Landline

CHAPTER 27

When Georgie woke up, she couldn’t believe she’d fallen asleep. (How could she have fallen asleep? She’d probably fall asleep during an air raid.) She sat up and looked at the clock, 9 A.M., then at the phone splayed out on the carpet.

What had she done?

She crawled out of bed, hands first, hanging the phone up before she even landed on the floor. It took a few tries and a few minutes before she got a dial tone again. Then she dialed Neal’s house impatiently, catching her finger in the next number before the dial had completely unwound. . . .

Busy signal.

What had she done?

Neal’s mom must be on the phone. Or his dad. (Jesus. His dad.)

Georgie thought about how you used to be able to break into someone’s call, if you had an emergency. You could call the operator and she’d interrupt. That had happened to Georgie once in high school, before they got call waiting; one of her mom’s friends needed to get in touch with her mom, and Georgie had been on the phone for two hours with Ludy. When the operator cut in, Georgie felt like it was the voice of God. It took a while before she could talk on the phone again without imagining that the operator was there listening.

She hung up the phone and tried again. Still busy.

She hung up—and it rang.

Georgie jerked the receiver back to her ear. “Hello?”

“It’s just me,” Heather said. “I’m calling from inside the house.”

“I’m fine,” Georgie said.

“I can tell. Fine people are always telling everybody how fine they are.”

“What do you want?”

“I’m leaving in a little bit, and Mom wants you to come out for breakfast and say good-bye. She’s making French toast.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“She says depressed people need to be reminded to eat and bathe. So you should also probably take a shower.”

“Okay,” Georgie said.

“Okay, bye,” Heather said. “Love you.”

“Love you, bye.”

“But you’re actually coming out to say good-bye, too, right?”

“Yes,” Georgie said, “bye.”

“Love you, bye.”

Georgie hung up and tried Neal’s number again. Busy.

She looked over at the clock—five after nine. What time would Neal have to leave Omaha if he was going to drive to California by tomorrow morning? What time had he gotten here that Christmas Day?

She couldn’t remember. The week they were broken up was a weepy blur. A weepy blur fifteen years in her rearview mirror.

Georgie picked up the phone again. One, four, oh, two . . .

Four, five, three . . .

Four, three, three, one . . .

Busy.

“Take a shower!” her mom shouted down the hall. “I’m making French toast!”

“Coming!” Georgie yelled at the door.

She crawled over to her closet and started pulling things out.

Rollerblades. Wrapping paper. Stacks of old Spoons.

At the back of the closet was a red and green box meant for Christmas ornaments. Georgie had written SAVE in big letters on every side with a black Sharpie. She pulled it out and opened the lid, kneeling on the floor next to it.

The box was completely full of papers. Georgie had started a second Save Box after she and Neal got married (it was at their house somewhere, in the attic), but by then, she had a computer and the Internet, and all her saves became bookmarks and screenshots—jpegs that she dragged onto her desktop, then forgot about, or lost the next time her hard drive failed. Georgie never printed out photos anymore. If she wanted to look at old Christmas pictures, she had to go searching through memory cards. They had a box of videotapes from when Alice was a baby that they couldn’t even watch because the cassettes didn’t fit into any of their machines.

Everything at the top of this Save Box was from just before Georgie moved out of her mom’s house. Just before her and Neal’s wedding. (Which has already happened, she reminded herself.)

She found the receipt for her wedding dress—three hundred dollars, used, from a consignment store.

“I hope whoever wore it first is happy,” Georgie’d said to Neal. “I don’t want leftover bad-marriage mojo.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Neal said. “We’re going to be so happy, we’ll neutralize it.”

He was happy then. During their engagement. She’d never seen him so happy.

As soon as Georgie said yes, as soon as the ring was on her finger—it stopped at the second knuckle of her ring finger, so he slipped it onto her pinkie—Neal jumped up and hugged her. He was smiling so big, his dimples reached theretofore unknown depths.

He held her by the base of her spine and the back of her neck, and kissed her face all over. “Marry me,” he kept saying. “Marry me, Georgie.”

She kept saying yes.

The memory was fuzzy in her head now, which seemed impossible—how could she have let any of those details go? At some point, her brain must have taken the whole scene for granted. She and Neal were so fundamentally married now, it didn’t seem important how they got there.

She remembered that he was happy. She remembered the way he cupped the back of her head and said, “From this moment onward. From every moment onward.”

God—had Neal really said that? Had she really only half-understood her own proposal?

Georgie dug back into the Save Box in earnest. . . .

Her college diploma.

Some stupid chart she’d torn out of Spy magazine.

The last Stop the Sun strip. The one where Neal’s dapper little hedgehog went to heaven.

Ah—there. Polaroids.

Georgie’s mom was the last person on earth to give up her Polaroid camera; she’d always lacked the follow-through to get 35-millimeter film developed.

There were three snapshots in the box from the day Neal proposed—all three taken inside the house, in front of the Christmas tree. Georgie was wearing a baggy T-shirt from her high school improv group that said NOW, GO!—and she looked like she’d spent the whole week crying. (Because she had.) Neal was wearing rumpled flannel and had been driving through the night. But still, they both looked so young and fresh. Skinny Georgie. Chubby Neal.

Only one of the pictures was in focus: Georgie rolling her eyes and holding her hand up to show the too-small ring, and Neal grinning. This might be the only photo ever taken of Neal grinning. This might be the only time he’d ever grinned. When he smiled big like that, his ears stuck out at the top and the bottom, like wrong-facing parentheses.

After these photos were taken, Georgie’s mom had forced pancakes on Neal, and he’d admitted that he’d gone the last two nights without sleep. “I pulled over for a few hours in Nevada, I think.” Georgie dragged him to her room and pushed him onto the bed, taking off his shoes and his belt, and unbuttoning his jeans, so she could rub his hips and his stomach and the small of his back. She burrowed with him under her comforter.

“Marry me,” he kept saying.

“I will,” she kept answering.

“I think I can live without you,” he said, like it was something he’d spent twenty-seven hours thinking about, “but it won’t be any kind of life.”

Georgie laid the Polaroids out on the floor. Three moments in motion. There he was—there he was happy and hopeful. Her Neal. The right one.

“Georgie!” her mom shouted. “Come on!”

She laid the photos out on the floor and waited for them to go black.

CHAPTER 28

Her mom opened the bedroom door without knocking and walked in. “I was coming,” Georgie said.

“Too late,” her mom replied. “We’re driving Heather out to Dr. Wisner’s now.”

Georgie always forgot that Heather had a different last name. They all had different last names. Her mom was Lyons, Heather was Wisner, Georgie was McCool. Georgie’d wanted to be Grafton, but Neal wouldn’t let her. “You don’t come into this world with a name like Georgie McCool and throw it away on the first pretty face.”

“You’re not that pretty.”

“Georgie McCool. Are you kidding me—you’re a Bond girl. You can’t change your name.”

“But I’m going to be your wife.”

“I know. And I don’t need you to change anything.”

“Have you talked to the girls today?” her mom asked.

“Not yet,” Georgie said. “I talked to them yesterday.”

Had she talked to the girls yesterday? Yes. Alice. Something about Star Wars. No . . . that was a voice mail.

Had she talked to them the day before?

“You should just come along with us,” her mom said, “for the ride. The fresh air will do you good.”

“I better stay,” Georgie said. “Neal might call.”

What would it mean if he called now? That he was still in Nebraska? That all bets were off?

“Bring your phone,” her mom said.

Georgie just shook her head.

Her mom settled down onto the floor next to her. She and Georgie were wearing matching lounge pants. Her mom’s were teal, Georgie’s were pink. Her mom reached over Georgie’s lap and picked up one of the Polaroids—a blurry one of Neal looking at Georgie and Georgie looking off camera.

“God, do you remember that?” her mom sighed. “That boy drove halfway across the country in one day; I don’t think he even stopped for coffee. He’s always been king of the grand gesture, hasn’t he?”

Down on one knee. Waiting outside Seth’s frat house. Inking cherry blossoms across her shoulders.

He always had.

Her mom set down the photo and squeezed Georgie’s velveteen knee, shaking it a little. “It’s going to get better,” her mom said. “It’s just like those commercials say. ‘It gets better.’”

“Are you talking about that campaign for gay kids?”

“It doesn’t matter what it’s for. It’s true about everything. I know you feel awful now; you’re right in the thick of it. And it’s probably going to get worse—I don’t know how you’re going to work this out with the girls. But time heals all wounds, Georgie, every single one of them. You just have to get through this. Someday you and Neal will both be happier. You just have to survive, and give it time.”

She started kissing Georgie’s face. Georgie tried not to flinch away. (And failed.) Her mom sighed again and stood up. “There’s French toast for you in the kitchen. And plenty of leftover pizza . . .”

Georgie nodded.

Her mom stopped at the door. “Do you think if I give my ‘it gets better’ speech to your sister, she’ll admit she has a girlfriend?”

Georgie almost laughed. “She doesn’t think you know.”

“I didn’t,” her mom said. “Kendrick kept telling me, ever since she wore that suit to Homecoming, but I told him it was perfectly normal for a busty girl to want to de-emphasize her curves. Look at you—you’re not gay.”

“Right . . . ,” Georgie said.

“But if she’s going to hold a girl’s hand on my couch—even a really handsome girl—well, I’m not blind.”

“Alison seems nice.”

“It’s fine with me,” her mom said. “The women in our family have terrible luck with men, anyway.”

“How can you say that? You have Kendrick.”

“Well, now I do.”

Georgie came out to the living room to say good-bye to Heather, then took a shower and put her mom’s clothes back on. She couldn’t believe she’d specifically gone to a lingerie store without buying new underwear.

She thought about going out to the laundry room and digging Neal’s T-shirt out of the trash. . . .

The first time she’d stolen that shirt had been the first weekend she’d stayed at his apartment. Georgie had been wearing the same clothes for two days, and she smelled like sweat and salsa—but she hadn’t wanted to go home to change. Neither of them wanted the weekend to end. So she took a shower at Neal’s apartment, and he gave her a pair of track pants that were too small for her hips, and the Metallica T-shirt, and a pair of striped boxers.

She’d laughed at him. “You want me to wear your underwear?”

“I don’t know.” Neal blushed. “I didn’t know what you’d want.”

It was a Sunday afternoon; Neal’s roommates were at work. Georgie came back from the shower, wearing his T-shirt and the boxers—those were too small, too—and Neal pretended not to notice.

Then he’d laughed and pinned her to his mattress.

It was so rare to make Neal laugh. . . .

Georgie used to tease him about being a waste of dimples. “Your face is like an O. Henry story. The world’s sweetest dimples and the boy who never laughs.”

“I laugh.”

“When? When you’re alone?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Every night when I’m sure everyone is asleep, I sit on my bed and laugh maniacally.”

“You never laugh at me.”

“You want me to laugh at you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’m a comedy writer. I want everyone to laugh at me.”

“I guess I’m not much of a laugher.”

“Or maybe you just don’t think I’m funny.”

“You’re very funny, Georgie. Ask anybody.”

She pinched his ribs. “Not funny enough to make you laugh.”

“I never feel like laughing when things are funny,” he said. “I just think to myself, ‘Now, that’s funny.’”

“My life is like an O. Henry story,” Georgie said, “the funniest girl in the world and the boy who never laughs.”

“‘The funniest girl in the world,’ huh? I’m laughing on the inside right now.”

Neal’s dimples dimpled even when he was just thinking about smiling. And his blue eyes shone.

They’d kept having this conversation over the years, but it had gotten a lot less playful.

“I know you don’t watch our show,” Georgie would say.

“You wouldn’t watch your show if it wasn’t your show,” Neal would answer. While he was folding laundry. Or slicing avocados.

“Yeah, but it is my show. And you’re my husband.”

“The last time I watched it, you said I was being smug.”

“You were being smug. You were acting like it was beneath you.”

“Because it is beneath me. Christ, Georgie, it’s beneath you.”

It didn’t matter that he was right. . . .

Anyway.

The first time she’d borrowed that T-shirt, Neal had laughed and pinned her to his bed.

Because he didn’t laugh when he thought something was funny—he laughed when he was happy.

CHAPTER 29

Everyone was gone now. Her mom had left the TV on in the living room, so the pugs could listen to Christmas carols.

Georgie sat at the kitchen table and stared at the Touch Tone Trimline phone mounted on the wall.

Neal wouldn’t call now, from the past. She didn’t really want him to.

She just didn’t want this to be over.

Georgie wasn’t ready to lose Neal yet. Even to her past self. She wasn’t ready to let him go.

(Somebody had given Georgie a magic phone, and all she’d wanted to do with it was stay up late talking to her old boyfriend. If they’d given her a proper time machine, she probably would have used it to cuddle with him. Let somebody else kill Hitler.)

Maybe the Neal she’d talked to all week was on his way to California, maybe he wasn’t, maybe he was a figment of her imagination—but that Neal still felt like he was within reach. Georgie still believed she could make things right with him.

Her Neal . . .

Her Neal didn’t answer anymore when she called.

Her Neal had stopped trying to get through to her.

And maybe that meant that he wasn’t hers. Not really.

Neal.

Georgie stood up and walked over to the phone, running her hand down the cool bow of it before lifting it off the cradle. The buttons lit up, and she carefully pressed in Neal’s cell number. . . .

The call immediately went to voice mail.

Georgie got ready to leave a message—though she wasn’t sure what to say—but she didn’t get a beep. “We’re sorry,” said one voice. “This mailbox is . . . full,” said another. The call disconnected and Georgie heard a dial tone.

She crumpled against the wall, still holding on to the receiver.

Did it even matter whether Neal was on his way to her in 1998—if he didn’t come back to her now? What good was it to win him in the past, just to lose him in the future?

In a few days, Neal would bring the girls home to California. She’d meet them at the airport. What would he and Georgie have to say to each after ten days of silence?

They were frozen in place when Neal left last week. Now they were frozen through.

The dial tone switched to the off-the-hook signal. Georgie let go of the receiver, and it bounced lazily on the spiral cord.

Is this how Neal had felt? Last night? (In 1998.) When Georgie left the phone off the hook? He’d already been so upset, he already sounded so scared—it must have driven him crazy when he couldn’t get through to her. How many times had he tried?

Georgie had always thought it must have been a powerful romantic urge that made Neal drive all night to get to her on Christmas morning. But maybe he got in the car because he couldn’t get through to her. Maybe he just needed to see her and know that they were okay. . . .

Georgie stood up in slow motion.

Neal. King of the grand gesture. Neal who crossed the desert and found his way through the mountains to reach her.

Neal.

Georgie’s key fob was on the counter, where Heather had left it. She grabbed it.

What else did she need? Driver’s license, credit card, phone—all in the car. She could sneak out the garage door and leave the house locked up. She checked on the puppies on her way out.

Georgie could do this.

There was nothing else left for her to do.

CHAPTER 30

Georgie ducked under the garage door as it was closing.

“You shouldn’t do that,” someone said. “It’s dangerous.”

She turned—Seth was sitting on the front steps.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Just trying to figure out what to say to you when I knock on the door. I’m expecting you to be out of your mind. Possibly high. Definitely dressed like a lunatic. I might not say anything at all; I might just knock you unconscious—I’ll need something heavy, I was thinking about that old yellow phone of yours—and drag you back to the office.”

Georgie took a few steps toward him. He was wearing dark, sharply cuffed jeans and pointy oxfords, with a green cardigan that Bing Crosby could have worn to sing “White Christmas.”

She looked up into his eyes. He looked awful.

“I don’t suppose you were just heading in to work,” he said.

She shook her head.

“Or that you’ve been writing.”

She watched him.

“I haven’t been writing,” Seth said—then laughed. It was a real laugh, even though it sounded painful. He shoved his hands in his hip pockets and looked out at the lawn. “That’s not true, actually. . . . I’ve been writing you a lot of e-mails. ‘Hey, Georgie, what’s up?’ ‘Hey, Georgie, is this funny?’ ‘Hey, Georgie, I can’t do this by myself. I’ve never even tried before, and now I know that I can’t, and it’s terrible.’” He looked over at her. “Hey. Georgie.”

“Hey,” she said.

They held each other’s eyes, like they were holding on to something hot. Seth was the first to look away.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He didn’t answer.

She took another step forward. “We can reschedule the meeting. Maher Jafari likes us.”

“I’m not sure we can,” he said. “I’m not sure it matters.”

“It matters.”

He jerked his head back to her. “Then when should we reschedule it, Georgie? Have you penciled in next week to stop losing your mind? How’s January look for Neal? Think he might find some time to cut you some slack?”

“Seth, don’t . . .”

He stood up from the stairs and walked toward her. “Don’t what? Talk about Neal? Should I just pretend everything’s okay? Like you do?”

“You don’t understand.”

He raised his hands, frustrated. “Who understands better than me? I’ve been there since the beginning. Right there.”

“I can’t talk about this now. I have to go.” She turned away, but Seth grabbed her arm and held it.

His voice was soft. “Wait.”

Georgie stopped and looked back at him.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “You asked me if I would try to change anything if I could go back to the past. And I told you that I would—and I would—but I didn’t tell you . . .” He let out a loud breath. “Georgie, maybe it’s not supposed to be like this, you know?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“I always think about that Halloween. When Neal was such a dick to you? And you asked me to take you home, and I did. And I—I left you there alone. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to. Maybe I was supposed to stay.”

“No. Seth . . .”

“Maybe we’re not supposed to be this way, Georgie.”

“No.”

“How do you know?” He squeezed her arm. “You’re not happy. I’m not happy.”

“You usually seem happy.”

“Maybe compared to you.”

“No,” she said. “You seem genuinely happy.”

“You only see me when I’m with you.”

Georgie inhaled faintly, then gently pulled her arm away.

“I . . .” Seth drew his hands back into his pockets. “This is the only relationship I’ve ever been able to make work. This one. I love you, Georgie.”

The words pushed her eyes closed.

She opened them. “But you’re not in love with me.”

Seth laughed again, just as painfully. “It’s been so long since that was an option, I don’t even know anymore. . . . I know it kills me to see you like this.”

His collar was caught in his sweater. She reached up and smoothed it out.

“It kills me,” she said, “to see you like this.”

They were standing close, face-to-face, looking in each other’s eyes. In all the times they’d stood next to each other, Georgie was pretty sure they’d never stood exactly here.

“That’s what I’d change,” Seth said. “If I could go back.”

“We can’t go back,” she whispered.

“I love you,” he said.

She nodded.

He leaned closer. “I need to hear you say it.”

Georgie didn’t look away; she thought it through, and finally said, “I love you, too, Seth, but—”

“Stop,” he said. “Just . . . stop. I know.” His shoulders relaxed, and he shifted his weight at an angle away from her. It was enough to make their posture ordinary again.

They were both quiet.

“So—” Seth looked down the driveway. “—where are you headed?”

“Omaha,” she said.

“Omaha,” he repeated. “You’re forever going to Omaha. . . .” He reached out, quickly, and pulled the top of her head against his lips. Then he was moving away, striding gracefully toward his car. “Don’t forget my salad dressing.”

CHAPTER 31

Georgie had never driven herself to the airport.

She’d only flown by herself once, when she was eleven, to visit her dad in Michigan. It hadn’t gone well, and she hadn’t gone back. And then her dad died when she was in high school, and when her mom asked if Georgie wanted to go the funeral, she said no.

“You didn’t go?” Neal was shocked when she’d told him. You could tell he was shocked because he raised his left eyebrow two millimeters. (Neal’s face was like a flower blooming—you’d need time-lapse photography to really see it in action. But Georgie’d become such a student of his face, she could read most of the twitches.)

“I didn’t know him,” Georgie said. They were sitting on the foldout couch in Neal’s parents’ basement. It was the second or third Christmas after they were married, and they’d come to stay for almost a week.

His mom put them in the basement, with the foldout, even though there was a double bed up in Neal’s old bedroom. “She doesn’t want us to disturb the sanctity of your bedroom,” Georgie teased. His parents hadn’t touched Neal’s room since he left for college. All his high school wrestling clippings and team photos were still taped to the wall. There were still clothes in the closet.

“It’s like when you go to Disneyland,” Georgie would say, “and they show you a replica of Walt’s office, exactly as he left it.”

“Would you prefer dog photos?”

“To weird sweaty photos of you in a nineteenth-century bathing costume?”

“It’s called a singlet.”

“It’s incredibly disturbing.”

Neal’s mom kept all their family photo albums in the basement. The week Georgie and Neal stayed there, she hauled out the whole stack. “If you’re ever President of the United States,” Georgie said, a large floral-patterned album spread over her lap, “historians will thank your mom for taking such good notes.”

“Only child,” he said. “She wanted to get all the memories she could out of me.”

Neal had been a solid, stolid child. Round and wide-eyed as a toddler. Looking frankly at the camera on his fifth birthday. More hobbity than ever during grade school—with his T-shirt tucked over his tummy into his maroon Toughskins, and his shaggy ’70s hair. By middle school, he’d started standing with his feet planted and his shoulders slightly forward. Not daring you to knock him down—he wasn’t that kind of short guy. Just looking like someone who couldn’t be knocked down. By high school, he was broad and steely. An immovable object.

Georgie sat on the couch looking through the albums, and Neal sat next to her, idly playing with her hair; he’d seen all these pictures before.

She stopped at a photo of Neal and Dawn dressed up for some high school dance. Jesus, they really were right out of a John Cougar Mellen-camp video.

“Yeah,” he said, “but still . . .”

“Still, what?” Georgie smoothed the plastic over the photo.

“He was your dad.”

She looked away from high school Neal, up at the Neal sitting next to her. Neal at twenty-five. Softer than in high school. With less tension around his eyes. Looking like he’d probably kiss her in a minute, when he was done making whatever point he was making.

“What?” Georgie asked.

“I just don’t understand how you could skip your father’s funeral.”

“He didn’t feel like my father,” she said.

Neal waited for her to elaborate.

“He was only married to my mom for ten minutes—I don’t even remember living with him, and he moved to Michigan when I was four.”

“Didn’t you miss him?”

“I didn’t know what I was missing.”

“But didn’t you miss something? Like even the idea of him?”

Georgie shrugged. “I guess not. I never felt incomplete or anything, if that’s what you’re asking. I think fathers must be kind of optional.”

“That is a fundamentally wrong statement.”

“Oh, you know what I mean.” Georgie went back to the photo album. There were dozens of photos from Neal’s graduation day. He looked pained in these—like, after eighteen years, he’d finally lost patience with his mom’s photo-vigilance. His dad was in nearly every photo, too, looking much more tolerant.

“I really don’t know what you mean,” Neal said.

Georgie turned the page. “Well, they’re nice, if you have one—if you have a good one—but dads aren’t necessary.”

Neal sat up straighter, away from her. “They’re absolutely necessary.”

“They must not be,” she said, turning toward him on the couch. “I didn’t have one.”

Neal’s eyebrows were grim and his mouth was flat. “That doesn’t mean you didn’t need one.”

“But I didn’t need one. I didn’t have one, and I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.”

“I am so,” she said. “How am I not fine?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“You’re being uncharacteristically irrational,” Georgie said.

“I’m not being irrational. No one else in the world would argue with me about this. Dads aren’t optional. My dad wasn’t optional.”

“Because he was there,” she said. “But if he wasn’t there, your mom would have filled in the gaps. That’s what moms do.”

“Georgie—” He pulled his arm away from her shoulders and hair. “—you’re being warped.”

She hugged the photo album against herself. “How am I being warped? I’m just sitting here being the product of a perfectly well-adjusted single-parent family.”

“Your mom isn’t well adjusted.”

“Well, that’s true. Maybe kids don’t need moms, either.” She was teasing now.

Neal wasn’t. He stood up from the couch, shaking his head some more.

“Neal . . .”

He walked toward the stairs, away from her.

“Why are you getting so mad about this?” she said. “We don’t even have kids.”

He stopped halfway up the stairs. He had to lean down below the ceiling to make eye contact with her. “Because we don’t even have kids, and you already think I’m optional.”

“Not you,” she said, not wanting to admit she was wrong—not really wanting to sort out what she did mean. “Men, in general.”

Neal stood up again, out of sight. “I can’t talk to you right now. I’m going upstairs to help with dinner.”

Georgie pushed the photo album back down into her lap and flipped to the end.

“Where are you flying today?” the woman behind the counter asked without looking up at Georgie.

“Omaha.”

“Last name?”

Georgie spelled out McCool, and the woman started clacking at her console. She frowned. “Do you have your reservation number with you?”

“I don’t have one,” Georgie said. “I need one. That’s why I’m here.”

The ticket agent looked up at Georgie. She was a black woman in her late fifties, early sixties. Her hair was pulled up into a bun, and she was eyeing Georgie over a pair of gold-framed reading glasses. “You don’t have a ticket?”

“Not yet,” Georgie said. She’d walked up to the first counter she came to. She didn’t know if this airline even flew to Omaha. “Can I get one here?”

“Yes . . . You want to fly out today?”

“As soon as possible.”

“It’s Christmas Eve,” the woman said.

“I know.” Georgie nodded.

The woman—her nametag said ESTELLE—raised her eyebrows, then looked back down at her console, clacking away again.

“You want to get to Omaha,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Tonight.”

“Yes.”

She clacked some more. Every once in a while, she’d make a discontented hmmm-ing noise.

Georgie shifted on her feet and rattled her keys against her leg. She’d already forgotten where she’d parked.

The ticket agent—Estelle—walked away and picked up a phone that was attached to the wall. It seemed like a special phone. There was an orange light built into the wall above it. Now, that’s what a magic phone should look like, Georgie thought.

Then Estelle came back to her clackity-clack console. “All right,” she sighed, after a minute.

Georgie licked her lips. They were chapped, but she didn’t have any lip balm.

“I can get you to Denver tonight on United. From there, you’re just going to have to cross your fingers. We’ve got delays across the system.”

“I’ll take it,” Georgie said. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” Estelle told her. “I’m the lady who’s about to get you stranded in the Denver airport on Christmas Eve. ID?”

Georgie handed over her driver’s license and credit card.

The ticket was exorbitantly expensive, but Georgie didn’t blink.

“You could fly to Singapore for this much,” Estelle said. “Nonstop . . . Do you have anything to check?”

“No,” Georgie said.

Estelle held her hand over a printer, waiting for the tickets. “What’s in Omaha anyway? Besides two feet of snow.”

“My kids,” Georgie said, then felt her heart squeeze. “My husband.”

The other woman’s face softened for the first time since Georgie had stepped up to the counter. She handed Georgie her boarding passes. “Well, I hope you get there sooner than later. Hurry up. You’ve got twenty minutes to get to your gate.”

For the next twenty minutes, Georgie felt like the heroine of a romantic comedy.

She even decided what song would be playing on her soundtrack—Kenny Loggins doing a big, triumphant, live version of “Celebrate Me Home.” (Slow and gentle at the beginning, building up to an irresistible crescendo. Excessive amounts of blue-eyed soul.)

She ran through the airport. No luggage to drag, no kids to hang on to.

She ran by other people’s families. By loving elderly couples. By volunteer carolers wearing red and green sweaters.

With every step, Georgie felt more sure of herself.

This was what she should have done ten minutes after Neal left last week. Flying across the country to reunite with your true love was always the right move. (Always.) (In every case.)

Everything would be all right if Georgie could just get to Neal. If she could hear his voice. If she could feel his arms around her.

Just like everything had been all right when he’d showed up on her doorstep fifteen years ago. (Tomorrow morning.) As soon as she’d seen his face that day, she’d forgiven him.

Her plane was already boarding when Georgie—flushed and breathless—arrived at the gate. A pretty blond flight attendant took her ticket and smiled. “Have a great flight—and Merry Christmas.”

CHAPTER 32

The plane didn’t take off.

Everyone got buckled up. They turned off their electronic devices. The pretty flight attendant told them which exit to head for in case of catastrophe or near-certain death. Then the plane taxied for a few minutes.

Then a few minutes more.

There was twenty minutes, probably, of taxiing.

Georgie was sitting between an extremely polished and sanded woman who tensed every time Georgie bumped her thigh and a boy about Alice’s age wearing a THIS SUUUUUUUCKS T-shirt. (He was way too young to watch Jeff’d Up, in Georgie’s opinion.)

“So, you like Trev?” she asked him.

“Who?”

“Your T-shirt.”

The kid shrugged and turned on his phone. A minute later, the flight attendant came by and asked him to turn it off.

After forty minutes of taxiing, Georgie realized the boy was the up-tight woman’s son. She kept leaning over Georgie to talk to him.

“Would you like to trade seats?” Georgie asked her.

“I always leave an empty seat between us,” the woman said. “Usually that means we end up with extra space because nobody wants to sit by themselves in the middle.”

“Did you want to sit together?” Georgie asked. “I don’t mind moving.”

“No,” the woman answered. “Better stay where we are. They use the seat assignments to identify bodies.”

The captain came on the intercom to apologize because he couldn’t turn the air-conditioning on—and to tell them to just “hang in there, we’re fifth in line to take off.”

Then he came back to say they weren’t in line anymore. They were waiting for news from Denver.

“What’s happening in Denver?” Georgie asked the flight attendant the next time she stopped to tell the boy to turn off his phone.

“Snowpocalypse,” the flight attendant said cheerfully.

“It’s snowing?” Georgie asked. “Doesn’t it always snow in Denver?”

“It’s a blizzard. From Denver to Indianapolis.”

“But we’re still leaving?”

“The storm is shifting,” the flight attendant said. “We’re just waiting for confirmation, then we’ll take off.”

“Oh,” Georgie said. “Thanks.”

The plane returned to the gate. Then taxied out again. Georgie watched the boy play a video game until his phone died.

All the tension and adrenaline she’d felt in the airport drained out through her feet. She was hungry. And sad. She slumped forward in her seat, so she wouldn’t brush against the woman next to her.

Georgie kept thinking about her last phone conversation with Neal, their last fight. Then she started wondering if it might actually be their last fight. If she’d scared him away from proposing, wouldn’t it erase all the fights they’d had since?

By the time the captain came back with good news—“We’ve got a window”—Georgie’d run out of urgency. This is purgatory, she thought. Between places. Between times. Completely out of touch.

Everyone around her cheered.

Georgie wasn’t a good flier. Neal always held her hand during takeoff and turbulence.

Now that there were too many people in their family to sit in one row, they’d sit across from each other two and two—Georgie and Neal in both aisle seats, so he could take her hand if he needed to.

Sometimes he didn’t even look up from his crossword, just reached out for her when the plane started to shake. Georgie always tried not to look scared, for the girls’ sake. But she always was scared. If she made a noise or took too sharp of a breath, Neal would squeeze her hand and look up at her. “Hey. Sunshine. This is nothing. Look at the stewardess over there—she’s dozing. We’ll be fine.”

Georgie’s plane ran into turbulence an hour into the flight to Denver. The woman sitting next to her wasn’t bothered by it, except for when the lurching shifted Georgie’s hips into hers.

Her son had already fallen asleep against Georgie’s right side. Georgie leaned against him, clenched her fists and closed her eyes.

She tried to imagine Neal, driving through this blizzard to get to her.

But there was no blizzard in 1998.

And maybe Neal wasn’t trying to get to her.

She tried again to remember what she’d said to him last night on the phone. She tried to remember what he’d said back.

Neal probably thought she was a maniac. She should have just told him about the magic phone. Full disclosure. Then they could have solved it together. They could have Sherlocked and Watsoned it from both ends of the timeline.

Or Neal could have figured it all out—he was the Sherlock and the Watson in their relationship.

The plane heaved, and Georgie pressed her head back into her seat, forcing herself to hear Neal’s voice. It’s nothing. We’ll be fine.

The sun was setting in Denver. The plane circled (and shook) for forty-five minutes before there was a break in the storm they could land through.

When she finally stepped out onto the jetway, Georgie was sure she was going to throw up, but the feeling quickly passed. It was cold in the tunnel. She hurried by the untouchable lady and her son, and got out her boarding pass for Omaha.

Georgie’d missed her next flight, but there had to be another one—Omaha was the biggest city between Denver and Chicago. (Neal said so.)

She took a few confused steps into the airport. The gate was so full, people were sitting on the floor, leaning against the windows. Every gate, up and down the concourse, was full.

Georgie needed to get to the other side of the terminal. She found a people mover and walked quickly. It felt like time was moving faster for her than for the people she was passing. No one else seemed to be in a hurry. And most of the shops were shuttered and dark, even though it was only six. Christmas Eve, she thought. And then, Snowpocalypse.

When she got to her gate, every seat was taken. People were standing around a muted TV, watching the Weather Channel. There was a sign over the desk with three flight numbers, all delayed. Technically she hadn’t missed her flight—because it had never taken off.

Georgie got in line, just to make sure that staying put was her best bet to get to Omaha.

When she finally got to the desk, the airline employee was surprisingly upbeat. “Your best bet is to Apparate.”

“Sorry?”

“Just a little Harry Potter humor,” he said.

“Right.”

Georgie hadn’t read the Harry Potter books. But she’d gone to see most of the movies with Seth on days when he felt like getting out of the office. She didn’t care about wizards, but she thought Alan Rickman was dreamy.

“When did you start lusting after middle-aged guys?” Seth asked.

“When I became middle-aged.”

“Rein it in, Georgie. We’re still thirty-somethings.”

“God, I loved that show.”

“I know,” he said.

“That’s proof that I’m middle-aged,” she said. “I miss Thirtysomething.”

The Starbucks next to her gate was closed. And the McDonald’s. And the Jamba Juice. Georgie bought a turkey sandwich from one vending machine and an iPhone charger from another. She got terrible coffee at the only place that was open, a Western-themed sports bar, then walked back to the gate and found a spot against the wall to lean against.

The glass behind her was cold. Georgie squinted out the window. She couldn’t see anything—no snow, nothing more than shadows—but she could hear the wind. It sounded like she was still in the airplane.

Across from her, a woman was breaking a cookie in half and splitting it between her kids, two girls small enough to share a seat. They had napkins folded in their laps and boxes of milk. The woman was sitting next to her husband, and his arm hung lazily over the back of her chair, stroking her shoulder absently.

Georgie wanted to move closer to them. She wanted to brush crumbs from the littlest girl’s coat. She wanted to talk to them. “I have this, too,” she’d say to the woman. “This exactly.”

But did she?

Still?

Georgie kept testing herself, cataloging her memories, tracing them backwards. Alice’s seventh birthday. Noomi’s first Disneyland Halloween. Neal mowing the lawn. Neal getting frustrated in traffic. Neal shifting toward her in his sleep when Georgie had insomnia.

“You okay?”

“Can’t sleep.”

“Come here, crazy.”

Neal teaching Alice how to make Jiffy Pop. Neal doodling a sleepy gerbil on Georgie’s arm . . .

Georgie could never remember the difference between a gerbil, a hamster, and a guinea pig—so Neal had taken to drawing them on her when he was bored. “Cheat sheet,” he’d say, writing I am a guinea pig in a word balloon on her elbow.

She ran her hand up over her blank arm. The little girl across from her knocked over her milk—Georgie leaned in and caught it. The mother smiled at her, and Georgie smiled back. I have this, too, Georgie’s smile said.

She missed her girls. She wanted to see them. There were photos on her phone. . . .

Georgie scanned the gate for an outlet and found one on the wall a few feet down; two people were already plugged in. She walked over and asked if she could charge when they were done. “I just need a minute,” she said, “just to check something.”

“Go ahead,” a twenty-something boy said. He was Neal’s age—1998 Neal. The boy unplugged his phone and moved a few inches away to give her room.

Georgie knelt down awkwardly between him and a woman who was typing on her laptop. She broke open the new charger and dug her phone out of her pocket, then plugged it in and waited for the white apple to appear.

Nothing happened.

“Has it been dead awhile?” the boy asked. “Sometimes it takes a few minutes.”

Georgie waited a few minutes.

She plugged and unplugged it at both ends. She pushed the two buttons.

A tear fell onto the screen. (Hers, obviously.)

“Do you want to use my phone?” the boy asked.

“No, that’s okay,” Georgie said. “Thanks.” She unplugged her phone and stood up, rocking backwards awkwardly once she was on her feet. She turned away. Then back. “Actually, uh, yeah. Could I use your phone?”

“Sure.” He held it up to her.

Georgie took the phone and dialed Neal’s cell phone number. “We’re sorry. This mailbox is . . . full.” She gave the kid back his phone. “Thanks.”

Her spot on the wall, by the little girls, was gone. A woman was sitting there now with her toddler.

Georgie checked the sign over the desk again. Still delayed. One of the other flights had been canceled. She walked away from the gate and dropped her phone in the trash.

Then she thought better of it and reached into the trash can to get it back. (It was right on top.) (Airport trash is relatively clean.) An older man wearing a big puffy jacket watched her. She tried to wave her phone around, so that he wouldn’t think she was digging for food.

Then she shoved it in her pocket and walked over to the people mover. She rode it as far as she could in one direction, then came all the way back, then got on again.

Just because Georgie couldn’t see the photos of her kids on her phone didn’t mean that the photos weren’t still there.

Just because she couldn’t see the photos of her kids on her phone didn’t mean that her kids weren’t still there.

Somewhere.

Noomi’s bed with a dozen stuffed kitties. Alice’s paper dolls. Noomi chewing on her pigtail, Neal pulling it out of her mouth. Noomi chewing on her other pigtail, Neal tying her pigtails in a knot on top of her head.

Neal in the kitchen. Neal making hot chocolate. Neal making Thanksgiving dinner. Neal standing by the stove when Georgie got home late for work. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted to pack, but I washed everything in your hamper. Don’t forget that it’s cold there—you always forget that it’s cold.”

If Georgie could just look at her photos, she’d feel better.

If she just had a little proof—not that she needed proof—but if she could just have a little proof that they were still there. She rubbed her naked ring finger. She emptied her pockets for signs of life: All she had was a credit card and a driver’s license, both in her maiden name.

It got darker in the airport.

Airports are always dark at night, and this one was even darker with all the sleeping storefronts and the snow. Georgie could still hear the wind, even though she was nowhere near the windows now. The whole building keened with it.

At some point, she stepped off the people mover. The ground was too still beneath her, and she staggered. When she recovered her bearings, she went to the nearest bathroom and stood in front of the full-length mirror.

As soon as the room was mostly empty, she lifted up her T-shirt and ran her hand along the stretch marks and the ropy scar under her belly.

Still there.

CHAPTER 33

Georgie knew something was wrong because she’d been through this once before, and that time, the baby had come right out.

With Alice, there’d been an incision, then a slippery pull—like someone had just hooked a wide-mouthed bass and yanked it out of Georgie’s guts. Then a nurse had rushed away with the baby, Georgie thanking God for the screams.

The slow part, after Alice, had been putting Georgie back together again. Neal told her that the doctors actually took out her uterus and set it in on her stomach, then poked around inside her abdomen to make sure everything checked out.

Neal had been sitting right next to her that day, when Alice was born.

He was sitting right next to her now. Georgie’s hands were strapped to her side, and he was holding one.

Georgie knew something was wrong this time because the incision happened, and she felt the pressure of the doctor’s hands inside her—but then there was no baby. There was no rush of movement. The nurse who was supposed take the baby away stood tensely behind the doctor (and the intern and the two medical students), empty-handed.

Georgie knew that something was wrong because of the tension in Neal’s jaw. Because of the way he was watching everyone.

She felt more pressure inside—more hands, more than just two.

The anesthesiologist kept talking to her in a low murmur. “You’re doing just fine, Mom. You’re doing great.” Like it took special talent to lie still on the table. (Maybe it did.) She was poking Georgie’s chest with a toothpick. “Can you feel this?” Yes. “Can you feel this?” No. “It might feel like you can’t breathe,” the anesthesiologist said, “but you can. Just keep breathing, Mom.”

They were all talking now, doctors and nurses; everything that came out of their mouths was numbers. The table suddenly ratcheted upwards, so that Georgie was lying at a mild incline, her head toward the floor.

This isn’t good, she thought calmly, looking up at the lights.

It seemed smart to stay calm in this situation, with her body wide open, her blood pumping who knows where. She could see someone’s arm reflected in the light fixture above her—the sleeve was red.

Then Neal squeezed Georgie’s hand.

He’d turned away from the doctors and the place where the baby was supposed to be, and was hovering over Georgie’s shoulder. His jaw was tense, but his eyes were fierce and open.

Maybe this was why Neal always had his guard up. His eyes, unguarded, could burn tunnels though mountains.

Georgie kept breathing. In, out. In, out. “You’re doing great, Mom,” the anesthesiologist hummed. Georgie knew she was lying.

Neal’s eyes were pouring fire on her. If he always looked at Georgie like this, it’d be uncomfortable. If he always looked at her like this, maybe she’d never look away.

But she’d never doubt that he loved her.

How could she ever doubt that he loved her?

Neal was saying good-bye to her with that look. He was begging her to stay. He was telling her that she was doing just fine—just keep breathing, Georgie.

How could she ever doubt that he loved her? When loving her was what he did better than all the things he did beautifully.

The anesthesiologist pushed a plastic mask onto Georgie’s mouth. Georgie didn’t look away from Neal.

When she woke up, later that night, in a recovery room, she realized that she hadn’t expected to.

There was a hospital bassinet pulled close to her bed, and Neal was asleep in the chair.

CHAPTER 34

The airport had brought out cots and laid them out in the hallway between gates. It looked like an army field hospital.

Georgie didn’t feel like she could sleep in front of strangers like that—or at all, tonight. Though she wished she had a blanket. . . . If any of the airport stores were open, she’d buy one of the giant blue and orange Broncos sweatshirts in the window displays.

People were sleeping around her, too, in chairs, and against the wall. They slept with their heads on their purses and their hands on their carry-ons. Like they were worried about pickpockets. Georgie wasn’t worried about pickpockets; she had nothing to steal.

It must be late. Or early. Georgie’d lost track of time completely—she kept checking her dead phone out of habit. The airport hadn’t dimmed the lights, but it was still too dark to read without a book light. The wind seemed to be pushing the darkness into the terminal.

There was a lull in the storm. Or maybe it was just dying down—Georgie didn’t know how blizzards were supposed to end.

There was a gate change, then another wait. Then she was boarding, only half-conscious of which flight was hers and where it was going.

“Omaha?” the flight attendant asked when Georgie stepped onto the plane.

“Omaha,” Georgie replied.

The plane was only about fifteen rows long, with just two seats across. She’d never been on a plane this small; she’d only heard about planes this small when they crashed.

Georgie wondered if the pilots were as tired as she was. Why even bother taking off, at this point? In the middle of the night? Unless the flight crew was heading home, too.