Adam sat on a rock formation. “It’s hard to think about living an entire life without Dad. It seems so ...” He shook his head. “I don’t know ... forever is a long time.”
I settled next to him. “We can keep him with us in our own way. I don’t know about you, but I can hear Dad in my head all of the time.”
“Me too.” Ayla sat on my other side. “When I’m in a challenging situation, I always imagine what Dad would say, the advice he’d give me.”
“I was putting together a desk chair at school,” Adam told us, “and I picked up my phone to call him to ask him for help ... you know ... to give me directions over the phone. And I realized I couldn’t.”
“I’m sorry this is so hard.” I ached for all my children had lost. Their father would be a memory longer than he’d been an actual living presence in their lives. It was so unfair that Ali couldn’t be there to see these two ripen into full-blown adults. “I would do anything to spare both of you from this heartbreak.”
“After I figured out how to put the chair together,” Adam continued, “I wanted to call Dad to tell him about how I did it all on my own.”
“He would be proud of you, for sure.”
I hated that Adam and Ali would never know each other as men. Ali should have lived long enough to share that kind of adult male bond with his son. A connection I’d never fully understand.
“It almost feels like Dad is here with us,” Ayla said. “I feel his energy.”
“Yeah,” Adam agreed, “me too.”
I studied my children, their cheeks bright from the cold. Ayla had her father’s thick lashes and bone structure. Adam’s round eyes were so like Ali’s. Their father might not be physically present, but they weren’t fatherless. Ali would always be their dad. Everything he’d instilled in them was still there and would forever be part of who they were. Ali would always light the way for them.
I breathed in a lungful of the crisp, cold air. For the first time since Ali died, I actually believed we were going to be OK.
Chapter Forty-Four
Before
A couple of weeks after Adam went to college and we became empty nesters, Ali and I were on the back deck smoking hookah.
We used to enjoy the occasionalsheeshasession before we had kids, but we stopped after Ayla was born because we didn’t want our children to think smoking was acceptable. Even though, in recent years, Ali had started having the occasional cigar on the back deck. I wondered if all parents became less themselves in order to transform into the role models they think their children need.
Now that Ayla and Adam were both at college, Ali and I had started to regain our rhythm as a couple. He exhaled a neat column of smoke.
“I could get used to this.”
I took the hose from him and inhaled deeply. “Me too.”
I’d expected to miss the kids terribly once they went to college, and I did. But it also felt like Ayla and Adam went out into the world at an appropriate stage in their lives. By the time each of them reached their senior year of high school, they had started to chafe at the parameters of home life. They’d outgrown the family routine that defined their childhoods.
For me and Ali, it meant that we didn’t have to try to keep track of who would be home for dinner when, and what we should cook that the children would eat. Now we could fry up some eggs, add slicedcucumbers, some labne and a few olives, and call it a day. We’d gone back to being just the two of us. A sweetness that was the past and the future all at once.
“What about Virginia Beach?” he said. We’d talked about getting a second place, a weekend and vacation home. But, at that point, we were still in the dreaming-of-it stage.
“The waves are so rough there.” I exhaled, watching the smoke dissipate into the night. “Have you forgotten that Jamal dislocated his shoulder when he went there for spring break? Old people like us need calm water.”
“OK, Grandma. How about a lake?” he suggested. “Maybe Lake Anna.”
I made a face. “Next to the nuclear power plant? Talk about the wrong kind of glow-up.”
He chuckled. “So maybe not Lake Anna.”
“What kind of place do you want?” I asked. “A condo, a house?”
“Whatever you prefer. We should get something nice but not too expensive.”
I laughed. “That should be your epitaph.”
His brow crinkled. “What should?”
