Now that she was taken care of, the future only held the promise of the long and painful process of losing myself, one independence at a time. The future was already written for me and there was nothing I could do to escape it, so I devoted myself to escaping worrying about the future instead.
After Grant had left the next morning to head back to New York, he’d immediately taken care of everything that had to do with getting Charlie and me moved. From having a cab pick us up two days later for our early morning flight, to having a moving company take care of my belongings we couldn’t bring on the plane, to getting our first class tickets and arranging for transportation once we landed in New York. The only thing I’d had to do was pack our suitcases and show up.
“Hey, Mom?”
“Hey, yeah?” I turned my head toward her, smiling when I found her clutching the football Grant had given her like she did her old, ratty teddy bear.
“What do you think I should call Grant?”
Her question required some thought before I could answer. “What do you think you should call him?”
She crunched that question out with a pretzel. “I think I should call him Grant, because I just met him, and he is Grant Turner, arguably the best player in professional football today.”
The corners of my mouth twitched. “Arguably.”
“But he’s also my dad, so I think I could also call him Dad and be in the clear too. It’s a hard call.” She leaned into the window, staring out of it like she was waiting for an answer to appear in the clouds.
“Well? What do you want to call him?”
Charlie breathed against the window, fogging it up. “Dad.” She shrugged. “I want to call him Dad. I don’t want to be one of those kids who calls their parents by their first names. That’s just weird.”
When she glanced over for support, I raised my hands. “Heaven forbid.”
Her nose scrunched up a little. “Do you think he’d mind?”
My hand found hers and wound around it. “I know he wouldn’t.”
I didn’t feel the tremor hit me until it was rocking my body. It came out of nowhere, hard and violent. Most of my bouts of chorea had been more isolated—manifesting in my hands or feet—but this one spasmed through my whole body. Charlie’s hand slipped through mine in the process. Even though the shaking passed quickly, it wasn’t quick enough.
She looked over at me, blinking with worried eyes as she looked ready to leap onto her chair and start screaming for a doctor. “Mom?”
“I’m okay.” I forced a smile, exhaled a slow breath. “I’m just cold.”
Charlie’s eyebrows pinched together as she ran her palm up and down my bare arm. “No, you’re not. You’re warm.”
She had a point . . .
“Sometimes I just get a little nervous flying. I’m okay. Don’t worry.” I leaned over to kiss her forehead, pasting on the unconcerned look every parent had mastered. The one we learned so we didn’t scare our kids when we ourselves were shitting our pants.
“You told me flying doesn’t make you nervous,” she argued, still looking at me like she was worried.
“Well, I changed my mind. Especially when I’m fairly confident you just consumed the last bag of pretzels on this plane when there’s still thirty minutes left of flight time. The other passengers might mutiny. Make us walk the plank right out into the clouds.”
By the time I was done, all concern had been drained from Charlie’s face. Instead of her frown of doubt, she was grinning. “Mom? You’re weird.”
I wound my arm behind her neck and pulled her to me. “You’re welcome.”
LA GUARDIA AIRPORT WAS far less harrowing than I’d envisioned. I’d only flown once before—into the Portland airport—and when people talked about flying into New York, they described elbow-to-elbow terminals and mile-wide luggage carousels.
It was far more manageable than I’d guessed. If only every challenge in life could follow the same example. I’d just managed to snag our last piece of luggage from the carousel and was scanning the overhead signs in hopes of finding one that would indicate what direction the taxis were in. I had the address of the place Grant had arranged for us to stay at, and I was looking forward to getting there and kicking my feet up after a long day of travel.
“Okay, Charlie, I want you to hang onto my sleeve and not let go. I don’t care if you rip it off, just don’t let go, okay? We need to find where the taxis are.” I glanced down at Charlie, who had a totally unaffected look on her face, like she was a jet-setter already at the ripe old age of seven.