I shook my head.
Kit shrugged. “A mean girl from my grade, now a show-offy mother of two. She told me everybody says I went crazy and was put into a home. She said that to my face! In Starbucks! Apparently, the whole world just thinks I lost my marbles. And that was it for me. I was like, We’re done here. Time to set the record straight. I left my latte on the counter and stormed over.”
I was about to suggest maybe Kit should go find our mom—she’d left her purse here, after all, and wouldn’t get too far without it—when there was a knock at the door. When it pushed open, it was our dad.
In the instant I saw him I felt a rush of sympathy. He was my mother’s high school sweetheart. They got married the summer after they graduated, and Kit was born a few months later. My dad had been all set to go to college in California, but he joined the marines instead. Of course, my mom gave up college altogether.
Neither of them had gotten quite what they’d hoped for.
These were facts I’d known for a long time, but they were only part of the story. What would my dad think now, if he knew everything? Would it change how he felt about his family? About Kit? About my mom? Would he leave if he knew? I couldn’t imagine our family without him. He was the best thing about it.
Right then, I made a mental vow I would never tell him.
“Hey, girls,” my dad said then, as he stepped into the room. “Look what I found!”
Out from behind him, of all people, stepped Chip.
*
CHIP LOOKED LIKE hell, just like my mother had threatened.
Even so, just seeing that face of his gave me jolt of pleasure. It was like some kind of Pavlovian response. See Chip; feel a thrill. Whether I wanted to or not. Whether he looked like hell or not. Whether he deserved it or not. It was quite a realization, and it reminded me of what Kit had just said. My brain knew one thing, but my heart was a different story.
Plus, my mother had spent our lunch hour scaring the hell out of me.
Chip hesitated in the doorway, sensing they had interrupted something.
He looked like he’d slept in his clothes. He hadn’t shaved. He was holding a manila bubble envelope in one hand. He gave Kit a little wave, but then got down to business.
He walked a little closer to the bed, his eyes on me, and we all watched him.
“I just got this package from the FAA.” He held it up. “They’ve closed their investigation of the crash. ‘Pilot error.’” He put his head down and gave a breathy laugh. “We could’ve told ’em that.”
“I thought it was a ‘senseless tragedy,’” I said, and Chip blinked at me.
“What’s in the bag, son?” my dad asked then.
Chip looked down at it. Back on track. “They’re scrapping the wreckage, and I’ll pay for the plane out of pocket. But they found this.”
He pulled his grandmother’s engagement ring out of the envelope and held it out for us to see. It was, to put it gently, a little charred.
“They found it,” I said.
“They knew our story from the interview, so they knew what it was.”
I didn’t know what to say. It was so strange to see Chip at all—especially like this. He had always, always been perfectly put together, and in control, and groomed like a male model. This disheveled guy was like his antimatter.
As soon as I thought that, I wondered if he thought the same thing about me. Now that I was unfuckable—according to my mom.
“Hey,” he said then. “You got a haircut.”
I touched the spiky back. “Yeah.”
Chip shrugged. “Don’t worry. It’ll grow back.”
“Chip,” I said then. “What are you doing here?”
He shrugged. “Bringing you your ring.”
I watched in shock as he bent down on one knee, losing his balance for a second before getting situated, and then lifted the ring up to me like a kid playing King Arthur.
“Margaret—” he began in a thespian-like voice, but then interrupted himself: “Oh, shit! What’s your middle name?”
“Rosemary,” my dad offered from the wings.
Chip began again. “Margaret Rosemary Jacobsen, we’ve had a rough month. I have let you down in more ways than I can count. But I think this ring can be a symbol of a new beginning for us. I vow to be a better man. I know I can be a better man. So now I ask you, in front of your dad and your crazy sister, despite everything we’ve been through—will you marry me?”
I knew my line. But I didn’t say it.
I took in the sight of this very different Chip for a good while. True, my mom had succeeded in stoking some of my insecurities and semiconvinced me that I might never get a better offer than this one, right here, from a disappointing, wrinkled, slightly soused version of the man of my dreams. If my mom were here, she’d be hissing at me to say yes and just lock it down right now before he sobered up.
But I couldn’t.
Did I want to marry him?
I’d wanted to marry him for years—so long, I almost didn’t know how to not want to. Part of me still did, as bad as ever—maybe worse. But another part was having massive second thoughts.
He was looking at me. Waiting. Well?
The answer could have been easy. But easy didn’t exist anymore. If it ever had. “I don’t think so, Chip.”
His Shakespearean expression fell away, and he stood up. “No?”
“You said yourself it’s been a rough month.”
“I’m trying to make it better.”
“I get that, but I’m not sure this is the way.”
Chip’s face crumpled. There was no other word for it. “I’m so indescribably sorry about that night. I never meant for this to happen. I would give anything—anything—to change places with you.”
“This isn’t about the accident,” I said.
“What is it about?”
“How many times have you been to visit me here?” I asked. I genuinely didn’t know.
He looked fuzzy, too. “I’m not sure.”
“Three,” my dad offered, “if you count right now.”
I looked at Chip. “Three times in two weeks. Do you think that’s enough?”
“It’s just—” Chip’s voice caught. “It’s that every time I see you—all burned and messed up—I feel so guilty, knowing it was all because of me, knowing that I ruined your life. It’s like I’m suffocating.”
Really? I thought.
“Okay,” I said. “One: The jury is still out on whether or not my life is ruined. And two: Fuck you. You should have come anyway. I don’t care if you feel guilty. You should have been here every minute of every day. You should have been sleeping here and waking up here and buying me stuffed animals in the gift shop and bringing me Chinese takeout. Kitty has been a better friend to me in here than you have.”
Kitty shot a glance over at my dad.
Chip looked down. “I’m sorry.”
“So you can see why the idea of marrying you, the idea of ‘in sickness and in health,’ doesn’t make a lot of sense to me right now.”
Chip looked down and nodded.
“It’s not the accident,” I said. “It’s everything since the accident.”
“But it’s not off?” he asked then, looking up. “The engagement’s not off?”
“Well, it’s not frigging on.”
“Can it just be, like, on hold, then?”
I felt all six eyes in the room on me. I wanted to punish him. I wanted to tell him it was off—one hundred percent. I wanted to make it clear, to everybody, that insult to injury would not be tolerated.
Instead, I sighed. “It can be on hold.”
Chip broke into a smile. “That’s something. I can work with that.”
He did not deserve to be smiling right now. But I couldn’t have said no, and we both knew it. I wasn’t ready to give up on Chip. He’d just failed a test of love, yes. But I couldn’t—wouldn’t—decide it was the only test that would ever matter.
“And will you wear the ring?” Chip pushed.
Did I want to wear that charred, bent ring? Not really. It was a bit too close to forgiveness. But I let him slide it on my finger anyway. I was too tired to be strong about this. And, more than that: Letting go of my past and my future at the same time felt like more than I could bear.
As he nudged the ring into place on my finger, Chip gave a relieved burst of laughing and crying at the same time, and at this range I got a sour whiff of alcohol. “It’s a little bent,” he said.
“It fits better now, though.”
“Can I kiss you?” Chip asked.
I nodded, but I couldn’t meet his eyes. I felt, more than saw, him lean in. I held still and braced for impact. When his lips touched mine, I tried like hell to feel something. And I did, in a way, but it was not something any kiss had ever made me feel before. It felt like a reminder of exactly how life used to be—followed by an ache of sorrow that it might be gone for good.
Thirteen
AT THE KISS, Kitty and my dad took off, assuming, as you might, that Chip and I wanted to be alone.
In truth, what I really wanted was time to talk to Kitty. And to give my dad a little hug for wounds he didn’t even know he had. And to figure out where the heck my mom had disappeared to.
But Chip did not remove his face from mine for a good while.