Page 41 of Meet Me in the Blue

“It doesn’t have to be.” He wiggled his way up the bed, sitting straighter, and pressed our shoulders together. “You love him.”

“I always have.”

“I know.” He ran a finger along the touch pad until he found the folder labeled ‘Rook’. He clicked it open, every memory, every shot littering the screen with color, with a life I’d tried to hide from, with a man I’d never let go of. “Does he know yet?”

“Yeah… I think he does.”

Dad nodded, sifting through the photos like they weren’t a private diary, like every feeling I had for Rook wasn’t on display. “And?”

“AndI don’t know.” I exhaled, frustrated with his line of questioning. “It’s not important right now. This. Time with you is all I want.”

Dad closed the laptop and stared out the sliding door windows. The day was overcast as usual. The hemlocks in the backyard rustled in the breeze, creating a contemplative white noise that seeped through the walls and filled the silence.

I thought I’d put a lid on the conversation and started to feel bad for shutting him out when he spoke again. “Your mom was a lot like you when we first met. Closed off… always second-guessing herself. It took her almost two years to go out with me.” It was a story I knew well but loved to hear over and over again when I was little. How my dad had won my mom. “She fought it, thought she knew what was best for me, pretending like she wasn’t interested. I almost thought we’d graduate college and never see her again.”

“She thought you were too good for her.”

“Hmm.” He nodded. “That was part of it. But she didn’t trust herself either. She didn’t trust her feelings… like you.” He poked my cheek and I chuckled. “Your mom didn’t think I was ready to give everything up for her.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“There is a part of the story I’ve never told you.”

“Oh, is this where you tell me you knocked Mom up and she had to marry you and then over time your love conquered all?”

“No.” He beamed, and I was brought back to that Saturday morning couch again, DIY, and Frosted Flakes.

“Shit…okay, I’m listening.”

“Your mother and I hung around with the same group of people. Her best friend’s brother was my roommate. It wasn’t a secret I had my eye on your mom since freshman orientation, but it also wasn’t a secret my dream was to attend Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Everyone used to tease me. They’d always told me I might as well go to Harvard if I had to be fancy about it, or asked me what’s wrong with being a Husky for a few more years. The University of Washington had a great med school program. But you remember how Bubbe was, and Pop, they were very… particular.”

“That’s a nice way of putting it.”

“They wanted me to have the world. We didn’t have a lot, and they wanted to give me the opportunities they never had.”

“Johns Hopkins… that’s a big deal.”

“It was… and Pop never went to college. Bubbe, either. He was a butcher…”

“And didn’t Bubbe do hair?”

“She did. And they saved every penny.”

“Did you have the grades for a scholarship?”

“Absolutely.”

“Shit.” I wasn’t an idiot. I knew where this conversation was headed. He’d given up Johns Hopkins for my mom. Given up the dream, his parents’ hard work. “Mom didn’t want you to give up everything for her,” I guessed, and he nodded. “But you stayed in Washington?”

“Not at first.”

“Wait, what?”

“I’d been with your mom for almost two years when I was accepted to Johns Hopkins. We weren’t casual like most of our friends. I would have married her on our first date if she would have let me. But maybe that was a little over the top.”

I lightly bumped his shoulder with mine. “You think?”

“I’d spent half of my undergraduate years chasing her, and the other half falling in love, and when it came time to move, I didn’t know what to do. I made it a month at Johns Hopkins before I turned around and headed back home. Johns Hopkins wasn’t my dream. She was. I took a gap year and reapplied to the University of Washington.”

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