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“Let me stop you there. Nothing is ever going to happen between us again, Ally. I moved on a long, long time ago, and you should too.”
“I guess we’ll be talking about it in court, won’t we?”32NolaGriff and Ben were still whacking each other with oversized foam hands holding up one finger. The boys’ shirts were covered in stains from jumbo hotdogs and Griff was wearing half of his soda on his pants. Worse, they had both been splattered by excited sprays of beer from nearby fans. They smelled like train wrecks, but they were grinning from ear to ear, so I couldn’t complain.
Watching Jack play had felt surreal. I’d seen him on TV before we ever met, but little by little, some of the shock had worn off. He’d become less of an idea or a symbol and more of a person. Seeing him on the mound while tens of thousands cheered brought a little bit of that back.
I was dating an MLB pitcher. A superstar who nearly every person in the country could name and recognize at a glance. The thought made me feel a kind of heady fullness, like waking from an amazing dream only to realize I was still in that dream.
My favorite part of the feeling was that I got to see the real Jack Kerrigan. Almost everybody else had to deal with some fantasy idea of what “that super-hot pitcher” would be like. I didn’t have to wonder.
But I still felt the sinking in my stomach to remember I’d be back with the rest of them on the outside soon. The email I’d send the other night was doing its damage, ripping us apart even if the damage hadn’t reached our eyes yet.
I watched Griff and Ben set up a sort of “trap” for Jack. Ever since we’d watched Home Alone together, the boys had a renewed interest in that sort of thing. At the moment, they were putting a little toy spider in the pair of shoes Jack usually wore for his morning run. When they finished, they high fived.
I wasn’t sure which boy was having the bigger influence on which. Before they’d met, Griff had been heading down a self-destructive path. It seemed like he was destined to be that kid who winds up getting kicked out of middle or high school to be sent to a strict prison-like reform school. Now his pranks and rebelliousness seemed curbed to the point of regular childhood antics. Then there was Ben, who had been inward and shy to the absolute extreme. Ben had grown brave enough to talk to adults and even join in with other kids on the playground for pickup games of soccer.
To my surprise, his little training routines with Griff had continued as well. Ben could do two legitimate pushups. If he kicked his spindly legs just the right way, he could even pull himself an inch or so up toward the pull up bar.
I was proud of both the boys, and it was just one more reason I was starting to think I’d be crazy to follow through with my plans to go to Florida.
My mind was anywhere but the present as I went through the ritual of the nighttime routine. Teeth were brushed, books were read, and pajamas were put on. But my thoughts were on what I’d felt like was the dilemma I faced. Jack, or Florida?
My parent’s dreams, or my own?
But for the first time, it didn’t feel like a dilemma. Clinging to the idea that I’d do this someday was just some convoluted form of grief postponement.
I’d been putting away the few toys the boys had brought on the trip when the realization sank into me. I stopped with a robot who was hurling threats my way in one hand, turning the facts over in my head until I had a clear picture.
That’s exactly what I was doing. I was holding onto the restaurant in Florida like some kind of seed. As long as that seed of my parent’s dreams was in my pocket and I believed I’d plant it someday, I didn’t have to fully accept their loss. I could hold on to that one last thread of something.
It was why I hadn’t been able to accept the knowledge that my mom and dad wouldn’t have wanted this for me. They would’ve told me to be happy. To forget what they wanted and live my own life. But I’d selfishly clung to their dream because I was too scared to let that last piece of them go. Sure, I loved the idea of starting my own restaurant someday. But if I was doing it for myself, it didn’t need to be in a particular, exact spot by the beach in Florida.
And there I was, standing with two forking paths laid out in front of me.
