Page 49 of Inventing Mr Darcy

I’m jerked from sleep by the buzz of my phone on the nightstand—it takes me a moment to realize it’s an incoming call. Thinking it must be Fisher, I scramble to answer without really looking at the screen. “I love you,” I say, in a sleep-rough voice I hope will pass for sexy. “Merry Christmas.”

“Well, Merry Christmas!” says my dad with a laugh. “I love you too. Here’s your mom.”

Dad has never enjoyed talking on the phone, even though he grew up at a time when that was apparently a normal thing people did. I suspect Mom put him up to making the call, and as they perform the hand-off, I confirm that he’s called from her phone. At 5:57 a.m.

“Is this payback for every Christmas I got you up at the crack of dawn?” I ask her, not bothering to stifle a yawn. Actually, it’s not even dawn; the sky is still black. Too early even for the cat.

“Oh, my goodness, dear. I’m sorry. I entirely forgot about the time difference.”

Which is all the preface she gives her announcement that they have decided to move to Florida. Permanently. She’s already spoken with the head of her law firm about the possibility of working remotely, and they’ve been looking at condos in the same complex where they’re staying now.

“It’s just so … warm,” she tells me in a voice tinged with incredulous delight. And to be fair, warm is indeed hard to come by in Minnesota in December. Or January. Or, occasionally, June.

I open my mouth to remind her what the summers there will be like, but in the end all I say is, “That’s great!” I don’t want to be a downer on what is supposed to be the happiest day of the year.

“I figured it was the perfect time,” she continues, “since you’ll be graduating and leaving us for greener pastures in a few months.”

And suddenly the stew of what happens if I don’t finish my dissertation? that’s always simmering in my gut is spiked with what happens to my fallback plan of moving back home if my parents sell our house?

I wonder whether Fisher would let me store some stuff in his attic.

Then I remember he’s leaving too.

My parents and I talk for quite a while. Dad gets back on the phone to tell me about his favorite present—a birdwatching expedition in the Everglades—and Mom asks if I got the package she sent. I lie and tell her yes, but that I’m waiting to open it until later. I’ve got to go over to my apartment and grab a couple of things today, and hopefully the delivery person will have left it on the stairs.

I never told them about the heat going out or that I was staying somewhere else—never told them about Fisher, period.

After last night, maybe I should?

I remind them of my trip to New York instead and brace for an onslaught of worry.

Mom says, “What a wonderful place to spend New Year’s Eve!”

In the background, Dad jokes, “If you can’t be good, be careful!”

By the time we hang up, I’m thinking they should have moved to a warmer climate years ago. And I’m ridiculously glad that their relationship seems to be back to the way it always was.

It’s still so early, and so dark, I consider trying to go back to sleep. But there’s something about Christmas morning that makes sleeping in impossible. I go downstairs, make coffee, start a fire, and curl up on the couch to admire the twinkle lights.

At exactly 8:01 on the East Coast, I text Fisher.

G’ morning, sleepyhead! Merry Christmas!

Half a second later, my phone rings again.

“Hey.” His voice is husky. “Merry Christmas. Did Santa bring you everything you asked for?”

“He did.”

“I guess that means you were on the nice list.”

“Of course,” I say. “But I think the elves must’ve made a little mistake on the tag, because the present I want the most ended up a thousand miles away from me.”

His low chuckle is adorable. “Maybe that’s because you were naughty too.”

It’s the most blatantly flirtatious thing he’s said since he left, and I’m so excited by the return of playful Fisher; so glad because it means things must really be improving on his end; so tantalized by the prospect of this phone call going in a very different direction than all our previous ones …

“Oh.” I catch myself gnawing on my lip, caught between uncertainty and … well, possibility. “Was I?”