Chapter Five
One missed call and one text message, and neither one is from my mother. Both are from my brother who is currently completely distracted in his life of fatherhood, and I’m shocked he’s even had the time to check on me.
I’m honestly surprised I have service, but there’s a single bar on my screen.
I push the missed call, redialing. The phone rings, and when my brother picks up, the most deafening scream erupts through the speaker.
It’s so shrill and loud that I’m positive my eardrum just packed up its drumsticks and evacuated my ear canal.
“Hey, Katydilla. Sorry ‘bout that. Gracie’s been teething,” he calmly explains.
Kevin, my brother, is two years younger than me yet looks like my twin.
Taller though, by at least twelve inches.
I didn’t really know what he would make of his life, but he seems to have created the family we always wished we had growing up—two parents that don’t just live together but love together.
There’s a difference. He married a hands-on, not-afraid-of-anything woman named Maisy Jo from Oklahoma ten years ago.
They now have five kids, five acres, and a milk cow.
A very different life than what we grew up with, and yet every photo Maisy Jo posts on her Instagram feels like something you want to climb through and be part of. It’s wholesome and real.
“Well, I sure hope you didn’t get her a microphone for Christmas. Girl doesn’t need to think her vocal cords need to be even more amplified, and I hate to break it to her, but she sounds a little pitchy.” I laugh while still rubbing my ear.
“Yeah, we settled for a drum set,” Kevin laughs. “So, are you at Mom’s?”
“Not exactly,” I mumble, tucking my bottom lip under my top teeth.
“What does not exactly mean?” he questions, alarm beginning to circle around his words.
“My flight was grounded because of the weather, and there were no flights going out, and well, I kind of took a little detour via an economy car that I named Miranda. Hit some ice, almost became a frozen corpse, but was miraculously rescued by a man named Boone that looks just like he sounds but makes the most delicious latte my tastebuds have ever rejoiced in. I’m at his cabin, snowed in.
I’m not sure I’m going to make it to Mother’s for Christmas. ”
There’s another scream coming from the speaker, but it’s not Gracie. “Absolutely not!”
“Absolutely not what?” I question.
“None of it.” He doesn’t clarify. “None of what you said.”
“Kev, I’m truly snowed in. I don’t have a way to make it.”
“Katherine, I’m truly serious. I need you at Mom’s.”
“First of all, rewind, take the name Katherine out of your mouth, tear it into a million little pieces, and never call me it again. You know how I feel about being called Katherine. Secondly, I can’t be there. I don’t really have a choice.”
“You know I can’t do Mom on my own. She’ll destroy me.
I need the armored power of Katydilla to take all the shots she’s going to take.
I’m sure she’s been practicing her aim all year.
Did you know she started following Maisy Jo on Instagram?
Following, that’s it. No comments. No likes.
She’s just been watching and collecting data to wield it against us. ”
And I get his distress. I really do. Our mother doesn’t say much to either of us, but when she does choose to open her mouth, it’s with the intent to destroy, like the time Kevin brought Maisy Jo home for the first time.
I had to literally become a human shield as our mother sharpened her words to make Maisy Jo feel like she wasn’t refined enough to belong in our family.
When Maisy Jo began sawing at her Christmas steak with her knife, I picked my steak up with my hands so my mother’s steely glares and pointed tongue were focused on me.
“Well, then don’t go,” I suggest, shrugging my shoulders that he can’t see.
“I can’t not go. You know that’s not an option. Kate, you have to figure this out.” His tone has grown hands and is begging.
Kevin decided years ago that it wasn’t fair to his children if he decided to let the problems we have with our mother keep them away from their grandma.
She didn’t exactly exude warmth or even lukewarmth, but Kevin would rather them know her once a year than never know her at all.
It was generous of him, and I’d promised to be there, too.
It was the least I could do for my nieces and nephews.
“I’m sorry, Kev. I really am. I’ll hate not seeing you, Maisy Jo, and the kids.” I apologize, because that’s all I’ve got.
He sighs in defeat. “What did Mom say when you told her?”
“I called you first. I needed to win a battle before I lost the war.”
“Good luck. The kids will hate not seeing you for Christmas.”
I sigh. I’ll miss them, too, although maybe not the screaming from teething. I make a mental note to invest in a good pair of noise-canceling earbuds. “I’ll come see you all for New Year’s. Does that work?”
“Only if you bring this Boone guy who rescued you. You aren’t exactly the damsel-in-distress type. You’re more of a damsel doing all the distressing. In fact, this is the first time in a long time I’ve even heard you mention a man that wasn’t a client,” he teases.
“I’ll see you soon.” I laugh in the least amused tone I can conjure up, avoiding his request. As soon as this snow clears up, I’ll be on my way, leaving Boone behind in the woods where he belongs. I’m sure he’s going to be more than glad to be rid of me.
I hang up and stare at my phone for a good five minutes before dialing the next number.
The phone rings. Five times. Six. Seven. It’s about to go to voicemail when…
“Oh, Katherine, I’m glad you called.”
I can practically see her, sitting on her throne of a burgundy velvet chair in the formal living room that is most likely professionally decorated with so many poinsettias you’d think she owns a poinsettia farm.
Her white hair pulled up tightly, stretching her thin skin until it’s taut enough to showcase her latest round of Botox.
Oh, she’d let her hair go natural, but that’s only because white hair was currently trending.
“Are you glad?” I spout. “Because it seems like you weren’t too worried about my whereabouts.”
“We both know there was no need to fuss,” my mother chides. “Besides, Christmas is still two days away.”
“Well, I’m not sure I’m going to make it,” I state flatly.
“My flight was grounded due to the storms, and I rented the last car available, which proved to be an endangering endeavor as I slid on ice and into a ditch. I was basically buried alive…well, almost dead, when a man named Boone happened to crash into me. I’m at his place, some cabin-in-the-woods type situation, recovering and, well, kind of stuck.
The snow keeps falling, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it to Christmas this year. ”
“Oh, well, I guess I need to call the caterer to let them know we’ll be short one,” my mother replies, as if I hadn’t just almost met my Maker.
As if she’s barely paying any attention at all.
Probably swiping another coat of that blood-rich nail polish on those daggers she keeps handy hanging from her wrists.
“Mother, did you hear the part where I almost died?”
“Well, Katherine, to be honest, I’m never sure where your stories are going. You tend to drone on into a delirious state where I’m not sure if you are being serious or being seriously sarcastic. Everything is always so dramatic with you; it’s no wonder a man hasn’t been able to handle you.”
“Handle me?” I question, feeling my eyes bulging out of my sockets.
“You know what I mean.” She sighs as if hearing from me is more of an inconvenience than a relief.
This is useless. I knew going into this phone call that it wasn’t anger that was going to win. It would be her I-don’t-really-care-about-you attitude that made a heated rash begin to infect the flesh wrapped around my bones and bend my knee in surrender.
“Well, Mother, I guess I’ll be there if I can get there. Otherwise, Merry Christmas,” I huff into the phone.
“Merry Christmas, Katherine. Tell Boone, whoever that is, Merry Christmas, too.”
Then the call ends. Of course, she would offer politeness instead of concern and compassion. It was her way.
“Ugh!” I grunt before stomping my feet to release the tension that has been slowly strangling every muscle in my body.
“Everything okay?” Boone’s voice is a gentle relief after hearing my mother’s, like a soothing balm after having a knife plunged into you.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “My mother says Merry Christmas.”
“Oh, well that’s nice of her,” he replies while extending a fresh cup of coffee.
I roll my eyes and take the mug from him, inhaling the aroma that even makes my nostril hair perk up with excitement.
Not that I have an obscene amount of nostril hair.
I have the appropriate amount that is deemed acceptable.
Although I’ve watched my best friend, Laura, have her nostrils waxed.
I didn’t even know it was a thing. When I’d told her that nostril hair serves a function, she’d rolled her eyes at me, going on about how unsightly it was.
I hadn’t been brave enough to vanquish the hairs that facilitate proper air filtering, allowing my air to be cleaned thoroughly and naturally.
I’d rather have a few nose hairs than be more susceptible to respiratory infections, but apparently, Laura didn’t care about respiratory infections enough.
Waxed nostril hairs were sexier, she’d said.
Although, I sure hope men aren’t looking up my nostrils.
“If you keep me in coffee, I may never leave,” I tease.
“If it keeps snowing like this, we’re going to eventually run out of coffee at the rate you consume it.”
I raise my mug. “You do not want to know who I am without caffeine.”
“Someone that makes irrational decisions? I’ve already met her.”
“Whew. I’m afraid I may have met my match in the honesty department. You remind me of my dad. I always knew who I was with him, and he always accepted me for the whole of me, instead of just the parts that seemed pretty.”
“You said was?” Boone questions.
“Lost him to cancer nineteen years ago,” I reply before taking a long sip of my fourth cup of coffee.
“I’m sorry.” His tone is genuine.
“I am, too, but I’m not sorry I got to be loved by him.”
And that is a truth I’d never shy away from.
Yes, I’d lost my dad, and it had carved out a hole in my heart that had made its beating a little irregular ever since, but I’d learned the new rhythm of it.
It didn’t keep me from living; I just lived differently because I had been loved by a wonderful father.
I could live without him, but I tried to live better now because of him. I still wanted to make him proud. I wanted to forever be his Katydilla.
“I lost someone special, too,” Boone murmurs quietly.
I perk up at this, not because I want other people to experience loss like I did, but because this feels like a moment Boone is going to peel back something important to him, and I appreciate people when they are raw and real.
“I was married once. She died five years ago,” he reveals with a soft glow in his blue eyes. “I moved here afterward. She didn’t like the idea of living up in a cabin away from people.”
“I’m sorry, Boone. How long were you married?” I ask.
The way sadness pulls his lips into a smile gives me the impression that he’s learned how to braid grief into his life in a way that holds meaning, like I have with my dad.
“Three years,” he answers. “It was a car accident, actually.”
My gut radiates with heat as if I already know the rest of this story.
Trepidation trickles down my spine in anticipation if he’ll confirm my suspicions.
That she died at Christmastime, in a blizzard.
I’m not sure I can press for the details since, well, look at me…
I almost died in a blizzard at Christmastime, and here I am standing in this man’s cabin instead of his wife.
But I don’t have to press.
“You want to know that it was at Christmas, don’t you?” His question is quiet and more of a musing.
I nod my head.
“It was a blizzard at Christmas. Not quite as bad of a blizzard as this one, but bad enough. Becca never was the careful type when it came to most things. Finding you was a lot like how I found her. I’ve just been processing the whole situation.
I’m sorry if I made you think I was some miserable ole miser up here in the mountains all alone.
I just haven’t had a reason to really do Christmas the way Becca used to love it,” he answers.
“You don’t need to apologize to me. I’m the one who should be apologizing,” I say while placing my hand on his arm. “I’m so, so sorry, Boone. My ridiculous stubbornness kind of wrecked your solitude up here, not to mention the fact that I caused a traumatic flashback. That couldn’t have been easy.”
Boone shrugs his shoulders, and that’s when I realize my hand is lingering, and I quickly retract it, running my fingers through my hair, hoping he didn’t notice.
“Life isn’t supposed to be easy, but yes, it did feel a little like Groundhog Day.
I’m just thankful this time was different and you’re okay.
It could have been much worse. Now, are you hungry?
I threw some things in a pot, and I’m calling it soup. ”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d consumed anything but coffee. “If you are half as good at making soup as you are at making coffee, I’m sure it’ll be delicious.”
Boone lets out a breath of a laugh.