Chapter 6: Looking Back, Moving Forward

Monday, August 6, 1984

After breakfast, I called Cammie and checked in. The house was scheduled to be painted and wallpapered tomorrow and Wednesday. She and Mel were considering one night at a motel to get away from paint fumes, but nothing was set, and the painters should be able to leave Cammie and Mel an area where they could breathe easier.

I checked the mail that had accumulated during the trip. Most of it was useless, but there was a letter from A&M’s Honors Program inviting us to sign up. It was structured a bit differently from ones that I’d seen before. If you took enough classes, and then wrote a special senior paper (which could be — but did not have to be — connected to a research project), you’d get ‘University Honors’ recognition on your degree.

On the one hand, I didn’t think we needed that. It could be attractive to graduate schools, though.

On the other hand, taking special sections of courses that were tailored to high achievers sounded pretty attractive. We’d likely benefit from that, both in terms of the sort of professors who would teach those courses and in meeting students that would be attracted by them.

Angie had gotten an identical letter, and it turned out that everyone else had too, though Cammie and Mel had missed them in all of the painting commotion.

We’d have to sign up when we got back to College Station. It was definitely worth pursuing!

The rest of the day was all about unpacking and packing. We got the RV fully unloaded (with stops at the Nguyen and Seiler houses) and returned it to the RV place none the worse for wear. The four of us all agreed that we would do it again if we had the chance. One day we likely would, but who knew when that would be?

Once we had returned the RV, we dropped by Memorial. Classes weren’t in session yet, but would be soon. We had to catch up with Meg and Steffie, of course, and regale them with stories from our trip. That, and update Meg on Janet and Lizzie (though I knew the two of them kept in regular contact with Meg as well).

Both of them were optimistic about the new year. They’d had more people sign up than usual. Hopefully, some of them would be really good. Both of them had a solid core of talented people with an established work ethic, and that would help the newcomers get up to speed sooner rather than later.

After that, we started packing in earnest. We’d already moved the basics up to College Station, but the goal was to move everything we’d want during the school year up this week and next. Mom and Dad wouldn’t come up until the weekend after next, but that time was rapidly approaching and we wanted everything set.

I called around a bit in the afternoon. Most people who’d graduated with us were either gone or not answering the phone. Megan answered and was happy that I’d called.

We had dinner with Mom and Dad. There would be few enough of these; why go out and take this one away?

Angie stuck to her own room tonight, but I was guessing that last night wasn’t our last night together in this house.

Tuesday, August 7, 1984

We spent much of the day packing, but this was a bit more varied than yesterday.

To start with, Angie and I had our appointments with Jane this morning. We still had nothing major to discuss, thankfully. For my part, I talked about the trip, showed her some pictures, and discussed a few things that had mattered, mostly places that I’d visited during my first life. Angie told me that she was going to talk about Alcatraz, but reassured me that she was fine and thought it was a positive step for her.

Undoubtedly we would have new things to discuss soon enough, but for now, it was good to just reconnect.

Once we were done with that, Jas, Angie, Paige, and I had lunch at Rico’s — another thing that would soon be a rare (if ever) event — and then I helped Jas pack while Angie helped Paige pack.

Somehow or another, helping Jas pack turned into enjoying the bed for an hour or so. Funny how that happens!

Still, we got a lot done, so it seemed fair to reward ourselves at least a bit. That, and it had been a few days!

Just after Jas and I were getting dressed after our shower, my pager went off with a loud beeping. Jas practically jumped when she heard it.

“That thing is loud!”

I nodded and said, “I wouldn’t want to miss it.”

“Yeah. It’s not a bad thing. Just ... loud!”

I checked it, and the number was ‘our house’ (meaning the College Station house).

We finished dressing and checked with Camille. She had no problem with a (hopefully brief) call to College Station, so I dialed the number and waited.

Cammie answered and said, “Hey! Good to hear from you! It’s not urgent, but I wanted to let you know that the painters are done for the day. They left the first floor alone, so we’ll sleep in your bed tonight. The attic is airing out, so we should be good tomorrow.”

“Great!”

“That’s not the only news. Curtis called! They’ve sold the house, and our furniture is supposed to arrive sometime next week.”

“Great news for Curtis! Hopefully, it won’t disrupt Gene at all.”

“Nah. Gene and Sue are gone. As in gone, gone. All of Gene’s remaining stuff is boxed up, and Sue’s parents are willing to store it, at least for now. If that changes, they’ll ship it to New Orleans, but there’s no point moving it that far if the Browns will hold it.”

“Makes perfect sense to me,” I said.

“It’ll be nice to have the stuff, and the timing is good.”

“Yeah, definitely. We need to get fully settled in.”

“We do, too! If not for your new furniture, Mel and I might be sleeping on the floor! Not really, I guess, with the one second-floor apartment empty, but now we have our pick.”

“Thankfully!” I said, not wanting to tell Cammie she would likely wind up with a new bed, too. “We’re glad you’re all settled in.”

“You and me both! This summer has been so much better than it could have been!”

“Should we wait until Thursday to come up there?” I said.

“That’s the better plan, yeah. I know you were planning on tomorrow, but our apartment will really stink, and I’m not sure about the second floor. Plus, they’re doing the basement living room and stairs. So, unless you want a bunch of us in one bed...”

“Thursday is the plan, then.”

“See you then!” Cammie said, then paused.

After a second, she said, “I love you, Steve. And I double-checked with Mel that I can say that and not get in trouble.”

“I love you, too, Cammie.”

She sighed. “My life ... it’s...”

“Whatever would have happened, everything I did to help I did because you’re special, Cammie Clarke. Never doubt that. I’m just lucky that I met you and then was in a position to help.”

“Thanks! That ... it does mean a lot. Sometimes I forget that you didn’t even know me the ... um ... the first time. By now it almost feels like we’ve known each other forever.”

“Meeting you is a highlight of my life,” I said.

“Okay!” she said, a bit more firmly. “I’m going to get off the phone before you get me crying and Mel hears it and comes in here and I have to explain!”

“That works for me,” I said, chuckling. “See you Thursday!”

“See you then!” she said.

When I hung up the phone, Jas said, “We’re going up Thursday, it sounds like?”

“Painting will be done tomorrow. Cammie says it’ll smell too much like paint. They’re doing the outside and the master bedroom tomorrow — well, all of the first floor, I think.”

“Thursday will be fine!”

Camille chuckled. “I can’t blame you! When we had the whole house painted — just the once! — we wound up staying in the Holiday Inn. For two nights!”

“Was that before I was born?” Jas said.

Camille nodded. “Before you or Andrew. We were refreshing the place for him, actually. Then ... well, perhaps it was being pregnant, but those fumes! No! I couldn’t bear it.”

“All for the best, I’m sure,” I said, with Jas nodding.

“It was, but it felt funny at the time,” Camille said. “It’s nice that you’re getting it done, and nice that Cammie can help out. I know you’ve done a lot for her.”

“Like I said: she’s special, and she’ll do great things,” I said. “That’s the important part.”

“And that is why you will do great things,” Camille said, with Jas again nodding along.

“Definitely!” Jas said.

I’m sure I was blushing a bit.

Jas joined us for dinner with Mom and Dad, driving her Subaru this time. She still generally preferred to let me drive, but didn’t feel like making me drive back to her house and then back here made a lot of sense.

It wasn’t likely to come up that often in the future, really, or at least not until (and unless) the two of us were commuting to two different locations. With our current (admittedly highly unsettled) plans, that might not happen until those locations were the ones hosting activities for our future children.

Who knew? That was a ways off, but it felt like it was slowly creeping into some sort of focus. Even proposing was a way off, but I increasingly felt like that would happen before we graduated. At this point, barring some unforeseen breakdown in our relationship, what exactly was the point of waiting four years? I was hardly going to get more mature, and Jas was already more mature than my ex-wife had been (at least, that’s how I saw it).

She didn’t have the life experience my ex-wife had had by the time we met, but my guess was that life experience wasn’t going to change Jas in way that would cause us to drift apart. In any case, Jas would never have the sorts of experiences my ex-wife had, just as she hadn’t done many of the things Jas had already accomplished.

Angie had a point about her and Paige being ‘behind’ us, but they were doing well, too. New Paige was very much a different person, and I really didn’t see the Paige I knew now deciding to break up with Angie and take up with someone new. Paige, though, was really eighteen and had gone through some major growth recently. She might yet change in unforeseen ways.

Angie? Angie seemed to me to be a rock. Perhaps she was a rock because to be anything else would risk her backsliding, but I just didn’t see it happening. Some things, yes, but just as there was New Paige, there was also New Angie, even if we didn’t use the term. Old Angie would never have signed up for a double major in math and business, and I really didn’t think Old Angie would have risked Mom’s disapproval by deciding to date Paige. Nor would Old Angie have gone to Prom with Paige.

Those things weren’t about avoiding the traps of her old life. They were about building a new and better life. Oh, certainly part of the motivation for her sudden fascination with math was because of Tom’s research — which had the clear potential for wealth — but I’d seen the way her eyes lit up when she was digging into an interesting calculus problem. It wasn’t just dollar signs dancing there — she found the work itself fascinating.