“Are you sure this is what you want to do?”
Even though he had asked me a question, he didn’t give me the ball back so I could answer it. I nodded yes.
“You’ve been unhappy for years and I didn’t know what to do to fix it. It’s a father’s job, you know. To fix things. But I couldn’t fix you.” His voice shook as he examined the faded lettering on the ball. “I want you to be happy. If Jennifer makes you happy, I’m all for it.”
He came over to me and gave me a bear hug. “I love you, Sydney,” he whispered in my ear. “Be happy.”
I knew my father loved me, but I couldn’t remember the last time I had heard him say it.
“I’m going to try,” I said, trying not to get choked up.
Mom was crying too much to say more than a few words. When she held me, I couldn’t fathom how her tiny little body could possess such strength. She looked at me, her eyes watery but filled with love. “What he said,” she croaked.
I—and everyone else—assumed Patrick would speak next. When he didn’t, Kristin picked up the slack. “Today’s the first day of the rest of your life,” she said. “How does it feel?”
“I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for thirty-one years and I’m finally able to breathe.”
She hugged me again. “I’m so happy for you, Syd. Congratulations.” She placed the ball on the table and sat back down. She looked at Patrick. When he remained motionless, she dug an elbow into his ribs.
Patrick reached for the football. His bushy eyebrows were knitted into an unmistakable frown. “I don’t mean to piss in your cornflakes, but I’m not happy with you right now.” Kristin put a placating hand on his arm but he shook it off. “No, I’ve got to say this.” He turned back to me. I had expected resistance from Mom and Dad but not from him. “I’m your brother and I’ll love you no matter what. I’ve had your back since day one and I always will. Don’t you know that?”
“I—”
Patrick waved the Spalding over his head like he was doing a touchdown dance. “Respect the football,” he reminded me.
I let him have the floor.
“Let me be the first to say I saw this coming. I knew it was a mistake for you to marry Jack, but I knew better than to try to talk you out of it. Once you make up your mind about something, no one and nothing can force you to change it. No one except you.”
He pointed the ball at me to emphasize his point.
“I thought Jennifer could talk some sense into you. When you and Jack were dating, I asked her if she thought you were…” He waved the ball in the air to indicate I should complete his sentence with the word of my choosing. “She said it didn’t matter what she thought. Your opinion of yourself was the only one that counted. You have the biggest balls of anyone I know. I’m disappointed it took you this long to look yourself in the mirror and like what you see.”
So was I.
“But—and this is the important part, so please pay attention.” He stood in front of me and put a hand on my shoulder. “If you love Jennifer as much as you say you do, what are you doing here?” He pressed the football into my midsection like a quarterback handing off to a runner. “Go get her.”
Chapter Sixteen
I had a plane to catch. Unlike the day before, I didn’t have a ticket in my hand to tell me my destination. I would need Marcus’s help for that.
The apartment he and Jennifer shared was located in Lakeview, the neighborhood nicknamed Boystown for its many venues that catered mainly to gay men. After driving to the North Side in near-record time, I rang the bell and waited for Marcus to answer.
“You lied to me,” I said before he could even say hello. “I checked with every relief agency Jennifer has ever worked for and each of them told me the same thing: she isn’t in Darfur.”
“It’s good to see you, too, Syd. How are you?”
I knew I was being rude, but I didn’t have time for pleasantries. “Where is she, Marcus?”
“I’m not supposed to tell you.”
“Did she tell you about us?”
“That’s why I’m not supposed to tell you.”
“Is that why you gave me the runaround yesterday? When you led me to believe she was in the desert when you knew she wasn’t?”
“What was I supposed to do, pat you on the back? You broke her heart, Syd.”
“I know. That means I’m the only one who can mend it. Tell me where she is, Marcus. Please.”
“So you can do what? Choose Jack over her for the third time? No can do.” He sat in front of the bank of computers he used to run his at-home I.T. company. “I heard he took some time off so you two could have a second honeymoon. Is that true?”
I grabbed the back of Marcus’s desk chair and spun him around to face me. “No, the honeymoon’s over. Permanently.”
“No shit?” he asked skeptically.
“No shit. Giving up on her was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life,” I said, trying to help him along. “Please help me fix it.”
“I promised her I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Please.”
“Do you have any idea what you’re asking me to do? Do you know what you’d be getting into?”
“Yes, on both counts. Marcus, I love her. Please.”
He sighed deeply. “Okay,” he said at last. “She’s in Honduras. Blake’s clinic is finally beginning to make some inroads in both the local and indigenous communities. Jen offered to help him out for a while. But you didn’t hear that from me.”
“Hear what?” I teased him.
Twenty minutes and six hundred dollars later, I was booked on a six a.m. flight on American Airlines to Tegucigalpa via Miami. From there, I would take a bumpy three-hour bus ride to Puerto Lempira. Jennifer was in Mocoron, a tiny town forty miles to the south.
I was too wound up to sleep, despite the ten hours of travel time that loomed in front of me. Waiting for the clock to tick down to the beginning of the next leg of my journey, I thought back to the night my voyage of self-discovery had begun.
Chapter Seventeen
Jennifer’s flight landed at three p.m. Her parents, Ed and Maureen, picked her up at the airport. I wanted to do it—I’d done everything else, from planning the party to picking the restaurant to selecting the items on the menu—but I thought the three of them could use some quiet time together before the rest of us began vying for Jennifer’s attention. She hadn’t been home in nearly six months. Though we all had missed her, her parents had missed her more.
They would spend three hours getting reacquainted, then join the rest of us at Jennifer’s favorite Greek restaurant at six.
I got to Athena’s an hour early so I could check out the setup and greet the early arrivals. Sitting in the empty banquet room, I enjoyed the quiet before the storm. The servers hustled in and out, bringing in trays of cold cuts and turning on the burners for the warm dishes. They had their job to do and I had mine. So, for the most part, we left each other alone.
My parents were first on the scene. They showed up half an hour before the scheduled start. “Need any help?” Mom asked, rolling up her sleeves. I was taping up a Welcome Home sign and she wanted to pitch in.
“No, I think the staff has everything under control.” I secured the last piece of tape and stepped down off the chair I had been using as a makeshift ladder. Dad gave me a quick hug, then handed me a brightly wrapped box. “Is this for Jen?” I asked, looking for the gift card. “What did you buy her?”
“I stopped by the Army surplus store and picked up some MREs.”
I held the box away from me as if it might blow. “Meals, Ready-to-Eat? Ew.”
Created for military personnel to take with them into the field, MREs were vacuum-sealed rations that could be eaten right out of the package. The small flexible containers were filled with an appetizer, an entrée, condiments, and a couple of desserts. Armed with a flameless heater and a spoon, you could “enjoy” anything from chicken tetrazzini to beef enchilad
as to turkey and dressing. Dad swore by them. When Mom went on her annual pilgrimage to Atlantic City with her bridge club each June, the whole week she was gone, Dad eschewed the casseroles she had frozen in advance. Instead, he wolfed down MREs like they were going out of style.
Leave it to Dad to be both thoughtful and practical. Under his gruff exterior beat a heart of gold—even if you had to dig deep to find it. I wished Jack could be more like him. Vain and occasionally arrogant, Jack had a tendency to put himself first—except when it came to me. He treated me as if I were fine china, the kind that would break if you handled it too roughly. Some women might consider that behavior sweet. I found it annoying. Tough as nails, I was far from fragile.
“Don’t be that way,” Dad said, wagging his finger at me like he was lecturing me about breaking curfew. “They taste a lot better now than they did when I was in the service.”
“Even if they didn’t, they’ve got to be better than what she’s eating over there,” Mom said. She spoke out of the corner of her mouth, trying not to be overheard even though we were the only guests present. “Bread, beans, and water? They get more than that on Survivor.”
“But on Survivor, the backstabbing is figurative, not literal,” I said. “No one tries to put a bullet in your head when you leave the camp to collect firewood. The worst they can do is vote you off. I think Jennifer would prefer that any day.”
“If that’s true, then why doesn’t she come home?”
I asked myself that question all the time. I admired her selflessness, but I couldn’t emulate her example. I wanted her home. I wanted her safe. I wanted her with me, not halfway around the world.
“She’s home now,” I said. “That’s all that matters.”
Jack burst through the door as if his hair were on fire. He apologized to the waitress he had nearly bowled over and began to beg for my forgiveness as well. I tapped my watch, indicating the time.
“I know. I know,” he said, trying to placate me. “I got stuck in pediatrics.”
“Nothing bad, I hope,” Mom said. She shook her head empathetically. “There’s nothing worse than a sick child.”
“This one’s fine,” Jack said. “An eight-year-old who swallowed his sister’s class ring because she wouldn’t let him hang out with her and her friends. She wouldn’t let me leave until he passed it and he held on to it as long as he could just to spite her. He forgot about all that once the third dose of laxatives kicked in.”
“Did everything come out okay?” Dad asked.
Mom smacked him on the arm. “Sidney, that’s disgusting. Don’t make jokes like that so close to the food.”
“Yeah, Dad,” I chimed in. “If you contaminate the souvlaki, we’ll be forced to break open these MREs.”
He patted his stomach. “They’ll fill you up a lot faster than that rabbit food you’re going to be feeding us.”
I tucked the box under the buffet table for safekeeping. If anyone else brought a present, the servers and I would have some rearranging to do in order to create a display area for gifts. There might be room on the dessert table, but not much. I had to save ample space for the baklava or there would be hell to pay. Jennifer didn’t have much of a sweet tooth, but her friends sure did. They had me outnumbered.
Everyone started to stream in around six fifteen. Jennifer’s friends from college, work, and around town. The lesbian rec league softball team she used to play for—the Dyke Daddies—showed up en masse.
Natalie showed up, too—with her new girlfriend in tow. Jennifer and Natalie’s split had not been a smooth one. I wondered if their reunion would be just as tumultuous. Lindsay’s presence wouldn’t help matters much.
I hadn’t been around her enough to form an opinion of her. I had met her once when Dad and I ran into her and Natalie at a Bulls game. (Dad had season tickets. Mom didn’t like any sports and Patrick preferred football to basketball, so I was Dad’s usual date.)
Natalie had introduced us at halftime. She had spent the rest of the game trying to arrange a double date with me and Jack. When she and Jennifer were together and Jack and I were dating, the four of us got together for dinner once a week. Natalie was anxious to revive the tradition.
“Just because I broke up with Jennifer doesn’t mean I broke up with you, does it?” she had asked. “Our relationship doesn’t have to end.”
Actually, yes, it did. I was Jennifer’s best friend. As such, it was against the rules for me to be friends with her ex if she wasn’t on good terms with her. Considering my confrontation with Natalie the night before my wedding, I wasn’t on good terms with her either.
“Great party,” Lindsay said on her way back from the open bar, a drink in each hand.
“Thanks,” I replied. Though Lindsay seemed okay, I was prepared to dislike her out of loyalty to Jen. I watched her cross the room. She handed Natalie an apple martini and kept a White Russian for herself.
Jennifer and her parents showed up around six thirty. She looked good. Great, in fact. Her blond hair had been bleached almost platinum by the sun. Though it had once fallen past her shoulders, it was now so short she could comb it with her fingers. Out of convenience, no doubt. No time to wash and blow dry when you’re dodging armed men on horseback.
She had lost at least fifteen pounds since the last time I’d seen her, but the weight loss looked good on her. She looked vibrant, not anorexic. She practically hummed with energy.
Swarmed right away, it took her nearly an hour to free herself to say hello to me. “Nice party,” she said, munching on a carrot stick. “Where’s the real food?”
“You sound like Dad,” I said, watching him load up his saucer-sized plate with miniature gyros. “Don’t worry. Back at my apartment, I’ve got a steak with your name on it.”
She grinned, her blue eyes sparkling in her deeply tanned face. “I think I love you.”
She pulled me into her arms and my heart lurched in my chest. It had been so long since I had seen her that I didn’t want to let go. “You’re going to be home for a while, right?” I asked, holding on to her whittled waist.
“At least three months—if you can stand having me around that long.”
“I think I can manage.”
Holding me at arm’s length, she looked me up and down. “You look happy,” she said.
“That’s because I’m looking at you.” I smiled and touched her cheek. The gesture must have been too personal—too intimate—for her liking. She stiffened at the contact, as if she were enduring it for my benefit. I was so excited to see her that I had failed to take into account how much it must have hurt for her to see me. Abashed, I drew my hand away.
“What’s this I hear about you quitting your job?” she asked.
“That’s a long story. This isn’t the time or the place. I’ll tell you later.”
“Syd.”
“It’s not a cop-out. I promise I’ll tell you later.”
“You’d better.” She changed the subject to something else I didn’t want to talk about. “How are you and Jack?”
“We’re fine,” I answered a little too quickly.
She dropped her eyes to my stomach. “No news to report?”
“No,” I said firmly. I relented a bit, dulling the edge that had crept into my voice. “Jack wants kids and his mother wants grandkids, but I’m not so sure. In many ways, I’m still a kid myself. The female version of Peter Pan.”
“When do you plan on growing up?”
“I’m putting that off as long as I can.”
“Wise move. Innocence is precious. You don’t want to lose it.” She sounded as if she had lost hers a long time ago.
“I don’t want to lose you, either. When are you going to make me stop worrying about you?” I had promised I wouldn’t ask her that question, but I couldn’t help myself.
“You’d worry about me even if I were here and you know it.”
She had me dead to rights. Worrying about her was a habit of mine. One I didn’t intend to
break.
“Someone’s got to do it,” I said. “Why not me?”
Her eyes found Jack and returned to me. “Because you have someone else to worry about now.”
“But what if I—”
“Jen, hi.” Natalie wandered over to say hello and to introduce Jennifer to Lindsay. “Sorry to interrupt, Syd.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I was just leaving.” Not wanting to make the situation more awkward than it already was, I turned to go. Jennifer held me in place with a look. “Or not.”
“Don’t you dare leave me alone with her,” Jennifer’s eyes pleaded. So I didn’t.
“Don’t I get a hug?” Natalie asked.
“Of course,” Jennifer replied, doling out a halfhearted squeeze.
“It’s good to see you again.”
“You, too.”
Natalie drew Lindsay into the conversation, leaving me as the only one without a date to the dance. “Jen, this is Lindsay. Lindsay, Jen.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Lindsay said. “Now I can finally put a face to the name. It’s nice to meet you.” She extended her hand.
“You, too,” Jennifer replied, pumping Lindsay’s hand once and letting go. “Do you know Sydney?”
“Yes, we’ve met,” Lindsay said with a nod in my direction. “Hiya, Syd.”
“Hey.”
“How long have you been seeing each other?” Jennifer asked.
“We’ve been dating for a couple of months,” Natalie said, wrapping her arm around Lindsay’s waist. “Things are going really well.”
“So well, in fact, that we’ve decided to move in together,” Lindsay added.
Jennifer looked to Natalie for confirmation. Natalie nodded that it was true. Cohabitating was a step Natalie had been unable to get Jennifer to take, even though they had been an item for nearly six years before they had broken up. Jennifer had always said she was too comfortable living with Marcus to move out. I thought she was hedging her bets if, for some reason, the relationship with Natalie didn’t work out.
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