“I gave him to my mom,” he said. “She named him Valentino and bought him a little sweater. He pines for her when she walks out—even just to get the mail.”
I shook my head again. “Everything works out for you.”
“Not everything,” the rookie said. “Not Amy.”
“What was wrong with her?”
“Nothing. She was fine. Perfectly acceptable. Just a totally vanilla, garden-variety girl.”
“She sounds awful.”
“My mom really, really wanted us to get married. So did my sisters. So did my dad.”
“But you broke up.”
“There’s not much I wouldn’t do for my family,” the rookie said, “except possibly marry the wrong girl.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
“But it was complicated.”
“Complicated how?”
The rookie frowned down at the city below, like he wasn’t entirely sure what to say next. “I used to have five sisters. My sister Jeannie—the second youngest—died about four years ago from a viral infection in her heart.”
“I’m sorry.”
He looked down. “She was twenty-three. I was twenty-two. Irish twins.”
I let out a slow breath.
“Amy was my sister’s best friend when we were growing up, and when I ran into her one night a year or so after Jeannie died, we felt this instant connection and started going out right away. We were both livingin Boston, and it was all easy. But it turned out to be kind of like when an old song comes on the radio, and you think, ‘I love this song!’ but then as you keep listening, you remember you never really loved it—you were just excited for a second because yourecognizedit. That’s how it was for me with Amy. But by the time I figured it out, my mother was already planning the wedding.”
“You stayed with Amy because you didn’t want to disappoint your mother?”
He gave a little shrug. “In a way. But, yeah—I think everybody in my family thought that if I married Amy, it would be the next best thing to getting Jeannie back.”
“You do a lot of overly nice things for your family,” I said.
He nodded, like he’d never noticed that. “I guess I do.”
“That’s some pressure.”
“You know that feeling you get about people sometimes when it’s like they’re on some important edge—and even the tiniest breeze could tip them over?”
I nodded.
“That’s my mom, ever since my sister died. She acts all bossy and practical with us, but then she goes back into the kitchen and her hands are shaking.”
I got that.
“We all want to go easy on her. But no way was I marrying Amy. I didn’t feel…” He paused. “I wasn’t in love with her. I liked her. It just wasn’t—the kind of feeling you marry someone for.”
“So you broke it off?”
“Just as I was gearing up to end it, my dad had the heart attack.”
“Holy shit.”
