Page 108 of Just One Night Together
Should she take the job or not?
Haley pulled out a sheet of paper and made a list, benefits on one side and disadvantages on the other. Everything good was on the plus side, with only “leaving New York” and “Garrett’s influence” on the minus side.
On the upside, the offer had come so quickly that Garrett wouldn’t have had time to say anything to anyone. She must have gotten the job on her own merit.
Still, her heart was at war with her head, and that couldn’t be a good thing.
She decided to sleep on it.
All of it.
* * *
By the timeHaley headed downtown to the World Trade Center memorial on Saturday morning, the possibility of a pregnancy was looming large in her thoughts. It was too soon for a urine test to show results and she didn’t want to get a blood test yet.
She had to add it to the list in favor of accepting the job offer. She knew enough about babies to recognize that being a single mother wasn’t for the faint of heart.
It was exactly the kind of thing she would have liked to have talked to her dad about.
Her mom was too practical. She’d immediately list Haley’s options, weigh them, and make a recommendation. To Haley’s mom, the emotions that had put her in this situation would be less important than the result and the child’s prospects. Even without talking to her, Haley would expect her mom to advise her to give up the child for adoption. Her mom would argue her side then expect a decision, a rational one, within fifteen minutes.
Haley’s dad, though, would have listened to her. He would have wanted to know about Damon and why she’d dismissed her safe sex rule with him. He’d have wanted to know what she admired about him, and how she felt about this conception, and would have gently asked what she thought was the best solution. He might end up recommending the same course of action, but his method of arriving there would be totally different.
And Haley needed that discussion. She felt uncharacteristically uncertain. It wasn’t just hormones. She had mixed feelings about the job prospect in Illinois. It was a great opportunity and a dream come true in many ways. It sounded ideal. On the other hand, she liked the team at this hospital and felt at home in Queens. It was her space and her life, such as it was. No matter how she looked at it, joining the rest of her family felt like a surrender of her independence, or maybe even of her identity. Her mom was sure of Haley’s ultimate decision, but her mom’s conviction that Haley had very little to leave behind in New York rubbed the wrong way.
She didn’t like that Garrett had interfered at all in the process. It was a bit disconcerting to find that she didn’t admire him as much as she’d believed she had, and she certainly didn’t love him anymore. She felt as if the North Pole had suddenly moved.
If she took the job, it would be for the job.
Not long ago, that would have been a good enough reason.
Haley felt that Queens was home, even though it had only become home in the last decade. She certainly didn’t have deep connections in the neighborhood. She worked a lot. She had a rescue cat and an almost empty apartment.
But it was her life and that had to count for something.
She couldn’t bear the possibility of never catching a glimpse of Damon again. She knew she had to talk to him about the baby if there was one, but decided to duck the issue until she knew for sure. Taking the job in Illinois would eliminate any future possibilities with him. Even though Haley doubted they had any chance of a future, she didn’t want to make a final, irrevocable choice.
Maybe she was more of a romantic than she’d realized.
On Saturday morning, Haley rode the subway downtown and walked the last few blocks, like she always did, because she couldn’t bring herself to take the subway all the way into that station. It was a clear cold day and she was glad she’d wrapped the rose in clear plastic. It was in a plastic vial with water and still looked good.
A lump rose in her throat as she approached the memorial, just the way it always did, and she walked all the way around once, just the way she always did. She tipped her head back and looked up at the sky, where the towers used to be, then looked down into the darkest hole of the memorial where they had ended up. She swallowed and made her way down one side to the place she’d come to visit.
She remembered the names that meant she was getting close. She murmured them under her breath, then moved to walk closer to the edge. She took off her glove and trailed her fingertip along the cold lip of the memorial for the last ten feet.
And there it was.
Her father’s name, carved into the stone.
Every year, a part of her wished that she would find his name gone. She imagined that it could be like a movie, that she would discover a gap where his name had been, then turn around in shock, only to find her father behind her, watching. His arms would be folded across his chest; there’d be love shining in his eyes and a smile upon his lips. She’d cry out with joy and run to him and he’d lift her high, swinging her around even as he complained that she’d become so much bigger. Then she’d hug him so tightly that she might never let go, smell his skin, feel his warmth. She’d lay her cheek against his chest, the way she’d done when she was a little girl, and she’d hear his heart pounding beneath her ear.
But her dad’s heart didn’t pound anymore.
And, just like all the other years, his name was right where she remembered it.
Haley traced the letters with her fingertip and cried silently, just the way she always did. She cried because he was gone. She cried because he had died doing what he loved and what he believed to be right. She cried because there were so many things she wished she’d told him, and so many things she would have loved to have been able to tell him since his death. She cried because her most vivid memory of her father always came to her right before she found his name, on this place, on his birthday. She felt his presence strongest here, so strongly that if she closed her eyes, she could imagine that he was standing beside her, listening.
Could she bear to surrender that?
