They looked at each other. "Hi," he said. "Hi," she said a beat. "You came?" she said. "I came." She looked down at the table for a moment, then back up.
I wasn't sure you would. I wasn't sure either, he said for a while. What changed? He thought about it the way he thought about everything, honestly, without rushing. I kept coming back to the porch.
Christmas night, you told me about someone who believed every decision had to have a casualty, and you said you were trying to disagree with him. He paused. Two weeks later, you walked into that room and you actually did. Elise was quiet. That wasn't a plan, he said.
No, she said softly. It wasn't. He leaned forward slightly, elbows on the table. There's something else I want to know. Not about the file, not about the company.
Why Christmas? Why that night specifically? And I don't mean Grant's notes about my schedule. I mean, why did you go yourself? Elise held his gaze.
Because it's the day I'm loneliest, she said, "Every year." She said it quietly without performance. My father built everything. Not just the company, but the way we marked time together. After he died, Christmas became the day I was most aware that I had everything I was supposed to want and none of what actually makes it feel like something. She looked at the window for a moment.
I read your file carefully, not just the professional parts, the part about how you spent every Christmas. Same family, same routines, same commitment to showing up for people who expected you. She came back to him. I wanted to see what that looked like up close. I told myself it was research.
A pause. It wasn't. You were lonely, he said. Yes, simply without apology. and I still managed it like a project because that's what I know how to do. She looked down at her hands around the coffee cup.
I walked into that cafe and within an hour I was on your mother's kitchen floor sorting puzzle pieces and nothing about that was in any plan. I didn't know how to account for it. So, I just kept going. And the longer it went on, the more I didn't want to be the person I'd been when it started. She looked up.