Page 101 of Truth or More Truth
“Yeah. I’m sorry I haven’t talked to you about it.”
I shake my head. “The problem isn’t just that you haven’t talked to me about it. It’s that you don’t seem to be considering it, which makes me think you really don’t care about me as much as you claim to.”
“I do care about you, Melissa, so much. In fact, I should have told you this before, but I’ve fallen?—”
“No!” I slice a hand through the air. “If you’re about to say you love me, don’t. This isn’t the time. If we make it past this conversation, you will choose a romantic time to say that to me, not when I’m angry and hurt.”
He’s silent for a few seconds. “OK. I understand. But please give me a chance to explain.”
“I’m listening, but I can’t imagine that what you’re about to tell me will be an acceptable excuse for not considering moving or talking to me about it.”
Again, I’m greeted with several moments of silence. Then he says, “Remember when you said you like my insecure side?”
I massage my aching chest as everything starts to make sense. “Yeah, I remember.”
“Well, I hope you still like it, because … I’m scared. I know we talked about this before—that I shouldn’t let my fear get in the way of us, but that’s what happened when I thought about moving. It’s not that I don’t want to live in Chicago, or even that Kelli or Nanette don’t want to move. It’s that I’m afraid I’ll rip them from their lives in California and then I’ll end up messing things up with you. And then we’d be all alone in a new city. I’ll have moved them there for nothing.”
“Bobby,” I breathe out. “You wouldn’t be alone if we broke up. Not that I think we will,” I clarify, “but Diego and Ash and Randall love you for you. You were friends with them before we got together. Randall and Ash asked you to be in their weddings after only knowing you for a few months, for goodness sake. Yes, I’ve known them my whole life, but on the minuscule chancewe’d break up, they’re not the type of men who would choose sides and cut you out.”
He doesn’t respond, but I can hear him breathing.
I continue, “I think I know where this is coming from, though. You need to remember that those guys are not your parents or sister. They won’t shut you out or pretend you don’t exist if you do something they don’t like. They won’t disappear from your life. And neither will I. Your parents were terrible examples of the way people should treat the ones they love. Although, considering the way they treated you, I don’t think they actually loved you. And that hurts my heart for you, Bobby. But you now have people who love you unconditionally. You already know what that means, because I’m sure you’ve done things to make Kelli or Nanette or Diego angry with you, but they still love you and care about you and want to be in your life.”
Bobby clears his throat. “Kelli just told me she doesn’t like me.”
His voice cracks at the end, and it kills me to hear it.
“She’s an emotional teenager, Bobby. And honestly, with the way you’ve been acting about moving, she has a right to not like the way you’ve been acting, which she’s gotten confused with thinking she doesn’t likeyou. But she does like you. She loves you. I know she does. You know she does. She’s just angry right now, and rightfully so.”
“Yeah,” he says in a hopeful voice. “She did say she loves me.”
“There you go. She’s not going to give up on you even when she’s angry. And neither am I. But you have some apologizing and thinking to do. You need to talk to Kelli and Nanette—really talk. Tell them how you’re feeling, and have a serious conversation about what the three of you moving would look like for all of you. And if it’ll help, go ahead and call some Realtors and some schools and some doctors, so you’ll have an idea of some of the logistics. Think through what it would take to move your office and assistant to Chicago, too. But also talk about what it might look like for the three of you if I move there, because both options need to still be on the table.
“You’ll be home on Wednesday, and then I’m going to fly outthere for a quick trip this weekend so I can meet your daughter and ex-wife. It should’ve happened before now, and I was being patient with you, but that time is over. We need to spend some time together to make sure we all click. I have no doubt we will, but I think you need to see it for yourself to believe it. And then the four of us will talk about the possibilities of who might move where, since it affects all of us.”
“OK,” he says in a much stronger voice than before. “That sounds like a great plan. But I’m paying you back for your plane ticket.”
“You’d better,” I tease, trying to lighten the mood. But then I realize there’s one more serious topic I need to bring up with him. “Now, I know I told you not to say the l-word to me yet, and I’m sticking to that, but I think you need to hear this from me right now. I love you, Robert Sebastian Jacobs, more than you could possibly know. And I don’t plan to leave you. So let’s get this all figured out so we can be together and be happy.”
“You are the best thing that has ever happened to my Bobby,” Diego says on the phone the next evening.
Though that makes me smile, I say, “I think Kelli is the best thing that ever happened to him, and you come in a close second, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
“Hard to argue with that. How about we agree that we’re the three best things?”
I chuckle as I stir the marinara sauce bubbling on my stove. “I can agree to that.”
“Good. Now, I need your opinion on something.”
“Let me hear it.”
“Bobby does not love it when I stick my nose into his business without him asking, but I am going to do it again. I would like to offer Nanette a part-time job if she moves to Chicago.”
I suck in a breath. “At your foundation?”
Bobby told me Nanette’s maternal grandmother immigrated to California from Mexico as a teenager, and shetaught her granddaughter Spanish, so she’s fluent, as is Kelli. Nanette also used to teach in an inner-city L.A. school where the majority of students were from families who came to the US from Mexico and Central America. She would likely understand the complexities of immigration, which is what Diego’s foundation focuses on.
“Si.She would be perfect. I don’t know why I did not think of this sooner.”
