Chapter 101: Renewing Ties

Friday, May 24, 1985

By the time I got up, Dad was (as usual) long gone, and Mom had breakfast on the table. She’d gone somewhat all out, which wasn’t a big surprise.

Angie was nowhere to be seen, but she was pretty good at sleeping in when she wanted to. Better than I was, it seemed like.

“Morning, son,” she said, smiling.

“Morning, Mom,” I said, smiling right back.

“It’s really good having you home,” she said. “This year has been much better than I’d feared, but it’s still special.”

“It’s special for me, too,” I said. “I’ll be gone a lot, but I’ll always come back. I’d miss you and Dad much too much if I didn’t.”

She chuckled, then nodded toward Angie’s door.

“She will, too,” I said, chuckling as well.

“That’s not exactly what I was thinking,” she said. “I mean, it was, but ... it was more...”

“Mmm?” I said.

“A bit over five years ago, that was a junk room, and I thought it would always be a junk room. That was fine. I mean ... you know...”

She paused, pulled her thoughts together a bit, and continued, saying, “You were a great son and we were very happy. Once upon a time, we had wanted another child, but time passed us by. And ... that was fine.”

After a hesitation, she resumed, saying, “The boy you were then ... he was good. He was ... there were a lot of good things about him.”

“There’s a ‘but’ in there,” I said, chuckling.

“Sam and I spent days talking about Angie when the people in Chicago called and asked if we wanted to bring her here. Would she fit in? Would she be a problem? Would it be better if Robert kept her? What if she upset you? What if you upset her? Could you handle a sister? Could she handle a brother?”

I just nodded.

“I think ... there’s a way of phrasing things where it sounds like our worst fears had been realized. You, dating girls maybe too soon. Angie, dating boys too soon, and making at least one bad choice. A friend of yours trying to kill herself! You and Angie wanting therapy. Her turning out to be gay. Then ... both of you living with girls less than five years later! All of that would have completely freaked me out if we’d even thought of it when we were doing all of that talking.”

I kept nodding.

“Here we are, and all of that ... it’s all good! Both you and Angie have exceeded our expectations, and you know we always expected great things of you. And of her! We love your girlfriends, we love the people you are, and ... just ... on and on! And then ... well, you have to let go as a parent, but you’ve both made that easy. Easier than anyone else I talk to. We’ve never had to question whether we’re just ‘out of sight, out of mind.’”

“We love you both very much, and we always have,” I said. “Well, Angie, I’m sure, that always is more ... you know ... after she got to know you.”

Mom chuckled, and said, “Oddly, it ... it really felt like she loved us from day one. I don’t really know how that’s possible, but it feels that way. She was starved for love, maybe, and we were ready to provide it.”

That, or she’d known you for years, I thought. Another slip, but a totally understandable one.

I nodded, and said, “It was quick, but ... it felt right, to me.”

She sighed, nodded, and said, “It felt right to me, too, and it still does. Anyway ... I think I’m just saying ... you and Angie are all grown up, which had to happen, but you’re ... we’re endlessly proud of the people you are, and happy with how our relationship has grown and changed. Parents ... we have to stop being ‘parents’ and become ‘friends,’ because ... well, if you don’t, it’s a mess. You’ve both made that easy.”

“I’m glad,” I said. “And — speaking for Angie, though I imagine you’ll want to talk to her, too — so’s she.”

“I think...” she said, then nodded a bit. “I think she was what you needed, and you were what she needed. We didn’t know any of that. We didn’t know you needed a sister, or that she needed a brother, or how much that would mean. Fighting, struggling, carving out your own spaces — that’s what we expected. Instead, somehow, you just grew closer and closer and complemented each other.”

“We see it very similarly. She needed someone her age who was unconditionally there for her, and I needed someone social and outgoing who would help me grow into that sort of person myself.”

“It worked amazingly well!” she said.

“It did,” I said.

“One more thing, while I have you to myself,” she said, smiling.

“Yes, Mom?”

“It’s ... this isn’t to pressure you or anything ... we’re just wondering ... for both of you ... when ... well, you know.”

“When we’ll get engaged?”

She nodded, a bit red, and said, “Take as long as you want! Heaven knows we did! I feel like Ma now, a bit, where she nudged me before I was ready and before Sam was ready, but...”

“You’re not nudging. The answer is: I don’t know. What I do know is we’re there...”

She nodded at that.

“The actual timing is more around ... when do we want the ceremony to be? How long does that make an engagement? When would a proposal be special to both of us? There’s not a rush, but there are ... well ... things we think about. Too long is silly and pointless, and I think we’re safely out of ‘too soon’ for most people...”

Mom chuckled at that, nodding.

“But not some other people. A year out of high school? For people who don’t know what we were like in high school, that might sound bad.”

“It would’ve been normal back in my day,” she said, chuckling, “But, I agree, it’s not, now. You’re thinking of Jasmine’s relatives?”

“The ones I haven’t met, yes. Camille and Francis would’ve been thrilled if we’d gotten married a couple of years ago.”

She laughed.

“That would’ve felt too soon!”

“I wish I had a better answer. I really do. And I can’t even promise to warn you, because the right moment might just appear.”

She chuckled.

“You don’t have to warn us. We’ll be ecstatic no matter when it happens!”

I scooted over to hug her.

“I love you, Mom. Always have, and always will.”

She teared up right away.

“I love you, too, Steve. Always have, always will!”

Just then Angie came out. Mom turned away, not wanting Angie to see her teary, and I waved.

I intentionally cleared out of the kitchen and went off to do some reading not long after that. I could hear Mom and Angie talking, which I fully expected to happen. More than a bit of sniffling, too, which I also fully expected.

This was something I’d never done in my first life. We’d redefined our relationship by the absences, by the things not said, where each time I was away nudged us away from ‘parent and child’ and into ‘friends.’ I’d always been close to Mom and Dad, but there’d been no discussions like the one I’d just had, nor a number of others.

I couldn’t even entirely credit having been a parent. That had changed things, but Angie was following the same path and she’d never been a parent.

Angie scooted off to her appointment after talking to Mom. I hoped the sniffling wouldn’t throw anything off, but it was unlikely to.

After her appointment, Angie spent much of the day packing. There was a surprising amount of unpacking and repacking involved.

Perhaps it shouldn’t have been surprising. Despite what she’d said, the stakes were a bit high, and I’m sure she wanted to make the best possible impression.

Taking a break from packing, we picked up Paige and Jas and went to Rico’s for tacos. The ‘staying at home’ thing was working well all around.

It was almost as if the parents had been talking. Perhaps they had. Camille and Jean had also (gently) brought up the subject of engagements. Compared to what many people went through, this was nothing. I’d seen parents push their children hard to get engaged. This was much closer to them simply reminding us that we’d convinced them. Since parents are often the hardest people to convince, that was quite a win.

After lunch, we headed over to Memorial, arriving a bit after two. That was carefully timed. Today was the last day of finals, and students would have been released at one. It would have been nice to run into some of our old friends, but I was leery of disrupting anything.

We spent about an hour and a half talking with Meg and Steffie. Steffie was still very excited about Jess. Both of them were happy with how their programs had continued in the wake of last year’s graduations, which really had been significant. The new freshmen had generally turned out to be good, and the older kids had largely stepped up and become good mentors.

Honestly, Memorial might not ever have another year like 1984. Very, very few schools anywhere had managed what we’d managed, after all. That was fine. Years like 1983, or 1985, would be plenty ‘good enough’ to keep Memorial a top program in the state and perhaps in the nation.

Indeed, Meg was working with Principal Riggs on a plan to make Memorial a permanent tournament host, year-in and year-out. That was a novel idea, and the school board wasn’t completely on board with it yet, but it would be a major step. A school that did that and whose tournament was well-run and consistently had strong competition (both of which were possible) might become a ToC qualifying event. The experience students got running a tournament and watching high-level rounds (later in the tournament, when there wasn’t much work) would go a long way toward helping the program. It would also bring in revenue, which could go toward further improving things.

After a bit, I headed off to track down Principal Riggs. He was in his office taking care of whatever sort of paperwork principals do when the school year is ending. We had a brief but warm conversation. In his opinion, this had been a ‘calmer’ year only in comparison to ours. In retrospect, he was very grateful for the ways we’d pushed things. I’m sure some of it was problematic at the time, but now Memorial was being mentioned far and wide as an example of a school doing the right things in the right way.

We didn’t directly address it, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in charge of the school board in a decade or two. For now, excepting a pure money grab (which didn’t seem like him), there was pretty much no place he might go that would be a ‘step up.’ As long as Memorial kept to the standard it was setting now his job was more than secure, and he would have the pleasure of working with class after class of extremely talented kids.

As I was leaving, Vice Principal Blaine turned up and made a point of shaking my hand. We’d seldom crossed paths, but I respected him and he respected me, even with all of the kiss-related infractions I’d racked up.

I found the others in Steffie’s room, and the four of us made a brief visit to Tom Myerson’s classroom upstairs. To have not done so would have been wildly out of character, and no one at Memorial would (or should) know we’d seen him within the week. We didn’t really discuss that meeting at all. Students and teachers were coming in and out too often.

We would keep visiting for a while to come. Sooner or later it would get old, but it wasn’t old yet.