Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 117177 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117177 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Sometimes I wondered if it was because I’d always been closer to my mother, and he’d thought trying would be the equivalent to competing for affection. I’d asked my therapist, and she’d said there was no way of knowing without asking.
One day I would.
Just not today.
The revelation about my grandparents had changed something between my father and me, and I wanted to do what I could to make sure the change was a good one.
We ordered lunch, and my father asked, “How is your young woman?”
“Hallie. She’s well.”
“The event-management company she works for . . . It would seem it’s very successful.”
“Yeah. They have a lot of high-profile clients. Hallie’s job is extremely involved, much harder than people give credit for, and she handles the pressure with so much grace. She has fantastic instincts and cares about her job. I’m proud of her and what she’s achieved in her career.”
He nodded. “And I’m sure the feeling is mutual. Speaking of, have you thought any more about your future?”
I tensed.
“No pressure,” my father insisted. “No judgment. Just a discussion. And the offer to help if I can. I just want you to succeed and be happy, Christopher.”
Though he’d been increasingly congenial lately, it still took me aback.
“Thank you. I’m considering the offer from NASA.”
“Good.” He looked relieved. “Excellent. When do you need to get back to them with a decision?”
“I have some time,” I replied vaguely.
His lips pinched together, a telltale sign he wasn’t pleased with my answer. I waited for him to revert to character and say something condescending.
He didn’t.
He just took a second and then nodded slowly.
Deciding to take advantage of this newly patient version of my father, I leaned across the table and said, “If you don’t want to talk about it, just tell me, but I would like to hear more about your parents. Where they came from. What they were like.”
I knew I was pushing it.
Yet my father surprised me again. Though his eyes flared with emotion, maybe even anger, he eventually responded, “One day, son. I will tell you one day. But not here, not now. When we’re somewhere private and I can find the words.”
This was a compassion I’d never experienced for my father, not even when my mother died—because one, I was consumed with my own grief, and two, he was so stoic I wasn’t even sure what he’d felt at her loss. The loss of his parents, the way that it happened, and most likely the consequent years in foster care, had a profound effect on my father. On who he’d become.
Knowing that made his actions over the years a little more understandable. Maybe losing Miguel and Mom, and then seeing how close he’d come to losing me over his treatment of Hallie, had woken him up. Had exacted a change.
And I believed no matter who someone was or what age they were, people were capable of changing for the better.
If I could offer that faith to a stranger, I could certainly offer it to my father.
Sitting back in my seat, I let the subject of my grandparents go. “Did you catch the Yankees game?”
Baseball was the one sport my father followed religiously despite his busy schedule. He groaned, reaching for his glass of water. “Did I see it? Are you trying to upset me by bringing it up?” From there, he launched into an irritated diatribe that made me laugh, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I had a good time in the company of my father.
FORTY
Hallie
Bad timing.
It could ruin everything, just as much as good timing could change a life.
Unfortunately today was all about the bad timing.
After Chris had let me into his apartment, he didn’t even kiss me hello before he ducked into the bathroom to wash up for our dinner plans. That led me to standing in Chris’s bedroom, staring at the bathroom door, trying to drum up the courage to confront him about how distant he was being once again. I thought his whole weird, distracted phase was over, but the day after our argument regarding those photos of him and Darcy, he returned to being off planet.
By the time Friday arrived, my worry over his behavior and mixed signals was making me a little frazzled.
I couldn’t keep it in anymore. It was all I could think about, and it distracted me from work, from life, from everything. I’d tried to pay for lunch with my MetroCard today. Yesterday, I’d sent an “I love you” text to my client Christine instead of to Chris. She replied, “Thank you?”
So it was the ultimate in bad timing that Chris’s phone (returned per my mother, who did want to talk about the photos and made an annoying disbelieving hmm noise when I explained them to her) binged on his bedside table.