My eyes opened slowly the next morning, startled by the brightness of the room. Everything seemed light, and there were stacks of snow in each corner of the window. The bottom was glazed over with frost, and my insides fluttered for a moment at the notion that we had a white Christmas. I turned over to face Ashley, only to find a mess of twisted sheets where she had been. The clock on her nightstand read 10:04. Wow, I’d slept late. I shimmied my way out of the sheets and felt the cold air rush to touch all of my exposed skin – it was truly freezing in this apartment. I grabbed my NYU sweatshirt from the floor and wrestled it over my head, leaving my bottom half in just underwear. Deciding that I had layers enough, I made for the door. As soon as I had crossed the threshold, the smell of bacon hit me. Bacon? And… was that eggs? I took a few more steps, my cold feet brushing against the carpet. I guess Ashley must have heard it.

            “Spencer? Is that you up?” She turned and looked at me for a moment: in one of her hands was a spatula, in her other was a pan, and she had splatters of some unidentified substance across her tee shirt. She was a mess. “Oh thank God. Do I even have to explain? You know what me trying to cook is like.” I made my way for the stove and gently pried the pan and spatula from her hands, then began scrambling the eggs instead of letting them burn as she had been doing. “Good thing we’ve got a Carlin in the house.” She mumbled. “Oh, and Merry Christmas” She came up behind me and planted a kiss on my cheek. Her voice was tired, but it was clear that she was trying. I appreciated the effort. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, but something was different about her today.

            “Merry Christmas” I replied, smiling weakly, simultaneously scrambling the eggs. “Why’d you get up and make breakfast? You know I would have done it.”

            “Well, after having been a roaring bitch last night, I think I owed it to you.” She smiled apologetically. I wished so badly that she understood. That she could know that this single parental dinner issue wasn’t the problem.