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He'd arranged for a car to pick us up at the airport, and the driver waited at the bottom of the escalator. As much as I had loved the month in Lebanon, I was ready for home, and Detroit had never looked so good.
“Drop me home, okay?” I asked. “I’m eager to get a shower and get my mail. I’ll come to you as soon as you’re settled.”
He looked at his watch. “It’s almost ten. By the time we are unpacked, I’ll be ready for a nap.” His gaze burned into me. “Will you take one, too?”
“I’ll definitely take a nap with you,” I whispered. “I don’t know how much sleep I’ll get.”
He’d snuck into my room in Tripoli, but we hadn’t lingered. This afternoon, I planned on taking my time.
Chapter 7
We had returned to the US at the beginning of the week, and I called my mother immediately to let her know.
“Great! Get in touch when you want to get together,” Lillian said.
No invitation to Sunday dinner was forthcoming.
“This is what you wanted,” Dale reminded me. “Be happy they aren’t on your case. If the time comes that you return to Lebanon, you’ll be glad they kept their distance.”
But would I? My parents were my last tie to Lucy. My sister Margo called me that week.
“God, Rocko and I really miss you. Come to my house for dinner on Saturday night. It will just be the siblings and significant others. I won’t even tell George and Lillian you’re coming.”
“I’m paranoid about how standoffish they are,” I admitted.
“Rocko thinks they’re trying to prevent getting hurt again. They lost Lucy, and now you’re probably going to marry the famous doctor and never be heard from again.”
I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. My sister always knew exactly what I needed to hear.
“He’s not famous, at least not in Lebanon, and it’s what he wants. There’s an anonymity working at a charity hospital in Tripoli. People would be stunned if they could see him. He didn’t get a haircut or shave the whole time we were there.”
“Let me know about Saturday,” Margo said. “I am looking forward to getting to know him. If you guys leave the country again, I might never get the chance.”
“I’ll make a point of getting him together with the family.”
After the call ended, I wondered what was keeping me from simply going to the house and visiting. I might have discovered a little lingering anger that I’d thought had been long resolved. I still blamed my parents for Lucy’s death. I might never get over it. The key—could I move on without my parents? And if I could, did that make me a terrible person?
The week after we returned home flew by. Flynn went back to work, but I noticed he was more contemplative than before. Something was clearly bothering him, but he wasn’t sharing. When Friday night rolled around, I was waiting for him at his house in my sweatpants with a pizza and a bottle of wine.
“This is what dreams are made of,” he said.
“I’m ready to hear all of your dreams.”
He held me, and then we walked together to his room so he could change. I sat on the bed and turned the TV on with the remote while he showered. When he came out of the bathroom, I could see that he was troubled. Maybe a case had gone sideways, which had rarely happened, but when it did, he took weeks to recover.
“How’d today go?”
He sat on the bed and reached for me. I turned the TV off.
“After the month at the clinic, this life will not cut it.”
I took his hand. “Do you think you just need to adjust again?”
“It feels like the universe is sending me a message that what I’m doing now will never be enough again.”
“You have to follow your heart, Flynn.”
“I have a contract that isn’t over for months. Will that give you enough time to decide what you want to do?”
