My dad and I had a standing date on the phone every Monday night. With him traveling all over the country, it gave me a little sense of security to know that he’d check in once a week. Often the calls were short. Just a check-in. How are things? How’s school? Do you need anything? Where are you now? Where are you going next? Feeling okay? Are you going to settle down somewhere soon?

I worried about him. I knew the cross-country traveling had always been his dream retirement, but he was supposed to be in an RV with my mom. Not flying solo on a motorcycle. It was his grieving process when he got started. I never expected it to last almost four years.

Now that it was November, I knew he’d be in the South somewhere. That was the beauty of being mobile. He followed good weather wherever he wanted to go. And I knew from personal experience, that did not mean up where I was these days. Beckett had been right—it could get colder. In fact, it could snow. I’d never seen snow in real life before that wasn’t on a mountain. It was gorgeous. And it sucked.

The week before Thanksgiving, I happily answered the phone to my dad’s call.

“So, baby girl, I’ve got some news,” he said.

“What’s up?”

“I, uh, I’m in Canada.”

“Canada?” I was stunned. Talk about cold. “What are you doing up there?”

“Well, see, that’s the thing. I’ve sort of…met someone.”

Oh. I’d known this could happen. In some ways I’d hoped it would. But hearing it out loud felt like having a bucket of cold water dumped over my head. “You did?”

“Yeah. She’s a wonderful lady. I think you’re going to like her.”

I forced my throat to open. “That’s great, daddy.” Damn that quaver.

“Anyway, she’s invited me to Thanksgiving with her son and his family.”

“Isn’t Canadian Thanksgiving in October?” Way to focus on the important issues here, Em. Why the heck did I even know that?

“It is,” he said, sounding surprised. “But, uh, Charlene’s family lives in Alaska, so…regular Thanksgiving.”

“Alaska?” I repeated. “How far north are you?”

“I’m in the Yukon Territory. Near Whitehorse.”

My mind tried to call up a map of Canada, but apart from a rough idea of Vancouver and Toronto, it might as well say “Here Be Monsters.” Still, I knew Yukon Territory was north. Very north. “Oh, wow.”

“I know I should have told you about this sooner, but I just wasn’t sure how to bring it up.”

Not sure how to bring it up? I thought. Maybe try saying anything. Anything at all. Any words. Give me a single clue that you’d even spoken to a woman? “So, um, what are you saying?”

“Well, I’d love for you to come up to Alaska and join us for Thanksgiving. Charlene’s son said to invite you.”

“Dad, I’m, uh…”

“I looked into some flights and, well, they’re a bit on the expensive side.”

“I bet.” Not to mention long. I’d spend more time on a plane than with my dad.

“So, if you wanted to do something else for Thanksgiving this year, I would understand.”

I told myself that he was trying to be understanding. But it felt a bit like he was telling me not to come. A tiny voice inside me insisted that couldn’t be true, but it was hard to hear over the roaring noise of the crowd in my head shouting that he didn’t want me to come.

“Um, yeah,” I stammered. “I’ll probably just do that. I’ve gotten a few invites already.”

“You have? Oh that’s good to hear.” He sounded relieved.

“Dad, I’m sorry, I gotta go. But we’ll talk soon, okay?” My voice was rising to cartoon squeakiness. I had to get off the phone, STAT.

“Okay, baby girl. I love you so much.”

“Love you too, dad. Bye.” I hung up before he could say anything else and tossed the phone down like it bit me. My stiff fingers seemed determined to search my face for the mythical No Crying switch, pressing the bridge of my nose, and my cheek bones, fanning my face. But it was all pointless. I was going to cry and there was nothing to stop me.

Which is exactly what I was still doing when Beckett came into the bedroom.

“Wha—I didn’t know you were in—whoa. What’s wrong?”

I told him between hiccuping sounds, and disgusting, hard sniffles. I didn’t have to get very far into it before he was sitting next to me, his arm around my shoulders and consoling me.

“I’m sure he’d be happy if you came, Emmy,” he said. And, “Of course he wants to see you.” And, “You should go if you want to go.”

“But I don’t want to!” I wailed. “I don’t want to fly to Alaska for, what? Two days? I don’t want to spend Thanksgiving with some strangers I’ve never met before!”

He didn’t say anything, just squeezed my shoulders.

“I’ve seen those TV shows,” I went on miserably. “What if they’re like those bush people? What if they live off the grid and have an outhouse? I don’t want to spend Thanksgiving in an outhouse!”

He was trying valiantly not to laugh, but the shaking of his shoulders gave him away. I elbowed him in the stomach. “It’s not funny!”

“Em, they wouldn’t make you spend Thanksgiving in the outhouse.”

“You don’t know that!” I sniffled, but a choked laugh escaped me. “How did he even meet someone from Alaska? And what is he doing in Canada in November? It must be horrible.”

Beckett pressed his hand against my head until I let it rest on his shoulder, then gave me a gentle kiss on the hair. “I’m sorry.”

The sigh that escaped me was the kind that deflates you like a balloon. I sagged further into Beckett, slithering one arm around his waist for comfort. “Why can’t he just be in San Jose like a normal dad? Why can’t I just have a house to go home to?”

“I don’t know.” Beckett didn’t say anything more for a long time, just holding me and patting me gently on the arm. “I’m kind of jealous, to be honest. I don’t want to go home for Thanksgiving.”

“You don’t?”

“They’re all going to want to talk about Emily.”

“And you don’t.”

“I do not.”

I sniffled, and tried not to let my nose run onto his shirt. “Can I make an observation?”

“What?”

“You don’t really seem to ever want to talk about Emily.”

“I don’t.”

“Do you think that’s healthy?”

“Are you advocating for irrational breakdowns about outhouses instead?”

I laughed and gave him a gentle shove with my shoulder. “Don’t question my methods.”

Beckett sighed, slouching a bit. “I don’t feel like there’s anything to say. She completely fucked over my life. Nobody can say anything to change that. And now…I don’t even know if we were ever right in the first place.”

“Why do you say that?”

“My first hint was that she was planning to leave me at the altar for months. It was a pretty good clue that maybe we weren’t meant to be.”

I cringed at his acidic tone. “Right.”

“But also…I don’t really miss her that much. Which is a fucking insane thing to say about someone you were planning to marry.”

“It’s not great,” I had to admit.

He let his arm drop from my shoulders, but it stayed planted on the bed behind me. “And maybe there wasn’t a spark, and I just never knew it.”

My mind flashed on the drunken moment in the hallway when I decided to show him spark. The way his fingertips had trailed down my cheek, the place he never touched when we were playing husband and wife. “There must have been at some point,” I tried. “When you first met.”

“Maybe.” He rubbed his eyes. “But I was sixteen and she seemed interested. That was enough then.”

I wanted to protest. To be able to assure him that he hadn’t wasted his time with her, but he was making it hard. And I didn’t want to interrupt. Now that the guy who didn’t want to talk about her was talking about her, maybe it was for the best just to let him go.

“God, I think waiting was half of it. Only so far and then, nope. She was saving herself. That fucking purity ring. It drove me crazy. I just wanted her to say yes.”

This was news to me. I had no idea that Emily had taken one of those purity vows. “But she did, right?”

“Yep. Three years, two months, and twenty-six days later. But who’s fucking counting, right? Winter break, sophomore year. She cried. Told me now we had to get married or she was going to hell. Exactly what you want for your first time, right?”

Holy. Shit. I could not believe what I was hearing. “Oh my god, Beckett that sounds awful.”

“Yeah, well…” he shrugged. “There’s a reason I don’t really talk about it.”

“I never would have thought—she seemed pretty normal the couple times I met her. And her letter—there was nothing about hell.”

“Yeah, I noticed that. She’s been less…Jesus-y for the last year. I figured being away from her parents had something to do with it.”

The idea formed in my mind, complete and sure. She’d met someone else. I was certain of it even though I had no proof. No reason. It just made sense to me. People so rarely changed their fundamental beliefs for no reason. I wanted to tell him, but I knew it would only hurt him. I bit my cheek and kept my own counsel.

Suddenly Beckett straightened up. “You know what? Fuck it. I’m not going home. I don’t want to, and you don’t need to be alone on Thanksgiving.”

“I won’t be alone,” I said. “Reina already asked if we wanted to go to her family’s Thanksgiving. So did Keith. So did Ginny and Tom. I’ll be fine.”

“And how will you explain why you’re not going with your husband for the holiday?”

“Uhh…”

“You won’t.” He put his arm back around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “I’m not leaving you, Mrs. Anderson.”

“I’m not an Anderson.”

“We can’t all be perfect.”