Love and Other Words(31)

“Want me to get you something? There were some strawberries earlier.”

She wrinkles her nose. “No thanks, I’ll ask Daddy.”

She stands, just as Sean calls from the other room, having heard us, “I’ve got a banana you can eat, Applejack. All the strawberries are already packed up for the picnic.”

And before I get any more of her, Phoebe is already out the door and back in the other room. When I think about it, I’ve had maybe a half hour with her this entire week. I always tell myself that just having a Mom Presence is a big deal for her, but as we’ve just witnessed, am I even that? And does she need it? I half wonder whether what Sean mumbled to her before she came in was a reminder that she needs to make me feel welcome here, and to come say hi.

God, I’m being ridiculous. But really, Sean and Phoebe seem entirely self-sufficient as a little twosome. I never felt that way about me and Dad. We loved each other, of course, but without Mom we were both sort of lost, arms outstretched as we tried to fumble through each day.

For about the millionth time I wonder about Ashley, and what kind of wife she must have been to Sean, back during a time before he was the hot new artist in San Francisco, when he was still just a starving artist, marrying a woman on her way to MBA stardom in finance. I know Phoebe came before they’d planned to have kids, and when Ashley was still climbing the ladder. Was she ever home? Did Sean raise little Phoebe, hands-on every second until she started school, the way Mom raised me?

How would my life be different if Dad had been home more when I was little? How would it have been different if he died when I was ten, not Mom?

I feel sick at the thought, as if I’ve just wished for some alternate reality that would kill my father first. Guilt-stricken, I say a quiet “I didn’t mean it” to the air around me, wanting to take back whatever bad thing I might have just thrown out. Even though he’s already gone, too.

Sean and Phoebe entertain themselves with a game of I Spy during the short drive to the park. Sabrina and Dave are waiting for us with little Viv in a complicated stroller-ish contraption when we arrive. Sean, Dave, and the kids go into the park to find a good spot, while Sabrina waits for the others with me closer to the parking lot.

I watch the two men walk away, admiring them from behind.

“Those are some fine men,” I say, and then turn to find Sabrina watching me intensely. “What?”

“How’re you doing?” she says. “You look sexy today.”

I glance down at what I finally settled on for the unseasonably warm day: a white tank, cute cuffed jeans, and a chunky gold necklace. Having pulled my long hair up into a very intentionally and artfully messy bun, I suddenly wonder if I look like I’ve tried way too hard – I knew the necklace was too much. Sabrina is wearing old cutoffs and a nursing shirt. “Did I try too hard? I always worry that I’ve forgotten how to dress myself.”

“Nervous?”

I shake my head. “Excited.”

“Me too. I’ve never met him.”

“I meant I’m excited for a day off, you little enabler. But since you mention it, you’ve never met Nikki or Danny, either,” I remind her.

Sabrina laughs, stepping closer so she can put her arm around my shoulders. “I know you’ve known them since grade school, but I think we both know who I’m most curious about.”

I glance behind us, to where Sean and Dave have disappeared from view. “Sean seems zero percent weird about the Elliot thing.”

“Isn’t that good?”

I shrug. “Sure. But I still feel guilty for how much I’m thinking about Elliot and the past, then when I talk to Sean about it, he’s like – ‘It’s cool, babe, no big deal.’ But maybe it’s because I’m not being totally honest with him about how it feels to see Elliot? Though,” I add, thinking out loud, “Sean assumed right away that it was more than just catching up with an old friend when I brought it up, but it didn’t even really rankle him. Is that weird?”

Sabrina answers my babble with a helpless look. At least I’m not the only one who’s confused.

I groan. “I’m probably just overthinking it.”

“Oh, I’m sure you are.” I hear the twist in her voice, the complete lack of conviction, but I don’t have time to question it because I see Nikki and Danny walking down the path toward us. Taking off at a jog, I run to them, throwing my arms around Nikki first, and then Danny.

Although I’ve been back in the Bay Area for about six months, I haven’t seen them yet, and it’s wonderfully surreal to see how they’ve changed, and – even more so – how they haven’t. Nikki I met in the third grade when we were tablemates, and her parents clearly did a better job than most at coaching her through having a friend who lost her mom the following year, because while Nikki didn’t always know what to say, she never stopped trying, either. Danny moved to Berkeley from L.A. when we were in sixth grade, so he missed the worst of my heartbreak and subsequent social fumbles, but he’s always been on the low-drama, oblivious end of things anyway.

And to eyes that haven’t seen her in nearly seven years, Nikki looks amazing. We both have South American blood, but whereas I inherited my mom’s small stature and dark skin over Dad’s height and fair complexion, Nikki is light-skinned and green-eyed, and has owned her naturally curvy body type her whole life. Now she looks like the captain of some high-octane competitive sport.