Overdue - 36

Being in the middle of wedding preparations didn’t help my anxiety. Nor did it help that the tasks didn’t keep me as busy as I’d anticipated. Riley and our mom already had the entire operation organized and running smoothly. I shouldn’t have been in Florida yet. I should have been with Macon and at my store. I called Mika so often for sales numbers that she ordered me to stop because I was stressing everybody out. And I couldn’t ask Macon what he thought about marriage because it was a conversation we needed to have in person. I knew he loved me. I knew he wanted to be with me. But I had no idea what he thought about the concept of forever .

There were hopeful signs. After three days apart, I convinced him to FaceTime me for the first time ever. His expression broke when he saw me, and he touched his screen.

“See?” I said. “Technology isn’t all bad.”

“I hate it with the fiery intolerance of a thousand book banners, but my love for you burns stronger.”

I laughed and touched my screen, too.

He requested selfies, and I sent them—but only if he sent some in return. The Macon album on my phone swelled. I stared at his face whenever I was alone.

My extended relatives flew into town, and then Jess’s large family arrived, followed by a sea of strapping young women on holiday leave and a reporter and photographer from People magazine. More than two hundred guests showed up, proving that my mother’s concerns about nobody coming to a Christmas wedding were unfounded. I was the shortest bridesmaid by several inches. The candlelit venue dripped with poinsettias and red berries and pine boughs, and the brides wore white dresses with white Air Jordans. I cried when they held hands and walked themselves down the aisle, I cried when they read their vows, and I cried when they kissed.

The reception was wild. A party full of athletes was very different than a party full of book people. They were not afraid to dance with me, and we danced all night.

The next day was Christmas Eve. When I woke up, I texted Macon a photo of me still wearing my red dress because I’d crashed in it, and he FaceTimed me immediately.

“If you need help with the zipper, I can be there in nine hours.”

“The wedding was very them and very fun,” I said. “And I am very tired.”

His face fell with regret. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“I made the wrong decision. I should have been there.”

“You had to make the decision quickly. We’d only just gotten together,” I said, but my heart squeezed because I wished he’d been there, too.

He still looked upset.

“If it makes you feel better, you would have hated the reception,” I said.

“I like your sister. I like Jess.”

His serious earnestness made me smile. “They like you, too. And you’ll have plenty of time to hang out with them in the future.”

Riley and Jess spent their last two days together visiting family, but they were never apart. I thought about how if it had been Macon and me, we would have told everybody else to fuck off, party’s over. But they glowed with happiness. They spent Christmas Eve with us and Christmas Day at the hotel where Jess’s family was staying. This left me alone with my parents.

“I like that we don’t have to share you with Cory’s family this year,” my mom said, looping an arm around me.

“Ha,” I said.

“Maybe you’ll bring Macon home next December?”

And it occurred to me that I did want to be home next December—in Ridgetop.

Cory’s oldest brother had stopped coming to their family Christmases after his wife had given birth to their first child, and Cory and I had fallen into the belief that this was the way of things. That the holidays were meant to be shared with your family until you created your own. It wasn’t a bad benchmark, necessarily, but it did exclude the people who didn’t want children but still desired traditions of their own, away from their parents and siblings. Suddenly it was clear to me that I had been feeling this way for years, that I had been shackled to a tradition I had outgrown. This wasn’t where I wanted to be.

It explained why I had felt such dread before coming here. It wasn’t just about leaving Macon and my store behind. It was about leaving my family and my home during the holidays.

I tried to show my parents what I was missing. Macon was at his mother’s house, so we FaceTimed with them. Everyone was self-conscious and overly mannered, but the call was also nice. I hoped to be on the other side of the screen the next year.

And then it was finally time to go home. It was surreal seeing Cory’s car pull up in front my parents’ house like it had done so many times before. He got out to say hello, and although it was awkward, it was less so than I’d imagined. Instead of the usual hugs, he waved to my mom and shook my dad’s hand. He inquired about the wedding and showed the proper enthusiasm for their anecdotes and the photos my mom shared with him on her phone.

Then he regaled them with a story of his middle brother roughhousing him into a palm tree and accidentally bloodying his face against its trunk seconds before their annual family photo. He took off his glasses to flaunt the damage and then shared the picture, to my parents’ polite disbelief. In it, Cory’s face looked like a crime scene, and everybody was cracking up, his mother most of all. I appreciated Cory’s family but felt relieved that I would never have to live with any of them. I wondered if quiet Macon and his quiet mother (no need to disclose the agoraphobia yet) had risen another rung in my parents’ minds.

“I’m glad you two are still friends,” my mom said to Cory and me, and the awkwardness returned. We said goodbye, and he carried my suitcase to his car. He didn’t have to do that anymore, but I doubted he did it because my parents were there. It was just who he was. The smell inside his car was uncanny, familiar yet from a past that already felt very distant. My parents were still watching, so we were stiff with each other until we were out of sight.

Cory exhaled. “Oh my God. That was weird, right?”

The sound of his laughter loosened me. “ So weird.”

“I didn’t know if they’d want to talk to me.”

“Of course they did. They’ve always liked you.”

“Your dad had more of a vibe than your mom. I don’t think he was excited to see me.”

“I think he was just confused and didn’t know how to act. Thanks for driving me. I know it’s weird”—there was that word again—“but I appreciate it.”

“Glad for the company. What happened to your car? Did the engine finally die?”

“Yeah. I’ve been carless since summer, but it’s not normally a problem since I live close to the store.”

“What about everything else? Groceries and going out? Are you ridesharing?”

“Oh no. My—” I broke off. My boyfriend has a car contained a crucial piece of information that I hadn’t told him yet. This wouldn’t have mattered if the boyfriend were anybody other than Macon.

He didn’t miss the implication, though. His grin spread into his voice. “Your what ?”

“My boyfriend has a car.”

Cory hollered and honked the horn with glee.

I shoved his hands away from it. “Okay, okay.”

“What’s his name, how did you meet?” He glanced over and saw my reluctance. “Oh my God. This is going to be good, isn’t it? Please tell me it’s embarrassing.”

“It’s not, it’s just…” I swallowed. “It’s Macon.”

The mirth slid from his face. As he processed the information, his expression turned incredulous before it transformed again into righteousness. “I knew it. I fucking knew it!”

“Okay.” I gritted my teeth. “Calm down.”

“Oh man. Macon.”

“You never did like him.”

Cory laughed with outrage, but he also seemed to find the situation hilarious. “Yeah, because he clearly had a thing for you. And you clearly liked him back!”

“He was my friend! We were only ever friends.”

“Yeah, no.” He shook his head, accusingly but jokingly. “It was the way you talked about him. I could see it. I knew.”

“Well, I didn’t know.”

He laughed again as he yelled, “How could you not know?”

I shrugged helplessly. It was true that I hadn’t been aware. But I also sort of had, and it didn’t feel kind to admit that part to him.

“Fuck,” he said. “Macon Nowakowski.”

I grinned, ready to break his brain again. “We live together.”

“ What ? Since when?”

“A few weeks ago.”

“When did you get together? Did you hook up last winter when we…?” His face screwed up. “Never mind. It’s still weird! I’m not sure I want to know.”

“No,” I said. “It only happened last month.”

“AND YOU ALREADY MOVED IN TOGETHER?”

It made us laugh so hard we both cried.

“I’m not sure how to process any of this,” he said.

“It’s okay. It’s still new to me, too.”

A thought occurred to him. “Wait. Does he know I’m driving you home?”

“Of course he does.”

“And he’s not, like, worried about it?”

I rolled my eyes. “No. He’s an adult.”

“I know he is. Damn it.” We cracked up again before he added slyly, “My girlfriend knows I’m driving you home, too.”

“Oh my God. You have been waiting to drop that.”

He pounded on his steering wheel. “I have!”

“Is it the woman from earlier this year?”

“It is. She’s an adult, too,” he bragged.

I didn’t tell him that I already knew she was older than us. I didn’t want him to know I’d looked her up. But there was relief and joy for both of us in getting to talk to somebody who understood, who didn’t need anything explained. We’d both been stuck, we’d both had a hellish year, and now we were both thriving on the other side. He told me how he and Holland had met on his very first night out and how they’d kept running into each other all year long. He had never believed in fate. Now he did. I was less certain about fate, but I felt grateful that time and proximity had been on Macon’s and my side.

“Do you think you’ll marry her?” I asked. It wasn’t interrogatory, like my sister’s line of questioning had been, and he didn’t take it that way. It was more like a continuation of our last conversation in the diner.

“I do.”

“ Cory ,” I said happily.

“I mean, not yet.” He laughed. “I’ve fucked up in a lot of ways this year. She needs to know I’m steady. But yeah. Marriage, kids. I see the whole thing with her.”

“That’s great,” I said, meaning it.

“What about you?”

There was a swing in my mood.

Cory quieted. “Sorry, Ig. You don’t have to answer that.”

I explained that I did want to marry Macon, but I feared it might not be what he wanted. That this was a conversation we needed to have soon, and I was dreading it. That I didn’t know what I would do if he told me that he never wanted to marry, but that the possibility was real.

Cory’s voice hardened. “Don’t you dare put that shit off. You have to have that conversation now .”

“I know, I know—”

“I’m serious. You need to talk to him about this. You can’t let this sit between you unspoken. Don’t do what we did.”

He sounded like my sister. They were right, and it was a horrendous feeling. Imagining losing Macon felt so much worse than actually losing Cory had been.

“Listen,” he said, trying to slow my visible spiral, “I don’t know what he’ll say. I don’t know his history. But I do know he’s always been into you. And I bet he would have pushed his boring-ass girlfriend out of the way to shove a ring onto your finger years ago if I hadn’t been in the picture.”

It hung in the air between us for a moment, and then I whispered dramatically, “She was boring, wasn’t she?”

“And self-righteous. I wouldn’t have wanted to marry her either.”

“You also didn’t want to marry me,” I pointed out.

“Yet I almost did just because you’re so great.”

I laughed.

We didn’t stop talking for the entire nine-hour drive, catching up and sharing stories. It turned out that Holland had also obtained an unexpected cat this year, and Cory had also grown attached to it. We shared photos, and I felt smug that Edmond was much cuter in addition to being better behaved. But it felt strange and magical that even though our paths had diverged, they were still running parallel to one another.

The sky began darkening as we neared Ridgetop, and the mountain air was tinged with … something else.

SNOW , Macon texted.

I was shocked by the all caps. It’s snowing?!

Not yet, but it’s supposed to start later tonight.

Sounds like it’s waiting for me.

It’s not the only one , he said, which made my whole body tingle.

“It’s going to snow,” I said to Cory, and then he got excited, too.

Another text arrived, this one from Mika. Are you back yet?

Home in a half hour!

Come to the store , she said. I have a Christmas present for you.

Is it SNOW?

You heard! (No. It’s something better.)

“I think it’s the sales numbers,” I told Cory, sitting forward in my seat. “I think we hit our goal.”

“Why wouldn’t she just text that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she made a cake to celebrate?”

“Do you want me to drop you off at the bookstore or at Macon’s?”

I checked the time. “The store. It’s a late shift, so he’s still at work anyway.” I texted the change of plans to Macon and asked him to pick me up at Bildungsroman. By the time we arrived, my stomach was writhing—about the sales, but also about Macon. It felt incredible that I was about to see him again. And so daunting that I would have to confront him about our future.

Cory pulled up to the curb to let me out. I retrieved my suitcase from his trunk, and then he turned on his hazards to pop out and hug me goodbye.

“Oh my God,” he said, catching sight of something over my shoulder. “It is him.”

I turned around. Macon was on the opposite side of the street, waiting to cross. He was wearing his rumpled duffel coat, his hair was disheveled, and his work pen was still tucked behind his ear. He looked exactly like he always had—except now he was mine.

My heart soared.

“I mean, you told me it was him,” Cory said. “But yep. There he is.”

Macon was checking his phone and hadn’t noticed us.

“Ugh,” Cory said.

I smiled.

“Well, good luck,” Cory said. “I hope everything works out for you two.”

“You sure about that?”

He gave me a cheeky grin. “Hey, I can dislike the guy and still want you to be happy.” As Macon began to cross, Cory waved with his whole arm and shouted, “I got it from here, buddy.”

Macon startled to see us.

“Yeah, she says she’s still in love with me, so I’m taking her home.”

I punched Cory in the abdomen, laughing. “You dick.”

“Hi, Cory,” Macon said.

He strolled toward us, calm and unthreatened. I raced toward him and launched myself into his arms. He wrapped them around me tightly and kissed me passionately.

“Hi,” I said, gazing up at him.

“Hi,” he said, gazing down at me. He didn’t let go. I don’t think he wanted to, but I also sensed that part of it was for show.

Cory laughed. “Bye, Iggy.”

“Bye, Cory. Thanks for the ride.”

He got into his car, turned off his hazards, and sped away with a rude series of honks and a middle finger out the window.

Macon was still holding me. He looked delighted.

“He supports my choice,” I said, “but he also doesn’t like you very much.”

“As somebody who was in that exact position for many years, I know how he feels.”

I beamed and kissed him again. “I missed you.”

“I missed you .”

“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you still be at work?”

“Library closed early,” he said. “Snow.”

I laughed. “Oh my God! You got the email early?”

He laughed, too. “We did.”

I burrowed deeper into him, breathing in his familiar scent. “Don’t ever let me go.”

“Okay.”

He held me.

“Actually, it’s cold,” I said. “Let’s go inside. But you still can’t let go.”

“I promise I will never let go of you.” As our bodies broke apart, he took my hand. With his other hand, he grabbed my suitcase. I shifted so I could hold on to him with both of mine.

“I have news,” he said in a tone that announced it was good. “I got the job.”

“What? Macon! That’s amazing.”

“I found out last week, but I wanted to tell you in person. I start in January. We’ll be working near each other again. And I can come for lunch, like you said.”

“We can walk to work together!”

“Or maybe I’ll get a bike, too. But at least I can drive you on rainy days now.”

“Or snowy ones,” I said.

“Or snowy ones.”

We were standing on the Roman’s mosaic. “I’m so proud of you, and I want to hear everything about it. But first, I need to get warm and see what Mika wants.”

“You do,” he agreed.

I gave him a look that said, You know what this is about?

He smiled and let go of my suitcase, not my hand, to open the door. The bell rang above our heads. We entered the bookstore, and my coworkers cheered. “There she is!” Mika ran up to us and hugged me. She laughed when Macon and I did not drop hands.

“The store looks great,” I said. I was overjoyed to be back.

Everybody was staring at me with an eager, expectant look.

“What?” I said, and then—for the briefest moment—I thought Macon was about to propose. Even though he was not aware of the discussion I’d been having inside my head for the past week. Even though proposing in public was not his style.

But then I heard it: a rhythmic heartbeat, deep and stately.

My eyes brimmed. “Is that what I think it is?”

Mika took my free hand, and together she and Macon led me to the corner where the grandfather clock had been placed.

“But … this is too much. Doesn’t Carla want it?”

“She called me last week. She said our store looked great, but the sound was all wrong.” Mika was smiling and still holding on to me, too. “She also mentioned that the clock would be too loud for her new condo. Macon picked it up and brought it here a few days ago.”

I pressed his hand—it was another good surprise that he’d been keeping from me—as I said, “She found a condo!”

“She did,” Mika said. “Looks like you’ll be helping her move next month.”

I laughed with a groan. “It’s gonna be a long time before I have another day off, isn’t it?”

“You just had nine of them,” she said. “It’s my turn.”

“You didn’t tell her to look closer,” Stephen said, as everyone else gathered around.

“Oh!” Mika said. “Look closer.”

I was already looking, and I gasped. An index card was nestled into a groove on the clock. A large number was written on it. “Please tell me that’s what I think it is.”

“It’s what you think it is.”

I choked up again. “We did it.”

“We did.”

“Like, barely,” I said, laughing and pulling the card out.

She laughed and teared up, too. “Barely counts. We’re still in business.”

Macon squeezed my hand and let go, allowing Mika and me to fully embrace. And then Stephen and Jo and Amelia Louisa joined in. We cheered and shrieked and celebrated, and then, after showering them with my profuse thanks, I shooed them out the door. It wasn’t quite closing time, but the store was empty. Ridgetop was ready for snow.

I carried the index card to my office, centered it on my desk, and snapped a photo for Kat.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH , she texted back, along with an ecstatic selfie.

I hugged my phone in lieu of the real person.

“You’ll have to frame that card and hang it up in here beside Len and Mary,” Macon said. “They’d be proud of you. I’m proud of you. You worked so hard for this.”

“I’m proud of you . Look at us with our new jobs.”

“Look at us,” he said, eyes locking with mine.

My body surged with the renewal of longing from our time apart, and we kissed again until it almost turned into something more. But we both wanted to get home before the snow. He helped me close the registers, lock up the money, and turn off the lights. The grandfather clock ticked its steady reassurance through the darkness.

It’s time , it was telling me. It’s time.

Macon grabbed my suitcase again and wheeled it to the front door. My hands were shaking. He opened the door for me, and the bell rang. “I’m parked a street over,” he said, as I ducked and passed underneath his arm. He laughed at my strange maneuver. “What was that?”

But as I locked the door behind us, his laughter trailed off. And when I turned around, I saw that he was remembering the same night that I was.

“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” I said.

He held my gaze carefully, nervously. “Okay.”

“The thing is,” I said. And then the rest of my words froze.

“The thing is…”

“I want to get married someday,” I said.

His eyes widened.

Terror pulsed through me. Now that I finally had exactly what I wanted, I was teetering on the precipice of losing everything. But I couldn’t let the view of someone standing before me block my entire future. Not even when it was the right someone. The best someone. I had made an irrational, catastrophic decision at the beginning of the year rather than address my real feelings and face my fears head on. I couldn’t do that again. I had to know where Macon stood. I had no choice but to barrel forward.

“And we’ve never talked about marriage, so I don’t know how you feel about it. If it’s a thing you ever want to do with anybody . But I’m scared to unpack my boxes if it means I might have to repack them in eleven years. And I’m not trying to pressure you or get engaged right now, but I want to have a discussion. I just need to know if it’s even on the table—”

“I want to marry you,” he said.

My heart stopped. “You do?”

“Desperately.”

“Oh,” I whispered.

“I didn’t know how you felt about it either. And I was afraid I would scare you away if I said something too soon, but I would have married you yesterday. I would have married you a month ago. A year ago. Five years ago.”

“But you’ve had all those long-term relationships. And you’ve never even been engaged.”

“Because I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with them.”

“But you want to spend it with me?”

“ Yes ,” he said.

The word snagged inside me, rewriting the code, traveling upward and repeating into infinity.

Yes. Ingrid. Yes.

Something cold and wet hit my cheeks. We looked up at the same time. Tiny snowflakes were tumbling and swirling down from the sky. Our eyes met in wonder. But just as I was about to rewrite the second wrong of that night—just as I was about to kiss him and be kissed back—he stopped me with a concern of his own.

“Before this goes any further,” he said, and my eyebrows rose at the implication. He smiled, though unease quickly replaced it. “My mom. I don’t know if you remember, but—”

“She can take Edmond’s room. We’ll make it work.”

It looked like he wanted to believe me but was afraid to. “She’s ill. It won’t be easy.”

“I know. I want to help. I want to live with you forever, and I understand that that probably means living with her, too.”

“It’s a big commitment.”

“So is marriage,” I said, taking his hands again.

“What about children?”

I was thrown. “I thought … we’d sort of talked about that already?”

“Because I’ve never imagined myself with kids, but if you’ve changed your mind, I would reconsider it. But I need to know now. I need to know if that’s something we should discuss. I’m not getting any younger.”

My heart swelled, but I was even more grateful that our opinions remained the same. “I haven’t changed my mind.”

He seemed relieved. “What about the wedding? Big or small or—”

“Small. I don’t want two hundred people watching us. But not at the courthouse either. I don’t want a Beavis and Butt-Head wedding.”

He finally laughed. Tears shimmered in his eyes.

“Maybe a ceremony in the garden with just our closest family and friends,” I said.

“Yes. Good. But what about beaches?”

Now I laughed, completely thrown. “What?”

“If I’m vacationing, I prefer cold beaches. Rocky, gray, unsuitable for swimming. But most people don’t like that, so if you prefer something tropical, I’d be fine with taking turns.”

“I already knew that about you.” I smiled. “And I also prefer a moody beach.”

He tucked a windblown strand of my hair behind my ear and confessed, “I already knew that about you, too.”

“But I would like to visit Kat someday, even though the beach in her town is sunny. I’ve never been outside of the country.”

“Neither have I. And I would love to visit Australia with you someday.”

“So … is that it? Do we know everything about each other now?”

“I think so,” he said. Yet I still didn’t see it coming. I still gasped as he got down on one knee in the mosaicked entryway. “I don’t have a ring.”

“Yes.” My answer bubbled out before he’d even asked.

The way he laughed and beamed up at me made me feel like I was the only sun he needed. “Ingrid Dahl. Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” I said again, nodding and bobbing my head. I helped him stand and pulled him into a sweeping kiss. Our noses were cold, but our mouths were warm. We kissed for so long that the snowflakes fattened and collected on the ground. They dusted our hair and powdered our coats. We kissed until our lips were sore, our bodies were shivering, and our fingers were frozen. We kissed like we had forever.