In Medias Res (13 page)

I would try to track her down soon enough. But first things first. I needed to go home. I needed to see my family.

I called my brother while I was standing in line at the sidewalk check-in. The small airport was unexpectedly busy. Almost as if a hurricane were bearing down on the island and all the tourists had been ordered to evacuate.

“This is Pat.”

I could hear testosterone-filled voices in the background. The Bears were preparing for Sunday’s playoff game with the Cowboys. Patrick was probably working on the backup running back’s gimpy left ankle. With Chicago’s ball-control offense, the team would need as many people to carry the load as possible.

“I’m calling a meeting of Team Paulsen and I need to know if you’re free tonight.”

“What time will you be getting in?”

“My flight lands at five, which means I’ll have to fight my way through airport
and
drive-time traffic.”

“Then why don’t we meet at my place? It’s closer.”

Patrick’s house was a stone’s throw from the airport. My parents’ house was way out in the ’burbs.

“Are you sure Kristin won’t mind?”

“I’ll check with her, but I don’t see why she would. You’re family, not company so we won’t have to run around picking up the kids’ toys in order to make the place presentable for you. Is there anything else you need me to do?”

“I’m about to check in so I don’t have time to make a ton of phone calls. Can you call Mom and Dad and get them on board? Tell them we’ll meet them at your house at seven. I’ll take over from there.”

“I can do that. Do I get a hint about the topic of tonight’s meeting?”

“Sorry, no home field advantage.”

“Oh, well. Can’t blame a guy for trying. See ya tonight, sis.”

The flight to Miami was short and sweet. A brief layover at Miami International gave me just enough time to have a watered-down drink and overpriced sandwich in one of the airport restaurants. I spent the flight to Chicago practicing what I was going to say. By the time I landed, I still didn’t have it down pat. All I needed was an opening. Once I got started, I would be fine. But I couldn’t figure out a way to set the table. Should I begin with a joke or should I simply dive right in?

After enduring the interminable wait for my luggage at O’Hare, I spent a good fifteen minutes trying to find my car in the long-term parking lot. I had lost my ticket stub before my flight to Key West. At the time, remembering the number of my parking spot hadn’t been very high on my list of priorities. I found my car by pressing the panic button on my keychain until I got close enough to my car to set off the alarm.

I tossed my bags in the trunk and drove to Patrick and Kristin’s subdivision. I parked my two-year-old BMW next to Dad’s ten-year-old Ford Taurus, the deadly dull but dependable vehicle he had steadfastly refused to part with despite my many offers of a complimentary upgrade.

“I don’t care how a car looks as long as it gets me where I’m going,” he had said time and time again. “It’s what’s under the hood that counts. The rest is just pretty packaging.”

It’s what’s inside that counts. I hoped he would continue to feel that way even after I shared the feelings that were churning inside me.

Patrick opened the front door before I could ring the bell. “Anxious much?” I asked as he closed the door behind me. He shadowed me as I hung my hat and coat in the hall closet.

“Let’s see. The last time you called a family meeting, it was to tell us you were quitting your six-figure job for one with an annual salary of, um, zero. Now Mom thinks you’re either dying or having a baby. So, yeah, I’m a little anxious to hear what’s going on with you. The floor’s yours.”

He tossed me the ancient Spalding football that had been present at every family meeting since I was nine years old. The person who held the ball during the meeting was the only person allowed to speak. Each Paulsen respected the power of the football. Its privileges had been abused only once—when Patrick had attempted to convince Mom and Dad that his first vehicle should be a Harley instead of a Taurus. He had filibustered for hours on gas mileage comparisons, safety concerns, and “the coolness factor.” When all was said and done, he ended up with a wicked case of laryngitis—and a brand-new Taurus.

I tucked the football in my arm like I was a running back looking for daylight.

My audience consisted of only four people, but my heart pounded as if I were about to give a speech to four hundred. My parents, my brother, and my sister-in-law were looking at me with such trepidation that I knew I had to get to the point and fast.

“Before I begin, let me ease your minds by saying this isn’t a matter of life and death.”

“Oh, thank God,” my mother said, momentarily forgetting the ground rules. She covered her mouth apologetically and waved at me to go on.

“You’ve undoubtedly noticed that Jack isn’t with me. He knows we’re here and he knows what I intend to discuss with you. I have his support and I hope I’ll have yours.”

My mouth went dry and I struggled to swallow.

“This isn’t a matter of life and death, but it is a matter of the heart. My heart hasn’t been in my marriage for a while.” I took another calming breath. “Before I left Key West, I asked Jack for a divorce and he agreed to give me one.”

My mother reached for the box of tissues someone had placed on the coffee table before my arrival.

“Even though I have feelings for someone else,” I continued, “I didn’t leave Jack for someone else. I left him for me. I left him because I was finally able to admit I’m not what he needs and he isn’t what I want.”

I looked at my dad. I wanted him, more than anyone else, to hear what I had to say. He had been my biggest fan when I was growing up but also, in a way, my biggest detractor. By adhering to his edicts, I had excised a vital part of myself. A part that, like a phantom limb, I had continued to feel if not see. A part that had grown back.

With his gruff exterior and Far Right political stance, Dad was like Archie Bunker without the comedic flush. Mom was a less ditzy Edith.

I had set impossible goals for myself. Dad had set impossible standards. Standards I could no longer meet. He was the one I had always tried to please. The one I had always wanted to make proud. I still wanted to do that, but it was time for me to live by another set of rules. Rules I had stubbornly insisted did not apply to me.

“I want Jennifer.” I almost laughed at how ridiculously good it felt to say that out loud.

Three words. Three simple words. Why had it taken me so long to utter them?

“I have done everything you’ve ever asked me to do. Now I’m asking you to return the favor: accept me as I am, not who you wish me to be.”

I placed the football on the table, opening the floor for comments. The explosion I had expected didn’t come. Mom, Dad, Patrick, and Kristin looked at each other, but no one moved. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Dad reached out and picked up the ball.

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

Even though he had asked me a question, he didn’t give me the ball back so I could answer it. I nodded yes.

“You’ve been unhappy for years and I didn’t know what to do to fix it. It’s a father’s job, you know. To fix things. But I couldn’t fix you.” His voice shook as he examined the faded lettering on the ball. “I want you to be happy. If Jennifer makes you happy, I’m all for it.”

He came over to me and gave me a bear hug. “I love you, Sydney,” he whispered in my ear. “Be happy.”

I knew my father loved me, but I couldn’t remember the last time I had heard him say it.

“I’m going to try,” I said, trying not to get choked up.

Mom was crying too much to say more than a few words. When she held me, I couldn’t fathom how her tiny little body could possess such strength. She looked at me, her eyes watery but filled with love. “What he said,” she croaked.

I—and everyone else—assumed Patrick would speak next. When he didn’t, Kristin picked up the slack. “Today’s the first day of the rest of your life,” she said. “How does it feel?”

“I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for thirty-one years and I’m finally able to breathe.”

She hugged me again. “I’m so happy for you, Syd. Congratulations.” She placed the ball on the table and sat back down. She looked at Patrick. When he remained motionless, she dug an elbow into his ribs.

Patrick reached for the football. His bushy eyebrows were knitted into an unmistakable frown. “I don’t mean to piss in your cornflakes, but I’m not happy with you right now.” Kristin put a placating hand on his arm but he shook it off. “No, I’ve got to say this.” He turned back to me. I had expected resistance from Mom and Dad but not from him. “I’m your brother and I’ll love you no matter what. I’ve had your back since day one and I always will. Don’t you know that?”

“I—”

Patrick waved the Spalding over his head like he was doing a touchdown dance. “Respect the football,” he reminded me.

I let him have the floor.

“Let me be the first to say I saw this coming. I knew it was a mistake for you to marry Jack, but I knew better than to try to talk you out of it. Once you make up your mind about something, no one and nothing can force you to change it. No one except you.”

He pointed the ball at me to emphasize his point.

“I thought Jennifer could talk some sense into you. When you and Jack were dating, I asked her if she thought you were…” He waved the ball in the air to indicate I should complete his sentence with the word of my choosing. “She said it didn’t matter what she thought. Your opinion of yourself was the only one that counted. You have the biggest balls of anyone I know. I’m disappointed it took you this long to look yourself in the mirror and like what you see.”

So was I.

“But—and this is the important part, so please pay attention.” He stood in front of me and put a hand on my shoulder. “If you love Jennifer as much as you say you do, what are you doing here?” He pressed the football into my midsection like a quarterback handing off to a runner. “Go get her.”

I had a plane to catch. Unlike the day before, I didn’t have a ticket in my hand to tell me my destination. I would need Marcus’s help for that.

The apartment he and Jennifer shared was located in Lakeview, the neighborhood nicknamed Boystown for its many venues that catered mainly to gay men. After driving to the North Side in near-record time, I rang the bell and waited for Marcus to answer.

“You lied to me,” I said before he could even say hello. “I checked with every relief agency Jennifer has ever worked for and each of them told me the same thing: she isn’t in Darfur.”

“It’s good to see you, too, Syd. How are you?”

I knew I was being rude, but I didn’t have time for pleasantries. “Where is she, Marcus?”

“I’m not supposed to tell you.”

“Did she tell you about us?”

“That’s why I’m not supposed to tell you.”

“Is that why you gave me the runaround yesterday? When you led me to believe she was in the desert when you knew she wasn’t?”

“What was I supposed to do, pat you on the back? You broke her heart, Syd.”

“I know. That means I’m the only one who can mend it. Tell me where she is, Marcus. Please.”

“So you can do what? Choose Jack over her for the third time? No can do.” He sat in front of the bank of computers he used to run his at-home I.T. company. “I heard he took some time off so you two could have a second honeymoon. Is that true?”

I grabbed the back of Marcus’s desk chair and spun him around to face me. “No, the honeymoon’s over. Permanently.”

“No shit?” he asked skeptically.

“No shit. Giving up on her was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life,” I said, trying to help him along. “Please help me fix it.”

“I promised her I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Please.”

“Do you have any idea what you’re asking me to do? Do you know what you’d be getting into?”

“Yes, on both counts. Marcus, I love her. Please.”

He sighed deeply. “Okay,” he said at last. “She’s in Honduras. Blake’s clinic is finally beginning to make some inroads in both the local and indigenous communities. Jen offered to help him out for a while. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

“Hear what?” I teased him.

Twenty minutes and six hundred dollars later, I was booked on a six a.m. flight on American Airlines to Tegucigalpa via Miami. From there, I would take a bumpy three-hour bus ride to Puerto Lempira. Jennifer was in Mocoron, a tiny town forty miles to the south.

I was too wound up to sleep, despite the ten hours of travel time that loomed in front of me. Waiting for the clock to tick down to the beginning of the next leg of my journey, I thought back to the night my voyage of self-discovery had begun.

Jennifer’s flight landed at three p.m. Her parents, Ed and Maureen, picked her up at the airport. I wanted to do it—I’d done everything else, from planning the party to picking the restaurant to selecting the items on the menu—but I thought the three of them could use some quiet time together before the rest of us began vying for Jennifer’s attention. She hadn’t been home in nearly six months. Though we all had missed her, her parents had missed her more.