If only I’d been half as successful as a husband.

I exhaled, my breath a cloud of white in the icy night air. For the millionth time, I wondered if there had been something more I could have done to save my marriage. The real enemy had been infertility, which had eaten away at our happiness little by little, until there was nothing left. Despite what Renee said, I’d never blamed her, but she’d felt crushed under the weight of knowing it was her endometriosis causing the problem. She said she felt like a failure as a woman, and as a wife. No matter how many times I tried to convince her otherwise, she refused to listen or get therapy. The hormones were hell on her, and I tried hard to be sensitive to her feelings, to remind myself that this wasn’t what either of us had planned.

The only times I got angry with her were when we’d fight about adoption—she wouldn’t consider it. Had I called her stubborn? Unreasonable? Closed-minded? Unfair? Had I said things I regretted?

Fuck yes, I had.

But I’d said those things from a place of frustration and exhaustion and fear. I wanted to be a father, dammit, and I saw my chances slipping away because of her relentless determination to “become a mother the real way.” I did blame her for that. Had I been wrong?

In the end, maybe it didn’t matter.

After five failed rounds of IVF, our savings were drained. After years of trying to get the timing exactly right for conception, sex became a chore. After months of endless fights and sleeping on the couch and apologizing the next day for whatever I’d said that made her cry all night long, I’d given up on having children and just wanted peace.

I wanted to talk about something other than fertility. I wanted to stop being unable to go places as a couple because seeing a pregnant woman—or worse, hearing one say we weren’t even trying—would put Renee over the edge. I wanted to want sex again, to take pleasure in it for its own sake, for the release, for the connection, for the fucking fun of it. My dick had become a clinical piece of machinery, just another cog in a mechanism that refused to work. And eventually, it was clear Renee had no use for it if it wasn’t going to get her pregnant.

We grew resentful of each other. We grew distant and angry. We grew apart.

Then she said she was leaving. That my presence in her life was a constant reminder of her childlessness, she wasn’t in love with me anymore, and she couldn’t stay. She took off one afternoon in early September, and I hadn’t heard from her since.

I’d been hurt, of course. Angry. Bitter. Resentful. But also . . . relieved.

Because I couldn’t honestly say I was in love with her anymore either—it felt shitty, but it was the truth. The years we’d spent trying and failing to start a family, the fights, the cost, the blame . . . all of it had taken a toll. I had no idea how to make her happy, and I wasn’t sure I ever would.

Frankly, I wasn’t sure I knew how to make any woman happy. My whole experience with marriage had taught me that you could never really know a person. What you thought someone wanted, what you thought you could offer, it could all change. Life was unpredictable, and just when you thought you had it all figured out, just when you thought winter was over and spring was right around the bend, you got hit with a late frost that killed every bud on the vine.

So when people said things to me like, “Oh, you’re still young, it’s different for a guy, you’ll be fine . . .” I kind of wanted to fucking punch them in the face. It wasn’t that easy to just pick up, move on, and start over. I didn’t trust anyone or anything to turn out like I thought.

Plus, it’s not like this small town was overrun with hot single women banging my door down.

I was closer to forty than thirty. I was a farmer and a science nerd. I got excited about things like soil and microclimates and carbonic maceration. I loved getting my hands dirty.

I had a pretty decent body (thanks to hours spent working off tension at the gym), but I wasn’t ripped. I had a career I loved, but I wasn’t rich—and I was never going to be rich. I drove a beat-up truck, tracked mud in the house, and got a fourteen-dollar haircut.

Did I own a suit and tie? Yes, but three-hundred sixty-five days a year, I went to work in frayed jeans and shirts with holes in them, and I liked it that way.

Back when she gave a fuck, Renee used to say I was good in bed—I never took a woman’s pleasure for granted—but those days were long gone.

Christ. Would I ever have sex again? I missed everything about it—the smell of perfume in the dark, the feel of soft curves beneath my palms, the taste of a woman on my tongue.

I nearly groaned aloud as I reached the end of one row and started down another. But there was no use getting worked up about it. I wasn’t ready to date anyone, and I wasn’t the type to jump in bed with some random woman I didn’t know.

I told myself to be grateful for what I did have—a nice house, a great job, some good friends. Sure, my sex life was depressing as fuck and my first Christmas alone was going to be hard, but I’d get through it. Maybe I’d buy myself a present—a new truck, a nicer watch, a fishing boat.

At the very least, a subscription to a better porn site.

I was going to need it.

Three

Sylvia

One week after the Breakfast with Santa debacle, the kids and I caught a 5:50 A.M. flight to Salt Lake City, then a 9:35 A.M. flight to Detroit before finally hopping on a small plane that took us to Cherry Capital Airport in Traverse City. By the time my dad picked us up, we’d been traveling for almost ten hours. We were exhausted, grouchy, and starving.

“Should we stop for dinner on the way home?” I asked him as we waited for our mountain of luggage. Each of us had two huge suitcases, and what winter clothing we hadn’t been able to fit in those, I’d boxed up and shipped here. Once the house sold, I’d have to go back and ship our summer things. I planned on leaving almost everything else in the house for Brett to deal with—I wanted no reminder of my old life here.

“Nope, your mom was ordering pizza when I left the house. Should be there by the time we get back. And she’s all excited about baking cookies with the kids tonight.” He put an arm around Whitney and squeezed her tight. “We’re so glad you guys are here. Did I tell you I bought a new sleigh?”

Whitney beamed up at him with her bright red lips. “The kind the horses pull?”

“Yep. This one is even bigger—it’s got three rows of seats, so you can take a ride together with your cousins. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

“Yes, it does.” I smiled, even as my throat tightened, overwhelmed with gratitude and relief at coming home. “Thanks, Daddy.”

My parents had said we could stay at Cloverleigh Farms as long as we needed to, and they certainly had the room. Back when I was growing up, it had been just a small family farm, but in the last thirty years, my parents had expanded the farmhouse into a thirty-room inn with a bar and restaurant. In addition, there was now a winery, tasting room, a brand new distillery, and it was consistently named one of the top wedding venues in the state. My sister April was the event planner, and I’d never seen anyone bring a bride’s vision to life the way she could. My sister Chloe was the new CEO, slowly easing into the position as my dad “retired” at a snail’s pace.