But I needed a bath, and I’d promised Macy a ton of cards on Monday (this before I’d taken overtime) and I had to clean the house tomorrow before everyone came, and of course talk to Toby. So even though I’d have some time to do some, I needed to get a few out of the way. This meant I couldn’t ask my big sis to stay.

Also, I didn’t have very much food.

Not to mention, my sister probably wanted to get home to her hot guy.

I walked her to the door, gave her a hug and stood in the cold of the open door with Dapper Dan sitting beside me, waving as the burgundy Murano pulled out of the drive.

Then I locked the door and went up to check on my sleeping son.

After that, I took a bath.

And I fell asleep at the desk in Izzy’s office, waking up sometime in the middle of the night with a snowman I’d cut out stuck to my cheek.

I peeled the snowman off.

And then I moved to my room, fell in bed and let myself sleep.

The Storm

Addie

GOTTA BE THERE around 10:00, if that’s cool.

I stood in my kitchen, looking down at the text from Toby on my phone.

It was eight thirty Sunday morning.

I’d already fed my kid, my dog, myself, cleaned up after that, put the clean dishes in the dishwasher away, done a load of laundry, wiped down all the countertops and buffed Izzy’s stainless-steel fridge and stove.

When you had a baby, you didn’t get the luxury of sleeping in. And even though I wasn’t putting on an amazing spread for all the Usual Suspects, so I didn’t have a lot of cooking to do (or any at all at that point), they were not going to come over to a house that hadn’t been vacuumed, dusted, and the bathrooms and kitchen hadn’t been cleaned.

I also had to pull all the Christmas stuff out so we could actually decorate.

And in between, do up some cards.

Michael had scheduled me for extra hours on a couple of shifts the next week as well as asked if he could schedule me for a full shift on one of my days off.

To all this, obviously, I’d said yes.

This meant my next day off would be Saturday, and Michael had asked if I could do a half-shift that day too. The morning one, when daycare was open.

I did not want to do that.

But I kinda had to do that.

Though I also kinda needed the time off.

The Annual Matlock Christmas Fair was happening in the town square next Saturday and Sunday.

Matlock did events like this often (for instance, the Memorial Day Food Festival, the June Craft Fayre, the 4th of July Jubilee, the four-play, August-Long Matlock Shakespeare Festival, the Labor Day Barbeque and Carnival, the Pumpkin Harvest Gala, with open-air concerts, weekly farmer’s markets, marching band competitions and the like horned in between).

These were fun, but they served another purpose: summoning out-of-towners to experience the joys of the quaint Kentucky town of Matlock. Out-of-towners who not only hit the events, but also shopped at the shops, ate at the restaurants and essentially dropped cash in businesses that would not survive on their take from the townies alone.

Onward from that, the Kentucky town of Matlock was quaint. Gift shops. Jewelry shops. Boutiques. Homemade-candy stores with fudge marbles in the window. Ice cream parlors. The place was out of a freaking movie.

Come once, come again, even if there wasn’t a festival, because the shops were cute, and the restaurants were good, so if you had a weekend to blow, you’d consider doing it in Matlock.

This meant Macy didn’t just sell flowers, she had gifts and cards and other stuff, which was one of the reasons why she wanted a load of my cards ready in time for the Christmas Fair.

And if I wanted to up my take on that, I needed to get them to her.

Obviously, I didn’t want to up my take, I needed to.

Though how I’d do that if I didn’t even have a day off next week, I had no idea.

Except I had to get more of them done that day.

But even with all that, most important of all, I had to smooth things out with Toby.

That’s cool, I typed in.

But after I did, I stared at it, wondering if I should say, That’s cool. Drop in first. I’ll make us a coffee. Or, That’s cool. But come on in, we need to talk. Or, That’s cool, but come in first since I have to share I was out of line and a total bitch and I feel like shit I was, and I have no way to make it up to you except apologize to your face.

I added, See you then! and sent it, hoping the exclamation mark would say all the rest.

Then I decided it wouldn’t matter because when he got there, he’d knock on the door like he always did, and then I’d be able to ask him in and share what I needed to share.

The thing was, between vacuuming and dusting and cleaning the downstairs powder room, and looking after my kid and my dog, and dragging out Christmas decorations and inventorying my stock of craft stuff to plan out my cards and finding Lora on Facebook and friending her, the two hours since he texted came and went and it was ten thirty before I knew it.

“Shit,” I whispered when I saw the time on my computer.

I looked at my phone, and the screen was blank (outside of a picture of Brooks giggling)

He hadn’t texted to say he was running late.

And Toby (nor Johnny) were ever late to anything.

I looked to my kid, who was alternately sucking on and throwing the balls he should be dumping into the tubes in the big tower that was beside him on the floor in the office. Balls Dapper Dan was retrieving for him, so Brooks was essentially sucking up Dapper Dan’s spit.

Great.

I nabbed my phone, got up and grabbed my boy. He squealed because he was having fun playing with Dapper Dan and consuming dog drool, so he wasn’t feeling Mom putting an end to his good time, and I headed downstairs.

I went to the front door, just to check, not expecting I’d see anything, and looked out to note, to my shock, Toby’s kickass old red Chevy truck with the silver panels parked by my Focus.

I stared at it.

He was there.

He was there and he hadn’t knocked on the door.

I was so stunned by this, kid, dog and I walked right out (well Dapper Dan and I did, I carried Brooklyn out). We went across the porch and down the steps. I looked right then turned right when I saw Tobe up on a tall ladder, staple-gunning some fat, retro Christmas lights to the eaves.

He’d shown and started work.

And he didn’t knock on the door.

“Hey,” I called.

He didn’t look down at me when he replied, “Yo.”

I stood there staring up at him, speechless, because yes, I was again in shock.

Yo?

Just . . . yo?

This was so un-Toby it was Anti-Toby.

“Dodo!” Brooklyn yelled, clearly having seen Toby, “Dodo” being what he called his Uncle Tobe (“Zee” was Izzy, “Jaja” was Johnny, “GoGo,” Margot, and Dave had to share “Dada” with Dapper Dan).

Toby looked down then.

“Hey, bud,” he called to my son. Then, without the barest pause to shoot my kid a smile, his eyes moved to me and he declared, “He isn’t in a jacket, Adeline, and it’s cold.”

That was what he said.

He didn’t climb down to give my son a cuddle (he pretty much was always about Brooklyn, especially when he first saw him).

He didn’t acknowledge Dapper Dan, who was excitedly cruising the bottom of the ladder, waiting for attention, something else Toby gave with only the delay of giving it to my boy.