Audrey
Today's vocabulary word: resolve
"Remindme why we're doing chowder in August," Jamie said, pushing her bowl to the center of the picnic table.
"I tried to warn you," I said. "You were the one who wanted to sample all three varieties."
Jamie folded her arms on the table and put her head down. "It's very rude to remind someone of their bad decisions to their face."
"Can anyone explain these things to me?" Ruth tapped her plastic fork to the side of the paper basket. "I just want to know what I'm eating.Whatis a jonnycake?Whois Jonny? Is he in there or is it just his ghost at this point?"
"It's a cornmeal cake," Shay said. "A thick batter cooked on a griddle. Very Rhode Island. They love a good gristmill around here."
"Not a single Revolutionary War spirit fried into this thing? What a letdown," Ruth said.
"Not to get us too far off-track," Shay said as she gathered our discarded bowls and baskets, "but it sounds like you're going to have to make some very big decisions very soon, Audrey."
I glanced across the field to where Noah and Jude stood near a row of cornhole games, drinks in hand. They'd been stationed there for the past hour while Gennie and Percy competed in an under-ten tournament. I wasn't sure it was a tournament so much as a few high school kids who kept rotating the players from one match to another, and never knocked anyone out of the running. Not that we had a problem with that approach.
"I mean, maybe," I said. I knew I was hedging. I also knew it wouldn't do me any good. "I'm hoping it all just sorts itself out."
"Baby girl," Jamie drawled, her head still pillowed on her arms. "That's not a strategy. Or, it is but it's notyourstrategy."
"Believe me, I understand the desire to sit back and excuse yourself from making those decisions," Shay said. "Though I know you don't actually want that."
"No, I don't but— There's just so much up in the air." I shook my head. "And am I really the one making the decisions here? Doesn't Jude have to decide? He has a lot more on the line than I do."
"Debatable," Ruth said.
"Just stop for a second," Shay said. "Get out of your head and look at him over there with Noah and the kids."
"Are we looking at the shorts?" Jamie asked. "Because while I don't enjoy most shorts on most men, they're both doing it very right."
"We're not looking at their shorts," Shay said.
"But can we?" Ruth asked. "There's a lot to admire."
"We are looking at the fact that this guy came to acorn festivalin a wacky little Rhode Island town in themiddle of August," Shay said with a laugh. "And then there's the fact that when his world went to shit, you were his soft place to land—and he's stayed there ever since. Even when that involves a ridiculous festival on the hottest day of the year. He could've left at any time. He could've taken his kid home. He didn't." She pointed at me with her fork. "He's made his decision. You need to make yours."
"I just…" I yanked the elastic from my hair and started gathering the strands into a bun. It really was unbelievably hot and we were sitting in the shade. "I don't want to get it wrong. I'm not good at making the right choices when it's really important and I just feel like—" I blew out a breath and shook my head. I didn't know what else to say.
"You feel you'd rather make no decision than the wrong one," Shay said. "I know. I've been there. It's miserable. But not making a decision is a decision by itself."
"We'll make a list," Ruth said, pulling a pen from her bag and unfolding a napkin. "Let's start with the basics. You want to keep this thing going with him, right?"
I rolled a bottle of water between my palms. "Yeah. I do. But Jude and Percy live in Virginia, and there's a family situation in Michigan, and I work in Boston, which is just a giant mess."
"Not a mess," Ruth said as she wrote out her notes. "Just a series of options, each with their own merits and challenges."
"You could move to Virginia," Shay said. "We'd miss you like crazy but it's not like you'll ever get rid of us."
"Never," Jamie added. "We'll find you."
"Or Jude and Percy could move here," I said. It felt strange saying that out loud after thinking it for the past few weeks. Maybe because I'd been waiting for Jude to say it first.
"You've mentioned that Jude travels a fair bit for work and he has some flexibility on where he's based," Ruth said.
"You'd be able to enroll Percy in our kindergarten class," Jamie said. "Aurora's best friend is hard-of-hearing. She grewup with ASLandshe's had several kiddos in her class using adaptive communication tools."
