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Four things happen at once.
One: Tim comes back from an airport kiosk with two cups of overpriced coffee in his hand. He passes one of them to Lucy, who smiles up at him, and leans back against the window railing next to their carryon bags. She rests her head against one of his calves.
Two: The speaker above them crackles to life and spits out some garbled announcement from the woman standing at the gate counter. At least, he thinks it’s from her; she’s holding a radio.
Three: Tim burns his mouth on his first sip of over-roasted coffee. Six bucks a cup, and they burned it. Figures.
Four: His phone and Lucy’s vibrate at the same time.
Four things happen at once, which means that Tim is trying to comprehend them all at once, which in turn means that he doesn’t make sense of any of them.
The first thing he registers completely is the sudden chill on his shin where Lucy has sat up abruptly.
“Tim,” she says, panic edging into her voice. “Did you hear what they said? Was it about this flight alert? I think we got canceled.”
She passes her phone to him, standing up as he squints at the screen.
We’re sorry! Flight 272/Dec 23 LAX to CYS is canceled due to heavy snowfall in the destination city. Please see customer service for assistance/rebooking. We apologize for the inconvenience.
He’s reading the message for the third time when the speaker comes on again. This time, he closes his eyes and listens carefully to the tinny voice.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we regret to inform you that heavy snowfall has closed the Cheyenne, Wyoming airport. All travelers booked on flight 272 for service to Cheyenne, please see the customer service desk for assistance. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
“Shit,” he whispers.
“No kidding.” When Tim opens his eyes, Lucy is wringing her hands together and pacing in short circles. He stops her, catching her hands in his.
“Hey, it’s OK. We’ll figure it out.”
“Figure what out? They canceled our flight, Tim! You saw the website; there’s nothing else until after Christmas! The whole point of this was to spend Christmas together, just the two of us!”
She’s right: they’d spent close to a month trying to balance half a dozen holiday plans. Her parents, his sister, Angela, John, Jackson’s parents, a weekend at the retirement community where his mother lives, the list had gone on.
There was no easy answer, no plan that made everybody happy. In the end, they’d been frustrated and overwhelmed, sitting on opposite sides of Tim’s kitchen table when Lucy had looked up and asked who ever said we had to spend Christmas with anyone at all? What if we just take the holidays to ourselves, make the rounds when we get back?
It had been appealing right off the bat – no juggling, no hurry, an extended holiday season for everyone, with more days to celebrate. So they’d found a direct flight to southern Wyoming, and Tim had booked a private cabin outside city limits. That only sweetened the pot: six days, alone with Lucy, in a secluded, rural cabin.
The first real vacation they’d take together.
There are tears shining in Lucy’s eyes now, reflecting the harsh fluorescent lighting of the terminal. Tim pulls her into his chest, rubbing one hand up and down her back in wide, sweeping circles while she collects herself.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “But we’ll figure it out. We always do.”
For a moment, it feels like Lucy has accepted the reassurance. Her shoulders aren’t shaking anymore, and he can't hear her sniffles. When she leans back far enough to look him in the eye, it doesn’t look like she’s crying.
But then her eyes go wide and she sucks in a sharp breath. In any other circumstances, that expression would mean something totally different, but she starts rattling off questions before his body can react.
“Tim, what are we going to do? Do we go home now? We can’t spend Christmas in LAX. You hate the airport.” He resists the urge to laugh – that's the only reason they can’t spend seven and a half days sitting in crappy vinyl chairs and sharing three electrical outlets with 700 people? “If we go home, we have to pick someone to spend the holidays with. And what about the cabin? Can we get a refund? We took time off work for this. We—” He cuts her off.
“Hey, Lucy.” Tim lets go of her hands, bringing his own up to cradle her face gently. He draws his thumbs along her cheekbones, wiping away the stray tears. “Sweetheart. It’s going to be OK. Alright? We’ll figure it all out.” He sounds like a broken record, he’s sure, but it’s the best he can do right now. He doesn’t have the answers, doesn’t want to lie to her about that, but this is far from the worst thing they’ve endured together.
They’ll figure it out. It’s the one thing he knows for sure.
“Yeah …" She trails off, like she doesn’t quite believe him.
“We will. I promise, OK? Maybe it won’t be Wyoming, but we’ll come up with something. I don’t care where I spend Christmas, as long as you’re there too.” Tim tips his face down to rest their foreheads together. Lucy sniffles.
“You say that until you’ve spent it with my parents.”
“OK, so your parents’ is out. We can work with that.” He stands back upright. “What are you the most worried about?”
“Um …" Lucy takes a deep breath, looking around as if she’s going to find the answer right there in the airport walkway. “Checked bags, cabin rental, and … and I really don’t want to go home, but I don’t want to stay here if we don’t even have a flight.”
“Easy enough.” He rubs her arm soothingly. “I’m sure they’ve got a plan for the baggage. We’ll find out what it is. I’ll call the cabin people; they usually have some weather cancellation thing. What if we found a flight somewhere else?”
“I … I don’t know … where would we go?” She bites her lip, and Tim reaches down to squeeze her fingers.
“We don’t have to. It was just an idea, if you don’t like it, we’ll do something else.”
“I just … I don’t know.”
“That’s OK. Let’s not worry about a last-minute flight. We could drive somewhere.” But Lucy doesn’t look excited about that either. “How about this: we’ll figure out the bags, I’ll find us a room at a hotel for the week. Not too far away, but nobody has to know we’re still in town. We have the cabin through the 29th. I’ll ask them about rebooking if things open up in a few days. Even if they don’t, we’ll be together. Just us, yeah? Wasn’t that the whole point of Wyoming?”
“Yeah …" She sniffles again but looks a little cheerier than she had two minutes ago.
“Yeah, it was.”
“How do you just … solve everything? Thank you. For … solving it.”
“Anytime.” He smiles at her, pretty sure she’s talking about more than just their Christmas vacation. He knows he is, at least. “I mean it, Lucy. All I need is you, and it’ll be a Merry Christmas.”