The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily(35)
—
Our hour was up. We could hear the 2:37 Manhattan-bound train approaching in the far-off distance.
“Are you really moving up here?” I asked Mom.
“Still haven’t decided. But I admit I like it more than I expected. It’s hard commuting across Long Island just to be an untenured community college instructor teaching undergrads who need English credits but could care less about the great sonnets. I might like to be an unemployed poet up here instead.”
“But your family is in the city.”
“Dad wants to be here. That’s the risk I have to take. Choose him. Old people like us have these hard growth spurts, too.”
“But Grandpa!”
Mom sighed. “He’s gotten so obstinate. We all know the best place for him would be an assisted-living facility. Better quality of life for him.”
I gasped. “He’d be so mad if he heard you say that!”
“I know. That’s a big part of the problem. Not seeing that what’s best for him is what also would be better for everybody. He’s needing more care than we can reliably give him, despite how much we love him. We all stopped our lives after his fall, but at some point we have to choose to lead our own lives again, as painful as that choice will be.”
“Where will I go?”
“You can move up here and go to Dad’s school. Or you could live at Mrs. Basil E.’s and spend the summer with us. She’s offered. You’re a big girl now. You can figure it out. No one’s abandoning you, and everyone will do everything possible to make the situation work for you. Because that’s how awesome your family is, and why you should never ever again go missing from them.”
There was too much still to discuss, and about one minute left before I had to get out of the car to catch the train. So I focused on the important issue.
“Am I still grounded?”
“Yes.”
“Really?” I made a sad, Lily’s-falling-into-an-emotional-tailspin-again face.
“No. And don’t think I’m not aware of what you’re doing.”
“What’s that?”
“Lilymaid’s a-milking Mom’s sympathies for all she can. Now go home and get your Christmas on, finally. And tell Dash—”
I kissed her cheek. “Bye, Mom. Thank you. I love you.”
I dashed out of the car toward the train, to dash me home to Dash.
—
Once I got on the train, I turned on my phone again. My heart was ready to explode for everything I wanted to tell Dash. I was ungrounded, I had the apartment to myself, and I loved a boy.
The first text message I saw was from Dash. My heart leapt just at the sight of his name, and I thought of how brave I was going to be when I saw him next. Then my heart sank when I read his words. I try so hard to make you happy. But clearly I can’t. I don’t want to say you’re impossible to please. But you’re impossible to please. And since you can’t stop disappearing, I realized you’re right. We need a break.
Saturday, December 20th
I paused my texting, then continued.
That break will last exactly twenty-three hours. No longer. No less.
“Did I get the math right?” I asked Mrs. Basil E., showing her the phone.
“Yes. Now…the final touch.”
“But of course!”
Further instructions to follow, I typed.
SEND.
I waited to see if Lily would respond.
She did not.
“I really hope this works,” I said.
Mrs. Basil E. looked up at me from her settee, and it was clear she did not want me to be a regrettee.
“You must give it your all. But please note where I put emphasis in that sentence. For your benefit, I shall repeat: You must give it your all.”
“But didn’t we just establish that she’s impossible to please?”
“People who want things to be perfect are always impossible to please. But that doesn’t mean we should stop trying. Even if their expectations aren’t correct, their instincts are. You won’t get everything right, Dash. Even Lily knows that. The trying is what matters.”
“It’s the thought that counts, then.”
“Ah, but have you ever tried counting thoughts? They are extraordinarily hard to wrangle.”
I would have sat back and sighed, but I was perched on a glorified footstool, so sitting back was not an option, and sighing only would have been labeled a melodramatic self-indulgence by my interlocutor.
Instead, I said, “I just feel like this is my last chance.” Which, once it was out of my mouth, also sounded like melodramatic self-indulgence…but also happened to be a bona fide truth.
“Here’s the thing about love,” Mrs. Basil E. replied. “You get a last chance. And then, when that doesn’t work, you make yourself another last chance. Then another. Then another. You keep going until your last chances run out.”
“But if there are many of them, doesn’t that mean that only the last one is actually—”
“I am not trying to make a grammatical point here,” Mrs. Basil E. hushed. “I am trying to make an emotional point. I don’t expect you to understand me on that level—you are but a romantic sapling. I am a sequoia, so you’d be well advised to listen to what I have to say.”