Page 97 of Happy After All

He nods. “Yes. Because I otherwise don’t go making conversations with strangers.”

I’m fascinated by this. By Nathan. By the fact that this ... this sort of difficult, locked-box aspect of him isn’t from his recent grief. But I do wonder if it made him double down on it.

“We didn’t have anything in common,” he says. “Her family is nice. Well adjusted. She grew up surrounded by horses. I’d never had anything to do with them.”

I look at him, but I don’t say anything.

“I found myself living on a ranch, basically. I had her horse for two years after she died. He was never happy afterward. I think he might’ve died of a broken heart.”

Tears sting my eyes. I can’t think about Sarah’s brokenhearted horse. It kills me.

It also kills me to know that there’s no way a horse loved Sarah more than Nathan did, but he still has to be here. He’s still breathing. Her parents are.

“She never really minded. She just seemed to take me at face value. I frustrated her sometimes. I mean, we were married for years. So of course I did. But ... she was really the first person who didn’t try to change me. That’s a pretty rare thing.”

That makes it even harder for me to fight back tears. I can’t think if I’ve ever been in a relationship where I didn’t feel like I had to change. Maybe that isn’t fair. Because I changed myself pretty substantially when I moved to LA. Maybe that’s something I do. I left Bakersfield and I wanted to start over. I wanted to be a more interesting character.

I go back over all the things I just said to Nathan, and I realize it’s true. I find it much easier to recast myself in a different role when I go somewhere new. I’m afraid of myself. Or at least parts of me. And I would never have said that before this moment, but it’s how I feel.

If I can’t think of myself as a character playing a part, then maybe I’m just a sad girl who isn’t important enough to have her mom show up to a Christmas pageant. Or a girl whose dad was happy to move away to be with the woman he preferred, the kids he preferred.

Maybe I’m the girlfriend that didn’t matter enough when I couldn’t be the support system my boyfriend needed me to be. When my pain was bigger than my ability to be there for him.

Then I’m definitely not the interesting stranger who moved to a new place and refurbished this beautiful pink motel.

I’m just Amelia. Amelia Taylor, the same as I’ve always been. Never quite being enough.

He’s here. Right now. And all these people are here with me.

So maybe it’s not quite as terrible as I think it is.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“I’m working on it,” I say. “Every day.”

“I guess we all are.”

“I do think there’s something wrong with you,” I say. “This movie is great; I will hear no arguments.”

“You haven’t watched any of it.”

“I’ve seen itmanytimes. How else is a kid supposed to spend a lonely Christmas Eve while her mother is out drinking and meeting men?”

He winces. “Really?”

“Yes. But that ...” I shake my head. “That doesn’t even bother me.”

It’s true. The stuff with my mother, it hurts, but I’ve accepted that about her. For the most part. I remind myself of that. My mother being a narcissist has nothing to do with how important I am. It’s just that nothing can ever be as important to her as she is. A lot of the things with her do feel like old healed wounds.

I leave them be now.

“Well, you’re not spending Christmas alone anymore,” he points out.

“No,” I say. “I’m not. Everyone is with me.” He’s with me.

We end up sitting with Elise and Ben and Emma for the rest of the movie. Ben and Nathan talk, and I’m more fascinated than I should be, watching him make conversation with someone else. It’s a rare sight.

Then Alice comes over and asks if he’s read any of my books. Albert finds himself engaged in a lively debate—meaning that the cribbage ladies, Alice, and Nathan, to my surprise, begin to argue with him about the function of genre fiction.

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