Chapter 15 Evan
Evan
The coffee shop speaker is playing The Nutcracker Suite.
Except it's not. It's some aggressive metal cover where electric guitars scream through Tchaikovsky's melody, and the drums hit like someone's angry at Christmas. The wrongness of it makes my temples throb.
I'm in a shop three blocks from my usual place because the usual place might have Holly.
My laptop is open. A grant proposal I should read. Emails I should answer.
My phone sits face-up next to my coffee—black, no sugar, because I have regressed to drinking punishment—and the screen stays dark. Four days since the photo. Three since her last text. Two since I stopped counting hours.
I've been skipping lunch. Food requires decisions—what to eat, where to go, whether to stay or take it back to the office. Easier to just work through it. I've also been sleeping in two-hour increments, waking up reaching for my phone, hoping for her name on the screen.
Yesterday I ended up at our usual coffee shop without meaning to. Muscle memory. I was inside before I realized where I was—saw the barista who always added extra whipped cream start to smile in recognition—and left before she could ask where Holly was.
The metal Nutcracker reaches the part where Clara watches the Christmas tree grow. . In the original, it's magical. In this version, it sounds like the tree is attacking her.
On my phone, I open our text thread. Scroll up past my unanswered messages to find the last normal conversation we had. Before Jocelyn. Before the photo. Before everything turned into this.
Saturday, December 21st, 11:47 PM:
Holly
Marie says Josh is tapping through every class. Driving his teacher crazy.
Tell the teacher it builds rhythm.
She says it builds a headache.
Valid.
Goodnight, tap dance enabler.
Goodnight.
I start typing: The coffee shop near my apartment is playing metal Nutcracker and I—
Delete it.
I'm sorry doesn't begin to—
Delete it.
Please just tell me how to—
My thumb hovers, then presses delete.
The metal guitar solo ends. I close the message without sending anything.
Seven years old. December.
Elsbeth settled onto the library sofa beside me with the remote and a huge bowl of popcorn to share. “Tonight is something special. American Ballet Theatre's classic production from 1977. Gelsey Kirkland and Mikhail Baryshnikov.”
She said their names like they were royalty. Maybe they were.
The tape was already in the VCR. She pressed play, and the overture began—that familiar music that made my chest feel like it might overflow with feeling.
When the party scene started, I leaned forward, watching the girl in the nightgown receive her nutcracker doll.
“What's her name?” I asked.
“Clara. Though some companies call her Marie—that was her name in the original story. Clara was actually the name of Marie's favorite doll. When the story was adapted, the writer used the doll's name instead.”
“Which one is right?”
“Both.”
She let the tape play. I watched Clara move through the party scene with a perfect combination of grace and wonder. When the battle scene started—soldiers and mice—I was on my feet, mimicking the sword fights, the marching.
When Baryshnikov appeared as the Nutcracker Prince, I tried to copy his movements—the way he held his arms, the fast footwork.
I stumbled through the steps, but Elsbeth didn't tell me to sit down.
She just watched, sometimes humming along with the music, letting me dance alongside the greatest dancer in the world.
By the time the Christmas tree grew and Clara stepped into the snow, I was breathless and beaming.
“Can I show Mom and Dad?” I asked when the tape ended. “When they get back from Aspen? I could do the party scene—I know the soldier march now. And some of the Prince parts.”
Elsbeth's smile wilted.
“Your mother,” she said, “would love to hear about your book report on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And your father was so proud of your science project—that balsa wood shuttle you built. Why don't we plan to show them those when they return?”
The library felt colder. I understood what she wasn't saying.
“Okay,” I said.
She pulled me close, kissed the top of my head. “Some gifts are just for us, Mr. Evan. That doesn't make them less precious.”
I believed her. But I also understood that the parts of me that felt happiest were the things I was supposed to keep hidden.
Wednesday evening. Present day.
The charity event is in a hotel ballroom that's trying too hard. Gold everything. Crystal everything. Enough poinsettias to deforest a small country.
My mother glides over in her champagne Chanel and links her arm through mine.
“Stop looking like someone canceled Christmas,” she murmurs. “You're the CEO. Smile.”
“I'm smiling.”
“That's your quarterly earnings call face. I need your 'happy to be here' face.”
I adjust my expression. She sighs but doesn't push it.
“Come. The Whitmores are asking about the scholarship expansion.”
She steers me toward a cluster of donors by the bar. I shake hands. I make appropriate responses about grant timelines and beneficiary outcomes. I am charming in every way my father taught me.
Behind us, I hear one of the catering staff swear very quietly.
My mother's grip on my arm tightens. “What now?”
The room starts to notice the problem in stages. First, the Parkers—who fund our environmental initiatives and haven't eaten animal products in fifteen years—receive plates of Beef Wellington. The crust glistens with butter. The beef is very, very rare.
Next, the Bishops—who own a chain of steakhouses and have probably never seen a grain bowl in their lives—receive quinoa, roasted vegetables, nutritional yeast. Mr. Bishop picks up his fork, puts it down.
A server rushes over to Mrs. Parker with apologies. The catering captain is in motion, directing staff, trying to swap plates without making the disaster more obvious.
Off to the side of the room, I notice the ice sculpture centerpiece—an elaborate winter scene with deer and pine trees. It's beautiful. It's also directly under a heating vent.
Water is pooling on the white tablecloth beneath it. Steady drips falling onto the donation pledge table arranged just below.
My mother and I exchange a look. She doesn't say it. She doesn't have to.
Holly would have caught both of these problems before the doors even opened.
Patricia Whitmore approaches, wine glass in hand. “Evan! I was just telling Richard—you two simply must come to our New Year's party. It'll be perfect, all the young couples, and Holly was so delightful at the gala—”
“Patricia—”
“I'll have my assistant send the details. Eight o'clock, black tie.” She's already moving toward another conversation, waving over her shoulder. “Don't let her say no!”
She's gone before I can tell her there is no “you two.”
The ice sculpture continues its slow collapse, now missing most of one deer's antlers.
My mother finds me near the bar an hour later, when most of the guests have left and the catering staff is cleaning up the water damage.
“There you are, darling. Pour me a glass, will you?” She nods at the wine bottle next to me.
I pour her a glass to match mine.
“You know, Holly would have prevented all of this,” she says, echoing the sentiment her eyes were communicating earlier.
“Yes.”
She studies my face, looks at me in a way she hasn't in years. “Give her space, sweetheart. Let her come to you when she's ready.”
“What if she's never ready?”
“She will be.” My mother pauses. “She seems wonderful, Evan. Truly. But in our world, people will always question why she's with you. They'll assume it's about access, about money. That gets exhausting. Is she prepared for that?”
I run my finger along the rim of my glass.
“You know who I really have to watch out for?
Women like Ainsley Pembroke. The ones who see the family name, the portfolio—and think that's what matters.
Holly sees me. Not the CEO, not a Bellamy bachelor.
Just ... me. That's worth more than all the 'appropriate' matches you could arrange.”
My mother considers this. “You're not wrong about the ‘Ainsleys’ of the world. Perhaps there is something to that.”
She squeezes my arm. “Holly told me at the gala about your weekend in Pinewood Falls. That you stepped in as a party parent for The Nutcracker when someone got sick.”
I didn't know they'd talked about that.
“She said you looked just as gallant and comfortable on that community theater stage as you do working the room at foundation events. That you belonged in both places.” My mother's voice softens. “I wish I could have seen it.”
I hear what she's not saying—an apology, carefully offered.
“I saw how she looked at you at the gala. Before any of this. You've already won her heart, dear. That's bigger than whatever scared her.”
Home by ten. Apartment dark except for the city lights coming through the windows.
The apartment is too quiet. The silence that used to feel peaceful now feels like a held breath. Like waiting for something that isn't coming.
I move to my bookshelf and study the bottom shelf, where I keep things from childhood I can't quite throw away—debate trophies, prep school yearbooks I never open, the balsa wood space shuttle missing one wing.
I pull out a large, leather-bound book. The cover is worn, corners soft from gentle handling over the years.
Inside the front cover, Elsbeth's handwriting—elegant, old-fashioned, each letter perfectly formed:
For Mr. Evan, who understands that the best performances are the ones where you forget you're performing. Joy doesn't need permission. It simply needs courage.
Love, E.
I trace the words with my finger.
I sit down. Open the book in my lap.
Joy doesn't need permission. It simply needs courage.
I flip through the pages I devoured as a child. The story of The Nutcracker, with a history of various productions around the world. Beautiful costumes, magical scenery.
A ticket stub falls out.
The Nutcracker, Lincoln Center,
December 2010.
The year after Elsbeth died.
I'd gone alone. Left at intermission—the grief was too sharp.
Further in, a pressed flower. I don't remember where it came from. A corner of a page is dog-eared at a photo of the Royal Ballet's production. Elsbeth's favorite.
I pick up my phone. Open our message thread one more time.
My unsent words stare back at me: Please just tell me how to—
I finish the sentence now: Please just tell me how to give you the space you need, while also making sure you know I'm here when you're ready.
But I don’t send it.
I lock my phone. Set it on the coffee table.
The dog-eared page is still open in my lap. The Royal Ballet's production.
I pick up the remote, pull up the streaming service on the TV. Search for it. Find the 2009 recording—not the one we watched together, of course, but close enough.
Press play.
The overture begins. That familiar swell of music that still makes my chest feel like it might overflow.
I lean back against the couch, the book still open beside me, Elsbeth's handwriting visible in the margin.
By the time the party scene starts, my eyes are already closing.
For the first time in four days, I sleep through the night.