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I pick up the beer and seltzer I never opened and walk up the steps after her. The kitchen is chaos. Matthew Jr. is screaming. Hallie and Matt are grabbing toys and food, trying to calm him. Matt’s family is eating breakfast at the table. No one except Jackson acknowledges my entrance.
I stick the drinks back in the fridge and help myself to a banana. I contemplate changing my outfit as I peel the fruit and then decide against it.
“You ready, Saylor?” Hallie asks, handing Matt a bowl of the cereal that seems to have halted the shrieking.
“Yeah,” I respond, heading into the living room to zip up my suitcase.
Once I make certain that I have everything, I return to the kitchen to say goodbye to everyone. Matt suggests slash forces I hold Matthew Jr. again. Thankfully, he starts screaming after a few seconds, so it’s a short farewell to my nephew. Saying so long to everyone else don’t take that much longer.
Hallie and I head for her car. When she brakes at the stop sign at the end of her street, I suck in a deep breath.
“Can we stop at the post office?”
“Uh, sure.”
The town’s tiny post office is just as quiet and empty as one would expect early morning. I don’t realize until I’m outside the doors it’s because it’s closed.
It’s Sunday.
I’m not shipping life-saving medication. There’s no real urgency. But I am worried I won’t send it if I don’t do it now, that I’ll talk myself out of it.
There’s a jangling sound to my left, and I glance over to see a man unlocking the side door tucked around the corner. I’d guess he’s in his late twenties, and he does a double take when he glances over and sees me.
“Hi! Could you do me a massive favor?” I ask, walking over to him.
He doesn’t answer right away, looking a bit stunned. I don’t recognize him, so I don’t think he recognizes me. Maybe he’s just taken aback I’m here. Most people probably remember post offices are closed on Sundays.
“Well?” I ask.
“Uh—um, I’m not supposed to—I mean—sure.”
A rush of relief overtakes any annoyance with his slow reactions. I follow him inside through the door he was unlocking.
I have Beck’s apartment address memorized, and I pay the exorbitant fee required to ship the box with the painting I purchased to Germany after relaying it to the postal worker.
“Thank you,” I tell him, paying after he’s completed the shipping slip.
My chest feels a little lighter when I leave the post office. I’m bad with words. With feelings. But I saw the painting and thought of Beck, so I’m hoping he’ll look at it and think of me. Some physical acknowledgement that the time we’ve spent together mattered to me. That he means something to me.
I’m a mess who’s done nothing but complicate things between us. Continue to complicate things. If my departure from Germany damaged us, we’re in tatters post-Canada. But the dysfunction doesn’t diminish what we shared.
Maybe that’s what my mother meant about broken beauty.
Or maybe she was referring to herself.
If she hadn’t left, I’d probably ask her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The next two weeks follow the same pattern every fall has for as long as I can remember. The official season starts, and everything but soccer fades. I barely attend class, I stop attending parties, and I don’t answer the three phone calls I receive from a German number.
But I do answer calls from my father. Ever since the wedding, he’s made a point to check in once a week like he’s worried if too much time passes, we’ll revert to silence. Each conversation, we muddle through a few mundane topics: the weather (different in Connecticut than Georgia), hometown news (nothing’s changed), and how I am (busy). Despite the repetition, he keeps calling. And I keep answering.
And now, he’s here. He followed through on his plan to come see me play, surprisingly. He ended our last phone call by telling me that he and Sandra were planning to come to our next home game. I didn’t miss that meant he actually took the time to look up my soccer schedule.
They made the puzzling decision to make the fifteen-hour drive rather than fly and were supposed to arrive an hour ago.
I sit in the locker room, listening to the chatter of my teammates around me as I tighten the laces of my cleats. Anne keeps looking at me out of the corner of her eye.
