Chapter 21
After the call, I finished crying. But that didn’t take very long.
I then opened all the windows, let the cold rush in, and resolved that I would not spend one more second haunted by the choices and trauma and betrayals of past versions of me.
The apartment was freezing. I sat on the sleeper sofa, knees pulled up, phone gripped in both hands, and opened a ride-share app for the first time in my life.
Surge pricing. On Christmas Eve. The algorithm’s gift to the desperate and the lonely.
When the numbers loaded, previewing my total, I said, “Holy shit,” out loud, like the universe needed confirmation.
The price to get to O’Hare was an entire day’s salary back when I’d worked at Igor’s Pizza Parlor, or a week’s worth of groceries.
Some miserly part of me flinched, the same part that used to count pennies in the break room and made a sport of optimizing every trip to the laundromat.
I clicked “Book Ride” anyway.
I decided, while I was at it, that this would be my new thing. Just doing whatever the hell I wanted, even if it bled my bank account. Actually, especially if it bled my bank account. What was I saving all that money for?
I would not wait around for the universe or Alaric or anyone else to come knock on my door. I would go out there and find people to help, like Gladys Cambell had done. I would build a community of Fezziwig’s and Cambells and Alaric Jordan’s and Sawyers and Renees.
Furthermore, I would compose a list of people I’d hurt, and I would track them down and apologize. Maybe they didn’t need or want to hear it. If so, I wouldn’t burden them. But my heart and soul required it. I would find a way to make right all the wrongs.
Showering in a fit of efficiency—but the good, productive kind—and doing the speed-run version of my normal routine.
I packed a bag: laptop, chargers, three new changes of clothes.
I left the apartment immaculate. Old habits die hard, even when you’re trying to become carve out a new future.
Then I stood in the foyer, waiting for the ping of my ride.
I hovered near the door, watching the street through the glass.
The rideshare was running late, so I wandered back and forth along the small length of the lobby, counting the mailboxes, noticing for the first time that I knew none of these people.
I wouldn’t stay here much longer, in this apartment, but I felt sad I’d never taken the time to get to know these neighbors, and now I likely never would.
No one knew the building’s owner lived in the basement, like a stingy troll.
If I hadn’t been so closed off, they could’ve been part of my community.
I was halfway through an imaginary goodbye speech to the building’s tenants when the woman from last night—the one who’d looked right through me on the stairs—appeared at the far end of the hallway, this time in daylight and trailed by two kids and a man with a mustache.
The kids were bundled in coats, their hats askew, their faces blank.
The man herded them with a practiced hand, nudging them toward the exit.
I said, “Merry Christmas,” before I could talk myself out of it.
The entire family paused, turned in unison, and gave me a collective smile.
“Merry Christmas!” the woman said, and this time, she seemed to actually see me. Staring at me for a long second, head cocked, she added, “Are you new to the building?”
I laughed, which came out as a short bark, like a, “HA!” The kids stared at me. The woman blinked, uncertain.
I caught myself and said, “Uh, yes. I’m brand new. I just took over the basement apartment from the very sad and lonely woman who used to own it.” The words were out before I could edit them, but they sounded true. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Alison.”
For some reason, my thoughts drifted back to that buffet breakfast with Renee and her doctor friend, of how the food was donated after when it would’ve made so much more sense just to give the shelter money.
But you know what? That’s okay.
It’s not great, it’s not perfect, but it is something.
Perhaps my methods moving forward wouldn’t be perfect, but I would do my best. And that was okay.
* * *
The rideshare, as it turned out, was the least expensive part of the journey. Surge pricing had gouged me for forty-eight dollars and twenty-two cents, but the one-way red-eye ticket I purchased at the O’Hare curb—Christmas Eve, eight hours before takeoff—cost quite a lot more.
I didn’t care. I’d spent so long convincing myself I was above anything as banal as a relationship, I felt almost giddy at the idea of a grand gesture.
In the terminal, I bought a package of Oreos and a coffee, then sat by the window and watched the ground crews operate in a surprisingly graceful ballet, wingtip to wingtip, the asphalt wet and shining under vapor lamps.
The flight was three hours and change, but time is a myth in an aluminum tube. Most of it, I spent watching the cartoon patchwork of clouds give way to the blank, hard rectangle of the middle USA plain. I didn’t even bring a book and I didn’t sleep, except maybe for ten minutes over Tulsa.
The arrivals terminal in Austin (nobody in their right mind flies to Midland unless forced at gunpoint) was more zoo than airport, Christmas morning turned every family into an organism with a dozen squirming limbs, every gate a miniature petri dish of strangers with identical DNA.
The walk from the plane to baggage claim was a miracle of logistics—children with antlers, old men in Stetsons, mothers with triple-wide strollers that could have doubled as rafts for cruising the Rio Grande.
The air was humid, heavier than Chicago’s, scented with barbecue and Jet-A.
In the midst of it, a woman in a red coat brushed past me, leaving a static shock and a faint trace of perfume. She didn’t slow down, but she looked me in the eye and said, “Merry Christmas.”
Maybe she was mistaking me for someone she knew.
I blinked, then shot back, “Merry Christmas!” loud enough to startle a Chiwawa in a nearby lady’s purse. The phrase hung between us for half a second, then she was gone, swept up in a tide of people all moving in the same direction.
Down at the rental car counter, I was checked in and sent to the parking garage. The car started, the dashboard came to life announcing that the time had finally arrived for me to go get my man.
I sat there, waiting for my brain to catch up with my body, when my phone chimed. It was an email, not a text, from my legal team. The subject line was in all caps, which meant something had either gone very right or very wrong.
I opened it, thumb scrolling down the tiny screen.
“Ms. Weston—As of 9:03 AM Central, all documents regarding transfer of majority stake in The Weston Company, as well as the deed to primary residence at 3110 Redbud Lane, have been countersigned and notarized. Please confirm receipt and advise as to when you would like possession. Congratulations, and Merry Christmas. Regards, D.M. Kleiber, J.D.”
Oh geez, today was supposed to be the day, the day I took my revenge and kicked Duke Weston out of his mansion. And now I had everything I needed. All I had to do was find a place to print out this paperwork, and Duke Weston would be completely and utterly penniless.
I stared at the screen, my first thought being: I have no idea what to do next.