The Christmas Hope(9)

Mark was different. He wasn’t a bum. He called my mom and dad “Mr. and Mrs. Allen,” he awoke early and always made his bed, he never took food out of the kitchen, and he was “ambitious.” My mother loved seeing that in young people. When Mark opened the car door for me I could see my mother’s face light up. Mark knew what he wanted to do with his life and Mom could tell that he wanted me as part of that life. She knew he loved me.

I met him in the middle of my sophomore year. I was standing in line behind him in the cafeteria when he turned to grab a glass. His hand knocked my tray to the floor and spaghetti sauce splattered us both. “I am so sorry,” he said, brushing aside goopy, wet spaghetti noodles that hung from my brown suede purse. I looked at him and blushed. He was on the football team; I’d seen him play but had never spoken to him.

“It’s no big deal,” I said, pressing a wad of napkins against my skirt. He was busy wiping the bright red sauce off the floor. When he stood to throw away the mess of napkins in his hand he looked at me for the first time and stopped. He had dark blond hair, brown eyes, and the sweetest smile. He held his gaze and I looked at the floor, wondering why I couldn’t have been wearing something cuter.

“I’m an idiot,” he said. “I’m really sorry.” He grabbed another tray and tried to hand it to me. “Let me help you.”

“No, no. I’ll just go clean up and then try again … when it’s safer to come back.” I hoped with everything that was in me that he would say he’d wait for me so we could eat together.

“Can I wait for you?” he asked. He wasn’t cocky. He wasn’t so sure of himself that he knew I’d want to eat with him but actually questioned whether I would want to eat with him.

I felt my heart jump, and nodded.

Mark got his pilot’s license when he was seventeen. During the summers he worked for a small air cargo service, first in the warehouse, then the office, and finally flying deliveries for them. When he graduated he planned to move out of state and work for a commercial airline. Mark was a year ahead of me in college and the thought of being separated a year didn’t appeal to either one of us so when he graduated we married. My mother would have preferred that I finish college and I assured her that I would once Mark and I were settled. But I got pregnant quicker than we anticipated. Eleven months after we married I gave birth to Sean and a month later I received my degree. Sean looked like me but had his dad’s disposition. I could take him anywhere and he was content, unlike me. I was always looking for something to do. I soon discovered that once Sean was born I had plenty to do!

It’s funny how excited you are when you learn you’re going to have a baby but then dread so many things that come with that new life: things like the first steps, because you realize you won’t have as much cuddle time now that the baby has discovered he has legs; the day he wants to dress himself because he’s “a big boy now”; the time he stops calling the Fairy Godmother “Mary Godmother”; the day he realizes there’s a “th” on the word “think” and he no longer says, “I fink so”; the day he boards the bus for kindergarten, or the day the finger paintings of blobs that he swears is a rainbow or lion or mommy and daddy come down off the refrigerator door. While parents share joy with their child in these events, there’s a little piece of their heart that aches. Someone once told me that when you become a parent you wear your heart on your sleeve for the next eighteen years of your life.

“Oh, that’s ridiculous,” my mother said when I shared it with her. “You don’t wear your heart on your sleeve for the next eighteen years … you wear it there for the rest of your life.”

When Sean was fourteen months old Mark was offered a job with another air cargo airline closer to our parents. My mother was ecstatic when she discovered we would be living, as she would say, “twenty minutes from her front door.” We tried to get pregnant when Sean was two but after two unsuccessful years we knew there was a problem. As Sean got older and closer to kindergarten it seemed that we weren’t meant to have any other children. I went to work when Sean started school, but I never got pregnant again, although we never closed that door. “It’s okay,” Mark said. “This is our family and I’m happy.”

For years we did have a happy household, though there was stress. The airline Mark worked for went bankrupt, leaving thousands of employees without jobs, Mark’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and went through years of treatments, and Mark and I could always find reason to argue over finances (he could always buy on impulse but I had to mull things over before buying a new car or piece of stereo equipment). Once while riding in his car seat Sean listened as Mark and I got into a heated argument over money. “Mommy. Daddy. Be friends,” he said, trying to pull himself toward us. He was two and a half years old and full of wisdom.