Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
“Sure,” I say slowly. “I’d like that.”
Her smile is quick, but it’s so happy and genuine that my eyes feel suspiciously prickly all of a sudden.
“I’ll just grab my wrap. Would you like to borrow one or—” Her gaze lingers pointedly on my bare shoulders.
The old me would have pointed out that it’s already eighty degrees and humid, and that my sundress, while sleeveless, is hardly inappropriate, and no, I don’t want a wrap.
New me merely smiles. “Sure, thank you.”
I step inside and wait for her to return from upstairs with two wraps in hand. I’m relieved to see that the one she hands me, while not exactly my style, is a light cashmere and the lavender color works well with the green of my dress.
“Where’s Dad today?” I ask.
“One of his fishing trips with your Uncle Steve,” she says, picking up her purse from the table in the foyer.
“Does he still bring home that enormous cooler of fish that leaked all over the floor?” I ask as we step out into the sunshine.
“Not,” she says in a crisp tone, with a knowing smile, “anymore.”
I smile back, remembering the rare occasions when I heard my parents argue, remembering how often it had to do with, as my mother had phrased it, ‘those infernal fish.’
As we’ve established, my dad is not the outdoorsy type, or at least he wasn’t prior to his herb garden stage, but my Uncle Steve is sort of the black sheep of his family and moved to North Carolina to embrace all things remote and nature. He flat out refuses to come into the goddamn city, which means that when my dad wants to see his brother, he flies to North Carolina and comes home with the aforementioned cooler.
Or at least he did. I’m not the least bit surprised that my mom put the kibosh on that routine, nor am I surprised my dad let her. He doesn’t even really like fish.
“You know,” I muse as we walk down the quiet sidewalk, “it just occurred to me that Uncle Steve’s sort of my spirit animal.”
Mom makes a huffing noise. “How do you suppose that?”
“He flew the coop,” I point out. “Just like I did.”
“There’s a difference between the swampy bayous of North Carolina and San Francisco.”
I open my mouth to point out that geographically speaking, swampy bayous isn’t the right way to describe North Carolina, but since I’m pretty sure she just came the closest she ever has to complimenting my adopted hometown, I let it slide.
Also …
I frown a little, as I realize that the mention of San Francisco doesn’t cause the usual knee-jerk reaction to remind her—and myself—that it’s home.
Nor does thinking about California cause even a flicker of homesickness. That can’t be right. San Francisco is my life. It’s where my work is, my friends, my home …
And yet, even though I’ve only been in New York for three weeks, I have the most unnerving feeling that I never left. And the ten years I spent in San Francisco are strangely fuzzy somehow. I try to shake off the feeling, making a mental note to call some of my girlfriends when I get home. I just need a reminder of my life there, that’s all.
As we walk up the steps of St. Thomas and step inside the church, I’m relieved, if not exactly surprised, to see that of all the things in my life, this changed the least in my time away from New York. Everything is exactly as I remember, even the smells.
Though I wouldn’t exactly volunteer this fact to Mom, once I moved to California and weekly Mass was no longer mandatory as decreed by my mother, I sort of let myself lapse into a Christmas and Easter kind of gal … if that.
Sitting in the familiar church though, instead of the old restless feeling I remember from past Sundays, I find the quiet and the rituals soothing, and by the time we step back out into the sunshine a little over an hour later, I confess I seem to breathe just a little easier than I have since Rebecca knocked on my door yesterday morning.
As a teenager, I was always anxious to get on with my day, impatient with my mother’s ritual of lingering outside the church steps following the service to mingle with her friends. Today though, I follow her lead, greeting familiar faces, and even enduring a couple of honest-to-goodness cheek pinches from a few of the older ladies.
“Well,” Mom says in a satisfied tone, as the group slowly begins to dissipate. “Shall we?”
“Shall we…”
“Talk, dear. We may have been apart for some time, but you’re still my daughter, and I still know when there’s something on your mind.”
“What gave me away? Maybe the fact that I showed up on your doorstep unannounced for the first time ever?”