New Year's Eve

New Year’s Eve is a turning point in Brett Bohlinger’s life-list story: a night she enters expecting a new beginning with Brad Midar, only to have that hope collapse before midnight. Its movement from a quiet evening at her mother Elizabeth Bohlinger’s brownstone to an interrupted encounter at Brad’s duplex gives the calendar’s promise of renewal a sharply personal reversal.

The Last Evening of the Year

At five o’clock on New Year’s Eve, Brett sits in the window seat of Elizabeth’s brownstone with a bag of M&M’s and Rudy curled at her feet. Outside, daylight gives way to night as Chicago prepares for its annual celebrations. Brett’s own evening is subdued: she is on the phone with Carrie Newsome, catching her up on Sanquita Bell’s doctor visit and Joad Bohlinger’s questioning about where Brett is living. The conversation places the holiday amid unresolved practical concerns rather than uncomplicated festivity.

Brett also tells Carrie that Johnny Manns has called again, but his attention has been fixed on his sick daughter, Zoë Manson. Brett understands his worry, yet fears that his concern for Zoë leaves no room for a relationship with her. Carrie urges patience, drawing on her experience as a mother: when a child is ill, that child can become a parent’s whole world. The exchange does not resolve Brett’s uncertainty about Johnny; it gives her a friend’s reassurance while she waits to learn where she stands.

The phone call turns briefly toward the ordinary rituals of friendship. Carrie tells Brett about her daughter Tayloe’s dance recital, promising to send a video and joking that Tayloe is out of step, as Carrie once was. Brett, whose brother Jay Bohlinger and sister-in-law Shelley are attending a party, says she had offered to watch their children but Shelley hired a sitter. Instead, Brett has rented old Meg Ryan films, including Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail, and teases Carrie with an invitation to come over. Carrie names When Harry Met Sally as the condition that would bring her. The exchange gives the evening warmth and comic ease, but Brett remains alone at home when the call ends.

A Call Made at Midnight’s Edge

Brett’s hopes shift when she interprets her mother’s choice of Brad to handle the estate as deliberate. Elizabeth could have selected Mr. Goldblatt, Brett reasons, but chose Brad, a man she knew and respected. Brett takes that decision as evidence that her mother intended to create a new relationship between them. In this moment, the estate arrangement and the red journal become part of Brett’s understanding of Elizabeth’s continuing influence: she sees the appointment not merely as administration, but as a final gift and an encouragement to love.

Brett turns that interpretation into action. Before dialing Brad, she stares at the phone and mentally rehearses what to say. Her hands shake, though she also feels calm, and she touches the small gold parachute charm she wears for reassurance. She calls and asks whether he would like company that night. After a pause, Brad says he would. The invitation is direct, but its emotional stakes are larger than a casual visit: Brett is testing whether the future she has imagined with him can begin now.

The Promise of a New Life

Brett drives through falling snow, turns onto Oakley, and finds a parking space a block from Brad’s duplex. She treats the convenient space as a good omen. On the way to his house, she imagines that the two of them will accomplish every remaining goal on her list, including the dreaded horse. Even her false pregnancy seems less devastating in that hopeful picture. She thinks Brad would make a much better father than Andrew Benson, and feels thrilled at the prospect of a new year and a new life.

The confidence is not secure. At Brad’s porch, Brett wonders whether her own hunch—and Carrie’s reassurance—might be mistaken. Her heart pounds, and she has little time to reconsider before the door opens. Brad greets her in jeans and an untucked cotton shirt. He closes the door behind them, and their meeting quickly becomes intimate: they kiss, and Brett begins to undo his belt. The physical closeness appears, for a few moments, to confirm the future she has projected onto the evening.

The Ring and the Reversal

Brad’s phone rings from another room. The interruption stops their encounter; when the ringing ends, Brad stands before Brett with his clothes disordered and rubs the back of his neck. His expression is tender, but Brett understands it as the look of someone who does not want to hurt her because his heart belongs to someone else. The scene does not identify the caller or explain the other relationship, but it makes clear that Brad cannot offer Brett the commitment she has just imagined.

Brett asks him to call the other woman, then bends to retrieve her sweater. As Brad calls after her, she runs down the porch steps and continues along the sidewalk, afraid that stopping would make her world fall apart. The New Year’s Eve encounter therefore reverses the night’s rising promise: the gold charm and the snow accompany Brett toward Brad, but neither omen nor hope can protect her from the phone’s interruption. The year turns with her imagined partnership broken, leaving the holiday’s language of a fresh start in painful contrast with her immediate loneliness.