Page 80 of One-Star Romance

“I think Christina may have something that belongs to you.” Rob held up the list.

Gabby let out a sigh. “I wondered where that had gone. Was starting to feel like I was losing my mind.” She held out her hands for Christina, who ran over. Gabby lifted her daughter onto her lap and kissed her cheek. “You little stinker.”

Christina wriggled away and climbed over to Gabby’s jewelry box, lifting the lid to make it tinkle a merry tune, humming along.

Rob handed the list over to Gabby. “I tried not to read it, but I did see the title. And if you have a long to-do list, I can take some of it on.”

“Oh.” She stared at the sheet of paper, the corners of her mouth turning down. “Thank you. But this is more…” Gabby looked over to Christina. She was playing around in the jewelry box, lost to the world. “Most of this is the stuff I want to do with Christina just in case I…”

“You’re not going to,” Rob said.

“You never know these things.” She stood up briskly and began to rifle through her closet. “I’m just trying to be practical here. Besides, if the doctors find it everywhere, who knows what my remaining time will look like? I’ll be trying to recover from major surgery and maybe doing treatments, and everything will be a mess, so I wanted to do as much of this as I could now.” She folded a sweater into neat fourths and placed it in her hospital bag.

This was the most personal conversation Rob and Gabby had ever had, just the two of them. Whenever they’d been left alone over the years, they were polite and fond for three to five minutes, and then Angus would return from the bathroom, or one of them would make an excuse. Now it would be easy enough for Rob to nod, take Christina out of the room, and let Gabby get back to her tasks. But instead, he asked, “So, what’s on the list?”

Gabby looked up from her packing in surprise. Then, after a moment, she picked the list up and studied it. “Well, I did manage to get some of this done before Christina spirited it away. ‘Write letters to loved ones.’ Check. ‘Make my mom’s special soup together.’ My mom always made it for us when we were growing up, whenever we needed to feel better. Christina and I did it the other day, but of course she won’t remember it, so I taught the special tricks to Angus too, so he can teach her again when she’s older.” She smiled. “He was good at it, actually. What he might lack in natural cooking ability, he makes up for in effort.”

“Nobody can fault Angus for not trying,” Rob said.

“At least if I…Christina will have a father who tries.” Gabby’s gaze grew faraway. “Natalie’s that way too. She doesn’t always get it right at first, but she doesn’t give up.” She cleared her throat. “So I feel lucky, despite everything. Because that’s a good kind of person to have in your life, and Christina will have both of them.”

“She’ll have me too,” Rob said.

“Thank you,” Gabby said, touching him briefly on the arm. “I really, really appreciate that.”

“And she’s going to keep having you.”

“Well,” Gabby said, “I hope so.” She shook her head and looked back at the list. “I got a little overambitious here. ‘Take her to see The Nutcracker at the New York City Ballet.’ Nope, not in the year of our Lord 2020.”

“My mother took me to that once.”

“Didn’t you just love it?”

“I thought it was…fine.”

Gabby’s mouth opened in outrage. “You are wrong. It’s perfect. We went every year when Melinda and I were little, up until Melinda decided we had outgrown it. You know, we’d take the train into the city, make a day of it. It was like magic. I thought it would be nice to watch Christina experience the wonder of it all.” Her eyes had grown wistful, almost glassy. To Rob’s knowledge, she hadn’t cried since he’d arrived. Angus, meanwhile, kept coming out of the pantry swallowing sniffles, honking his nose into a tissue. This was the closest Rob had seen to Gabby letting go of her control.

Then she snapped out of it. “But the show’s not even happening this year. They’re streaming it, but that’s not quite the same, and besides, it doesn’t start until after the surgery. Oh well.” She put the list down and began to bustle around again, her face betraying nothing, the conversation clearly over. “Thank you for returning this to me.”

•••

Later that night, after they’d all distractedly shoved some takeout down their throats and gone their separate ways, Gabby putting Christina to bed and then going to sleep early herself, Rob stood up straight outside Natalie’s door. His thoughts had been pinging, insistently, over the past few hours. They all had one more day here together before Gabby went into surgery. He paced back and forth, anxiety in his chest. “Just do it,” he muttered to himself, then returned to the door and knocked quietly.

Natalie opened the door, wearing an oversized T-shirt that skimmed her legs at midthigh, her hair up in a messy bun. Her face turned guarded at the sight of him. “Yes?”

“This is a bit of an odd question,” he said. “But how much do you know about The Nutcracker?”

33

In the late afternoon the day before Gabby’s surgery, Natalie found her standing in the upstairs hallway staring into space, shoulders creeping up toward her ears. She touched her back lightly, and Gabby jumped.

“Sorry! Didn’t mean to give you a heart attack.”

“Yeah, am I not already dealing with enough health issues?” Gabby gave a half-hearted smile. “What’s up?”

“Have you finished everything you need to do for tomorrow?”

“I think so. I’m packed, I sent all the work and personal emails I had to get out. I want to spend some time with everyone, and then I guess I just…wait? Try to sleep?”

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