With a minor success under his belt, he went for the rest. In a snowstorm of rough pulls and tugs, he yanked and pulled and ripped at each one in turn. By the fourth, his arms ached and when he fell backwards, he landed flat on his back with a face full of wreath pressing him down into the damp grass.
Fine. He could stay in this house for one night. One night in a house where every ware reminded him of Kate Buckner wouldn’t kill him.
It might break his heart even worse. It would no doubt keep him up all night. He wouldn’t be able to escape the pain. But it wouldn’t kill him.
He abandoned his pursuit of a fresh, un-Jack Frosted house. The wreaths stayed on the front lawn or at their window-side post and Clark took himself inside, where the fires Kate tended still burned hot and her decorations twinkled even more brightly as the night darkened and grew denser around the house. Room by room, Clark made the journey of extinguishing Christmas from the place. He took nothing down—he didn’t want to touch anything, while the memories and pain burned fresh—but he unplugged the lamps inside tiny porcelain villages and flicked off breakers controlling scores of hung fairy lights. The formal dining room. The kitchen. The downstairs study. The hallways. One by one they fell to his power until Clark reached the closed French doors of the living room, the one room he’d been dreading all along. Where Kate told her story about her family and how much the festival meant to her. Where they watched It’s a Wonderful Life and laughed at the plot holes while debating if George Bailey was a real romantic at heart. Where they decorated the tree.
Where Clark realized he was falling for her.
He considered leaving it, but knew it would only hurt worse in the morning. Might as well rip it off, Band-Aid style. The doors spread for him, spilling golden light into the hallway.
All at once, his body deadened. He couldn’t lift his arms. His feet refused to obey commands. His own skeleton revolted against him, forcing him to stand in the frame of the doorway and revel in all the ways he failed himself today. Ghosts of them together flitted around the room, teasing him with the promises of what might have been.
If he hadn’t believed her. If she hadn’t been lying. If he’d just listened to her explanation. If she’d said sorry. If. If. If.
Maybe he wouldn’t have tried to tear down all remnants of her and maybe they wouldn’t have spent Christmas apart from one another. Maybe he still would have believed everything she told him, about love and Christmas and all the rest of it.
But Clark learned long ago his life wasn’t a movie and it didn’t follow his whims or wishes. He was a sailboat at the mercy of its whims. All he could do was try not to capsize.
The fire. It needed dampening first. Then, he moved onto turning off the television, blowing out the candles, ripping down the mistletoe from the doorway. Piece by piece, he deconstructed her fairy tale until he stood alone in a dark room with nothing to guide his way but the bulbs on the Christmas tree. He ducked to unplug those too, but stopped when something strange tucked behind the tree caught his eye. A flash of red, sparkly paper caught the light, and he reached back to investigate. After a moment of grappling, he finally caught the hidden object and pulled it up to his face for inspection.
A small package, wrapped in red wrapping paper, tied with white and green curlicue ribbons. A practiced hand made the lines of the wrapping absolutely flawless. It could’ve been done by someone behind the wrapping department at Macy’s, though Clark knew immediately only one person could’ve done this.
Kate Buckner. Kate Buckner had given him a present.
Clark couldn’t remember the last time someone—not a business colleague, not a client or prospective partner—got him a present. Even his secretaries knew not to bother because he wouldn’t open them anyway. Anything he got went straight to one of the lower-level directors who would no doubt enjoy tickets to the Cowboys game or a wine tasting trip for two more than he ever would.
Throw it away, reason said.
Open it, sentimentality replied.
For some stupid reason, he listened to sentimentality. For some stupid reason, Clark glanced up at the clock on the wall, checking to make sure it was really Christmas. Snake though she may have been, he didn’t want to insult her by opening a Christmas present before Christmas morning. But at almost 1:30 a.m., it was most decidedly Christmas morning. Early, early in the morning, but morning all the same.
Rusty from years of not opening presents, Clark struggled with the paper. At first, he attempted to lift the wrapping off at the tape lines so as not to completely destroy the stuff, but when the tape proved tougher than anticipated, he ripped straight through it, revealing the gift inside. It wasn’t a box at all. It was a book. The red leather-bound cover gave no hints about the contents inside, so Clark picked himself off the floor and found a seat in his favorite chair by the now-darkened fireplace.
He opened to the first page, though the words were not type-written and official as he expected. Instead, a dark blue pen swooped cursive handwriting onto the first blank page.
Dear Clark,
The same compulsion telling him to light the fire and throw the book straight into it also told him to stop reading there, but his curiosity tamped down all of that. He read on.
Dear Clark,
I don’t know you very well. Yesterday, we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot. You want to destroy my town. I was rude and
