“My mother still talks about that story,” he says softly.“How much it meant to everyone.To us.”
I’m taking the ornament to Papet this New Year’s.Proof it survived both the fall and my divorce.Everything else from Cape Cod?Still boxed up in my parents’ attic.Like artifacts.Like feelings I never fully unpacked.
“That ornament means a lot to me,” I murmur, tapping the steering wheel.Definitely a soothing mechanism like my therapist said.Tap-tap-tap.Tap-tap.
“Maybe, but it’s mine.”His voice hardens.
“What?”Well, that’s new.
“After all the work I did to get it repaired when you knocked it off the tree.”
Ah yes, the fight.One of many.Where I ended up believing him instead of my own eyes.Yet again.
When I don’t immediately respond, he pushes harder.“The receipt is inmyname.Jennie was looking at old photos last night and asked where it was.I had to tell her my ex-wife is being unreasonable.Again.I want to surprise her with it at Christmas.”
Jennie.My former mentee who’s now sleeping in my former bed.The one I trained, supported through her first year, who cried on my shoulder more than once.Now she’s playing house with my ex-husband.But I also know if he wants to“surprise”her, he’s already being an ass to her.
He continues, “You know the holidays are hard for her, and you’re making them harder.”
“I?”And I sound like Dorothy’s favorite squeaky toy.“Me?”
“Yes, you.Who else?You clearly are not over me, and I get it, but I moved on.You should, too.So, Eve… tell me, where is the ornament?”
“Maybe it’s shoved all the way up your ass,” I murmur as I check the GPS again.Is it frozen?
“Very professional.I didn’t want to go there.But don’t make me call—”
I hang up before he finishes, swallowing a scream.Goodreads says villains should have layers.Chuck definitely does.Three dimensions of pure, undiluted assholery.
The Bluetooth reconnects automatically.Like I actually didn’t hang up on him.My barely functioning car is possessed by a Christmas spirit, and not a happy one.
His voice is coming in and out.Sounding more metallic by the second.“J—j—Jenn—ie.Your—protocol.”Yes, I know you stole my family support program protocol.Fuck you, Chuck all the way to the moon.
“Part—paaaart—time.Cancer—” Even my malfunctioning Bluetooth can’t stop my lungs from freezing.
Hang up.Hang up now before he says something that really cuts.I press the button, but I can still hear him breathe.
And, of course, now, my car decides it’s time to let me hear him crystal clear.
“Cancer fucked you up.And gave you an inflated ego.You only care about yourself not the patients.You don’t care about anyone else, really.”
And there we go.Chuck’s greatest hit.His way of erasing my calling as a nurse.The one I discovered after being on the other side of the hospital bed.Believing I could show ER patients they’re still people, not just another chart.At least his assessment doesn’t sting as much anymore.It’s a faded bruise on the heart that only makes you go “ouch” when you poke it.And Chuck’s second specialty, after Emergency Medicine, isHow to Make Eve Feel Like Shit.He earned three PhDs on the subject during our marriage.
I can picture him running a hand through that expensive McDreamy haircut.“You were always broken and even I couldn’t fix you.”
This time, when I hang up on him again, it works.
Nope.It doesn’t.
Bluetooth: 3.Eve: 0.
Blanche snorts.
“Is that my girl I hear?”Chuck says, smug as ever, protein shaker clinking in the background.“How are my dogs?You’ve had your credentials back for three months…what else are you doing except spoiling them rotten?”
“The dogs you never walked are fine,” I snap, glancing in the rearview mirror.Dorothy’s licking Blanche’s ear, and Blanche shoots me a side-eye.And he doesn’t get to know that I do, indeed, have a job.Starting tomorrow.In the middle of nowhere, apparently.
“My lawyers advise me I have options,” he continues, with enough of an edge that I know it’s a threat.“If you don’t get me my ornament before Christmas, I’ll sue.Got it?Happy holidays, sweetheart.”
