“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.