She offers this information freely, as if we’ve picked up our relationship exactly where we set it down on Christmas morning a year ago, halfway through a round of the honesty game. As if there are no boundaries between us, no hurt feelings to protect. She hands over vulnerability like it’s the easiest thing in the world, and maybe it is if you’re Jack Kim-Prescott. If you didn’t leave last year with hurt feelings.

My heart squeezes in my chest, almost like it’s shrink-wrapping itself for future mishandling. “What are you making?”

“Waffles.” She cracks an egg against the granite counter and slides the egg whites and yolk into the batter with one hand. It looks impossibly cool. “I always make waffles the first morning at the cabin. It’s on the schedule.”

“The schedule?”

Jack uses a wooden spoon to point to a laminated schedule on the counter. It’s an Excel spreadsheet with the next eight days broken down into structured activities, things like Christmas cookies: six hours and finding the perfect Christmas tree: three hours.

Christmas carols: two hours.

Family ski trip: twelve hours.

The detail-oriented side of me whimpers at the sight of such organizational glory. But the emotional, sentimental side is slightly unnerved that the organization is applied to family bonding time. “Whoa,” is what I ultimately say.

“Yes.” Jack nods, whisking. “That’s my mother for you.”

“Whoa,” I repeat. Yet—there’s something sweet about the laminated schedule, too. Katherine cares about spending time with her family so much, she’s carved out two hours just for a first family walk in the snow. Linds can’t carve out ten minutes for a phone call unless she needs money.

I feel it again, that sense of longing mixed with a nostalgia for family Christmases I’ve never known.

“Katherine does not play when it comes to mandatory family activities,” Jack explains. “Even though we all live close, we only spend quality time together as a family a few times a year, and Christmas is my mom’s favorite.”

“What about your dad?” I set the schedule back down. “Does he usually have to work through the holidays?”

Jack hunches her back and leans into mixing the batter. This involves some rather obscene forearm flexing.

You’re over her. It never meant anything. She’s a garbage liar person.

I hear Meredith’s voice. A garbage liar person with exceptional forearms.

“Yes,” Jack finally answers. “My dad works. And he’ll tell my mom he’s coming tomorrow every night when she calls, and every morning, he will break my mom’s heart all over again by not showing up. He’ll probably be here for Christmas Day, but that’s it. It’s the same every year.”

I glance back down at the laminated schedule. Family holiday movie night: four hours. “That’s… sad.”