It was the Friday before Christmas and Iona hadn’t heard from Mads since the party at the Common two days earlier. He’d made love to her and then the next morning she’d woke up alone in the Presidential Suite. He’d left a note on the nightstand saying he had an early meeting and he’d be in touch soon.
But every time she texted him she got back a smiley face or a message saying he was busy. Sofia was staying at the Common visiting her maternal grandparents who’d come out from the West Coast to see her for a few days, but Iona knew she was meant to be back later on this evening and she was tired of waiting to hear from Mads. So she’d been reduced to waiting by her own front door, listening for the sound of footfalls in the hallway.
She heard the elevator ping and opened the door just as Mads stepped out of the car. He saw her and she suspected he’d wanted to turn and go back downstairs. Mainly because she saw the way he half-turned.
“Mads. We need to talk,” she said.
He glanced at his watch.
“I don’t care how busy you are. I think you can give me five minutes of your time.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. A gesture she knew he did when he was feeling a little bit stressed and she steeled herself from feeling sorry for him. He was avoiding her. He’d made love to her like she was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with and then he’d ghosted out of her life. And she’d done it herself a time or two, so she knew what he was doing.
“Iona, please could this wait? I have to go and get Sofia and her grandparents and take them to the airport.”
“I know that. Which is why I thought it would have been nice to speak earlier this week, but you have been avoiding me.”
“Let’s get out of the hall so we can talk,” he said.
There was a flatness to his voice that she’d never heard before and she had the feeling that whatever it was she’d thought the other night meant it hadn’t meant the same thing to him at all.
She stepped back into her apartment and he followed her in. She heard him close the door, but she kept walking down the hall to her living room. She propped her hip on the edge of the love seat as Mads followed her into the room. He still had his coat on and she noticed there were snowflakes on his shoulders. But the thought of a white Christmas didn’t lift her spirits.
“What is going on?” she asked. “I thought we had a really great time the other night.”
“We did have a nice time,” he said flatly. “But that’s all it was.”
“Stop. I’m not going to buy that.”
“What do you want from me?” he asked.
“Just tell me what’s going on.”
Mads looked down at the floor and then looked back up at her. “I can’t love you the way you want to be loved, Iona. There is a part of me that always thought that one day I’d meet another woman and I’d be able to settle into a marriage and life with her as much for companionship for myself and a mother figure for Sofia. But meeting you has shown me how wrong I was.”
Iona felt a weight like a stone in the pit of her stomach. “What do you mean? I love Sofia and you and I get along really well together.”
“We do. But it won’t last. I can’t let myself fall for you, Iona. There is a part of me that is afraid that as soon as I do something will happen to you. And that’s not fair to you or to Sofia. She already loves you and I don’t want to see her hurt when you realize I can’t love you.”
“What?” she said again. Not comprehending how he could think that she’d ever abandoned his daughter. It was easier to focus on that than the fact that he said he couldn’t love her. She didn’t want to allow herself to let those words sink in, they made him seem icier than she’d thought he was.
Had she simply seen something she had wanted to see instead of the truth? “I would never hurt Sofia. Already I love her like she was a daughter to me. She’s sweet and funny and she wants so badly to see some sign of the magic in the world around her. She is starting to see it in Christmas but she’d never want to disappoint you.”
“And I don’t want to disappoint her,” Mads said. “I know you wouldn’t want to hurt her …”
“Stop. It sounds to me like you are using Sofia as the reason why we can’t be together. I’m not going to hurt her. Even if you walk out of here and say you never want to see me again, I’ll always be a friend to your daughter.”
***
He knew that Iona would be there for Sofia. That was the kind of woman she was, which made this so much harder. He had never felt anything like this for another person, not even Gill, and that scared him more than spending the rest of his life alone. No matter how bad he felt at this moment, it was better to have a clean break and walk away now.
“It’s not an excuse,” he said, then knew he was going to have to make it clear he was ending things. Iona was still arguing with him like she could change his mind. And maybe she could change his mind, but his heart had already decided it couldn’t take the risk of loving her. “You forget that we’d never intended to start dating. We kind of drifted together. And I’ll always be grateful for it, but this is it.”
Her eyes widened and color swept up her neck and she crossed her arms over her chest. “What is wrong with you? We slept together. And you might want to pretend now that it meant nothing to you but I remember the first time, when you cried. When I held you and we both were more vulnerable than we’d ever allowed ourselves to be before that.”
He cursed. He saw the shock on her face as she stepped back from him. “I can’t do this, Iona. I’m not going to risk falling in love with you and starting to plan a life, only to have it ripped away from me. And I’m not like you, I don’t believe in Santa or any of the other fairy tales you like to spout. Real life hurts and it’s not fair and it can take someone who has nothing left to lose and show him something so perfect and good just to rip it away from him. I can’t do it.
“Mads, I can. I’m willing to take the risk,” she said.
“I’m not. This is it. This is goodbye. There isn’t anything you can say that will convince me otherwise.”
“You’re a coward,” she said. “I never thought that I’d say that to you because I’ve seen you with your daughter and I know what you’ve been through. But I can’t help it.”
“Fine. Call me names if it makes you feel better. You’ve never watched someone you love slip away slowly over the course of three years. You haven’t prayed and begged God for a miracle or comforted your child because she won’t know her mother growing up. I’ve been strong for longer than anyone ever should be expected to be.”
He stalked over to her. Looked down into her eyes and saw them filling with tears. And knew that this was something he wouldn’t want to remember, but suspected that her face would haunt him for the rest of his life.
“But I did it. And I promised myself never again. I didn’t think it was possible that I could care for anyone again. So that part was easy at first. But meeting you was unexpected. It jarred me.”
“That’s what you needed,” she said, through her tears. “I know you think that this is one-sided, but it’s not. We both were broken. I think we have something special here.”
“Maybe it was what I needed. But I can’t let myself give in to my emotions again. It’s hard enough worrying about Sofia. I can’t even let her fly anywhere.”
“Fine. I’ll take whatever you can give me,” she said, crossing the room and reaching for him. “I love you, Mads.”
His heart took a punch. He hadn’t been expecting that. He stepped back from her, knowing that if she touched him he’d give in now only to hurt her later. “I can’t do that to you. You have told me about the men in your past. How you’ve always been the one to fix them so they can find love and I want to do that for you. I want to be the man who makes it so you can find your happy ending.”
“I don’t think it works that way,” she said.
“I have to believe it can,” he said. “Because I want you to find a man who can love you the way you deserve to be loved.”
She shook her head. There was an aura around her that he’d never seen before and he wondered what was going through her head. He was doing this for her. For both of them. He admitted he couldn’t risk losing her. Risk loving her and then losing her. He wasn’t doing that again.
“The heart doesn’t work that way,” she said quietly.
“In time it will feel different,” he said. “Good bye, Iona.”
He forced himself to turn and walk to the door because he knew he had to leave. And there was a part of him that wanted her to convince him to stay. A part of him that wanted to believe her when she said that whatever he could give would be enough. He knew that wasn’t true. It wouldn’t be good enough for him and he’d hate himself for ruining her feisty spirit and innocent belief in the world.
He opened the door to the hallway, aware that she’d stayed in the living room and let himself out of her apartment. He walked further down to his own apartment and let himself inside. It was empty and quiet since Jessie was on vacation until January and Sofia was at the Common with her grandparents. Mads took no comfort from it. He’d done what he had to do in order to protect her and some day he might be able to feel good about it, but right now he just felt hollow and empty inside.
***
Iona took the pint of Minty Wonderland ice cream out of the freezer and went back into her living room. Last night she’d been okay, but this morning the break-up hit her hard. She’d made a run to the nearest bodega and loaded up on junk food. So far, she’d decimated two packages of Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cakes and had been watching It’s A Wonderful Life on repeat, since that was the one movie that made her cry like nothing else. And she was crying anyway.
Her mom was at one of her charities and Iona had refused to call her away from that. But she really could use her mom. So she’d texted her to stop by if she had a minute and that had led to a phone call, more crying and her mom’s promise she’d be by later today.
Her front door opened after a perfunctory knock.
“Io?” Cici called. “You’re mom called us. We came as soon as we could.”
“Where are you?” Hayley called out.
She heard the jingle of Lucy’s collar and the cooing of baby Holly as her friends came into the living room. Iona tried to sit up on the couch but she had piled the pillows behind her back and it was awkward. The ice cream slipped from her hand onto her lap.
“You’re a mess,” Hayley said, scooping up the ice cream and putting it on the coffee table before pulling her into a tight bear hug.
“Why are you watching this sob fest?” Cici asked, putting baby Holly’s carrier on the floor before coming over to hug her too.
“I was crying anyway,” she said.
“Are you cried-out?”
She shook her head.
That just made her cry a little bit more. She didn’t understand his reasons for breaking up with her but she knew they were valid in his eyes. Cici located the remote and turned off the television, just as an angel was getting his wings.
Lucy hopped up on the couch and climbed on to Iona’s lap and she petted the little dog, admitting to herself that she was happy to see her friends.
Hayley took the ice cream to the kitchen and Cici cleaned up the wrappers that littered the floor around her. She was embarrassed by how messy she’d been. Then Cici took Holly from her carrier and sat down on the coach next to Iona.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. I mean we had a fight, but I don’t understand where it came from,” Iona said.
“Tell us about it,” Hayley said. “We’ll help you figure it out.”
“All right, things have been off between us since Tuesday night when we went to the party at the Common. The entire night felt so special and magical. I knew then that I love Mads and there was something about him that made me think he loved me too. But then he didn’t call or answer my texts and so last night I sat by the front door waiting for him to come home.”
“Oh, Iona … what happened?
Iona tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear and realized how greasy it felt. Sure, it had only been one day since she’d showered but her entire body seemed to be getting into it.
“I don’t know. He said that he thought maybe our relationship was for him to show me there was more to life than just work. So I could go on to love someone else,” she said as her voice cracked a little bit. “He can’t love me the way I deserve.”
“That’s crazy,” Hayley said. “Completely bonkers, but a very nice sentiment.”
“I think he’s just afraid to get hurt again,” Cici said. “And he doesn’t want you to get hurt either.”
“Are you guys on my side or not?” Iona asked. She’d already figured all of that out last night at about two a.m., when she’d been sleeping in the guest bedroom because she’d had sex with Mads on the couch and in her bed so she hadn’t been able to sleep in either of those places.
“We’re on your side,” Cici said, as Holly got fussy and Cici undid her blouse to breastfeed.
“You know what I think you should do? Just keep on seeing him like you have been,” Hayley said. “Just as friends. That should make him crack. We already know he cares for you.”
“I wonder if he’s lost the ability to really care or maybe it’s too soon. Blair said that he was complicated and I should have listened to her,” Iona said.
Cici sighed. “I don’t know if you will be able to change his mind. What about Sofia?”
“I don’t know. Of course, I’m still her friend but I don’t know if Mads will discourage her from seeing me,” Iona said.
“Time will tell,” Hayley said. “But for now, let’s get you out of this funk.”
She didn’t want to have to get through anything. She had finally opened her heart to love and somehow she’d thought that would be enough, but of course it wasn’t. But with her friends in her apartment she no longer felt like turning into a hermit and eating until none of her clothes fit her.
Hayley and Cici stayed until lunchtime, making sure that Iona got showered and dressed and went with her to the retirement home, where she was supposed to sing carols and distribute cookies. She appreciated her friends and knew getting out of the apartment would help her but she couldn’t help remembering that Mads and Sofia were supposed to be with her. She had tucked her gifts for both of them in her bag and decided she’d ask the doorman to give them to them both when she returned.