one we’re accommodating around.”
“Thank you.”
Mom sighs. “Margot.”
“I’m not saying you did it deliberately,” Margot continues. “I know why you planned it this way. Mike’s family has us in the morning, Tori doesn’t want the girls running to multiple Christmases, and Sarah and Theo could only make tonight work. I know there are logistics.”
Exactly. There are always logistics.
Most people don’t wake up in the morning and deliberately decide to treat someone they love unfairly.
Instead, there are schedules and competing obligations and seemingly reasonable compromises until everyone can explain every individual decision and nobody wants to examine what those decisions added up to.
“The road to hell,” I mutter.
Micah’s mouth twitches.
My mother sighs. “So what should I have done, Ronan?”
There isn’t any anger in the question, which would probably make it easier.
She genuinely wants an answer.
The problem is that I don’t have one.
“I don’t know.”
Her eyebrows rise.
“I genuinely don’t,” I clarify. “I don’t have a perfect solution for you, which is something I’m learning to tolerate with tremendous irritation.”
Micah snorts quietly.
I narrow my eyes across the table at him.
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“No.”
A small laugh escapes Cami, and I am irrationally grateful for it.
I turn back to my mother. “I don’t know exactly what you should have done. I just need you to understand why this feels like Ben still gets Christmas, and we get the side show.”
Her face crumples slightly. “I don’t want you to feel that way.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want Cami to feel that way either.”
“I know that too.”
Dad reaches across the table and takes her hand.
For several seconds, nobody says anything.
Then Mom turns directly toward Cami.
“I am sorry.”
Cami swallows. “You don’t need to apologize to me.”
“I do if something I’ve done made you feel unwelcome.”
The careful expression Cami has been maintaining all morning slips a little. “Thank you.”
Mom nods, then looks back at me. “I hate this.”
There it is. There is no manipulation in the words and no attempt to blame anyone.
It’s grief.
I can understand grief without agreeing that it changes what I need to do.
“I know.”
I hate having my family split in two,” she continues. “I hate that tonight you’ll be somewhere else while everyone is here. And I hate that the girls will keep asking why Uncle Ronan isn’t coming to Christmas dinner.”
My chest tightens.
There are pressure points people can deliberately avoid. Then there are the ones they hit simply because reality put them there.
“I will miss them too.”
Mom’s fingers tighten around Dad’s. “I just keep hoping there’s a way we can all b e in the same room again.”
The sentence doesn’t technically contain a request.
My body reacts as if it does.
“I don’t know if there ever will be.”
She closes her eyes briefly. “Ronan—”
“No, Mom.” My voice stays calm, though doing that requires more conscious effort than it did a few minutes ago.
“I need you to actually hear that part. There may not be. This isn’t a cooling-off period with an automatic expiration date where we wait long enough and eventually everything goes back to normal.”
“No one is asking you to bring Cami around him,” Dad says gently.
I know how he meant it, but both Micah and Cami visibly flinch at the words.
“I know you’re not. But every time the conversation becomes about someday getting everyone back into the same room, we’re still talking about acceptance and reconciliation as if it’s the preferred eventual outcome.”
Neither of them responds.
The Christmas song in the living room changes, and a high violin note cuts sharply through the speakers. Someone’s spoon hits ceramic at almost the same time the tree lights flash in my peripheral vision.
Cinnamon. Coffee. Bacon. Heat from the oven. My mother’s perfume.
The sensations that have been separate pieces of background information all morning stop remaining separate.
My shirt collar suddenly feels rough against the side of my neck, and I tug it away.
Margot starts saying something to Cami while Dad gets up for more coffee. Mom asks Micah a question about work. I hear it all at once.
That is the problem.
My brain stops prioritizing one voice over another and begins processing all of it with the same importance—music, conversation, dishes, the refrigerator cycling, the lights, the smells, the pressure of the fabric.
I press my thumb hard into the side of my index finger and repeat the motion, trying to give myself one sensation I control.
It isn’t enough.
The tree flashes again, and my jaw has started aching from how tightly I’m holding it.
“I need a minute.”
Mom looks at me and nods immediately. “Of course.”
There is no offense in her voice and no attempt to ask whether I’m alright or when I’ll be back.
At least this has always been easy here.
I leave the dining room and head down the hall toward Dad’s office.
When the office door closes behind me, it takes most of the noise from the rest of the house with it. The reduction helps immediately, though not enough to stop the buzzing beneath my skin.
The overhead light has a faint electrical hum, so I switch it off. Gray winter light coming through the blinds is more than sufficient, and it doesn’t make anything feel… sharp.
I sit on the small couch against the wall and close my eyes.
The forced-air heat of the HVAC is one sound.
My breathing is another.
I concentrate on those two instead of everything outside the door and deliberately slow my breathing, counting four seconds in and six out until the pressure behind my eyes begins to ease.
A quiet knock eventually reaches me.
Three taps, evenly spaced.
I don’t know exactly when I started recognizing Micah’s knock, but apparently I do.
“Come in.”
He opens the door just far enough to slip through and closes it quietly behind him without touching the light switch.
That was the correct decision.
“Is Cami okay?” I ask.
“Yeah. Margot has her.”
I open my eyes. “Does Margot actually have her, or did you decide I needed you more?”
Micah’s mouth curves slightly. “Cami told me to come check on you.”
Of course she did. A complicated warmth settles under my ribs.
“She knows you.”
“She does.”
“So do I.”
My eyes lift to his.
There is considerably more contained in those three words than either of us admits.
Micah and I have been having versions of the same conversation for a few months.
The attraction isn’t new, and neither is the fact that both of us are aware of it.
Even the possibility of eventually doing something about it has been acknowledged enough times that pretending this is some recent realization would be ridiculous.
What has changed is how often I find myself thinking about it.
And, apparently, how often I want to touch him.
Micah sits beside me but leaves a comfortable amount of space between us. He doesn’t angle toward me or reach for me, and after sitting back, he looks toward the window instead of watching my face for signs that I am improving.
“Do you want to talk?” he asks.
“No.”
“Okay.”
Then he stays.
There is no attempt to solve the problem for me, no reassurance that my mother means well, and no reminder that my boundary is reasonable.
He simply occupies the quiet with me without asking anything from it.
After another minute or so, I notice something different. “Are you using different shampoo?”
Micah turns his head slowly, a look of bemusement on his face. “What?”
“Your hair smells different.”
His eyebrows rise a little. “That’s what you’re thinking about?”
I shrug.
He laughs under his breath. “Dex bought some expensive shit and then decided he didn’t like it, so I’m using it.”
I nod.
“He said it made him smell like a Scandinavian lumberjack and was more suited to me.”
I look at him. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Neither do I,” he admits.
The laugh that comes out of me feels disproportionately good for something that stupid.
My attention stays on Micah’s hair after the laugh fades. It’s longer on top than it used to be, and some of it is disheveled from the number of times he has pushed his fingers through it this morning.