“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I think the best opportunity is the one you’re excited about and truly want to take. The timing isn’t right for this one. Maybe you’ll never want a job like that. That’s okay, too.”
I took a sip of my wine and thought about what he’d said. “Thank you. I know it’s early still, but you taking that job makes me feel less guilty about not springing for this opportunity. There’s less weight on me now.”
“You’re most welcome—I’m just sorry I didn’t do something sooner.” He smiled at me. “Can we officially retire our lists? I feel like we’re in a better place these days, don’t you?”
“I do, but I’m not sure we can credit the lists for that.”
“Well, yes and no. If you hadn’t said you wanted things to change, I might not have gotten this job, and you would feel pressure to apply for Yolanda’s, and then things would be a whole lot harder right now.” He lifted his glass, and I leaned forward and clinked my own against his. “So, here’s to you and your crazy idea.”
“Our crazy idea,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “Here’s to us.”
As I looked at him—with those brown eyes, which I had been looking at for nearly two decades but could still take me by surprise—I thought about what might come next for us. If I had learned anything from our project, it was that our marriage was not strengthened during good times, or even during the bad. It was working together toward a common goal that cemented our bond.
A knock at the door broke through my thoughts.
I sighed. While I was glad Lorrie had finally taken my advice, her timing had hardly improved. “Ignore it,” I said to Sanjay.
“You should probably see who it is.”
I looked at him, puzzled. Had he ordered me flowers? A singing telegram?
But when I opened the front door, a face I knew as well as my own was staring back at me. “Mi vida,” said my father. My life.
“Dad,” I said. Then I broke into tears. I could feel my father’s ribs as he hugged me, and his hair was too gray, and—well, he didn’t look particularly healthy. But when we finally pulled apart, he was smiling.
More important, he was here .
“I’m sorry it took so long for me to visit.”
“It’s okay,” I said, not even bothering to try to stop crying. “Come in, come in.”
“Thank you,” he said. He glanced around. “What a nice place you have.”
“Thank you. I like it, too.”
Sanjay had come to the hallway. After he took my father’s suitcase, he embraced him.
“You knew about this, didn’t you?” I said.
He grinned. “Your dad wanted to come visit, so I told him to come as soon as he could. All I did was get Miles’ room ready so he had a place to sleep.”
My heart swelled. He knew how much this meant to me, and he had helped make it happen.
“Kids! Your grandfather is here!” Sanjay yelled.
Miles and Stevie came running down the stairs.
“Grandpa?” said Miles, looking at my father questioningly. And no surprise—he hadn’t seen him since he was four. We had photos up, but it wasn’t the same.
My father knelt and extended a hand. “Hello, Miles. You can call me Abuelo . It’s nice to see you again.”
“Abuelo,” repeated Miles.
“Hi,” said Stevie quietly.
He turned to her. “Stevie! You’re the spitting image of your beautiful mother.” She flushed and smiled shyly.
“Hey, kids? Can you give your grandfather a tour of the house?” I said. I didn’t have to ask twice—they grabbed him by the hand and yanked him into the living room. “Gentle!” I called after them.
“I’m fine, Penelope!” he called back.
The screen door slammed as they pulled my father into the backyard.
“Thank you for doing this,” I said to Sanjay.
“I didn’t do anything except take your father’s call. He’s here because of you. Because you told him what you needed from him.”
“I did, didn’t I?” I gave him a teary smile, but Sanjay wiped my face with the sleeve of his new shirt and kissed me. “I’m going to go make sure the kids aren’t making your father jump on the trampoline, okay?”
“I love you, you know.”
He held my gaze. “I love you, too. More than ever.”
After he left, I went into the kitchen to pour a glass of water for my father, who was wiping his brow and talking to Sanjay as the kids ran circles around them. As I regarded my family through the window, I was reminded of the night Jenny’s voice first came to me, and what a comfort that had been.
It occurred to me that it had been several weeks since I had heard her. Somehow I knew I wouldn’t again.
If Jenny were still alive—or even if we were still just having chats in my head—I would have told her how happy I was to be building a new bond with my father. I would have shared that I was finally making space for my own dreams. I would have confessed I was doing what had once seemed impossible and falling in love with my husband again.
And in spite of her pain, she would have been happy for me.
Close female friendships are built one secret at a time. What Jenny had concealed did not undo all we had shared; I would miss her for the rest of my life. But as I watched my husband gesturing animatedly to my father, I was profoundly grateful that I still had one person with whom I could share these thoughts, and the many ideas and experiences—and, yes, mistakes—that would follow.
Above my family, the sun was beaming in the cloudless blue sky. I wondered if Jenny was up there somewhere, or in the air around me, or at least a part of the universe somehow. Wherever she was, I only hoped she knew I had received her parting gift—the ability to look beyond what was missing and be thankful for all that remained.