“Well…you.”
He laughed. “Not exactly.”
“Come on. You wanted to be a professional golfer, and voila, you are.”
“Yeah, but I sacrificed a lot for that.”
“Really?”
“Sure. Everyone sacrifices for what they want. But the real question is, are you okay with who you are now? Things didn’t work out like youplanned, but they worked out. Some would argue that they worked out in the way they were meant to work out.”
“That’s true,” she said, thinking about her family. “Sometimes I’m perfectly okay with how my life turned out. I love my kids and my family. But sometimes I’m not. I may be a mom and approaching the crest of the hill of life, but I still have aspirations. I still want to live for me. My aspirations have changed with time. Like…living out of a van and roughing it just so I could travel and paint seemed so cool and important back then. Today? I’d rather have a bed, room service, and spa treatments. And then paint.”
He chuckled. “Same. And I never had the desire to live in a van and rough it.”
“Never?”
“Not van life. But there was a time, in college, when I ate and breathed golf and did a lot of couch surfing. I didn’t care where I was playing if I could play. But that’s changed over time. I don’t want to waste time on an easy course. Or drive too far away from a major airport. Or stay in a cheap roadside motel. And the older I get, the harder it is to change what I will live with. Especially when my knee hurts all the time. Especially when there never seems to be a moment to breathe.”
“Exactly my point. Minus the knee.” She smiled. So did he. They got each other. It was a feeling like nothing else when you connected with a person below the surface level. It was life-affirming. It was happiness.
“You may not be living the artist life, but you have a good family.”
“I do. I really do,” she said, nodding. “Maybe I just need to set some boundaries so I don’t feel like I’m everyone’s doormat.”
“You’re not a doormat. You’re someone they all need. From my vantage point, being taken advantage of by family is better than never being considered at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, that I’m an only child and have a distant relationship withmy parents. It’s based on where I am during the year and where they’d like to vacation. I’ll see them for a couple of hours, and that’s it.”
“Oh.” Amy couldn’t imagine seeing her kids only a few times a year for a couple of hours. She suppressed the urge to shudder.
“I’m not blaming them,” he hastened to add. “I did it to myself. When I got my first PGA card, I was on the road constantly and never available. My mother tried to get me home, but I didn’t make it very often. Then…she stopped asking.”
“I’m so sorry.” As much as her mother drove her nuts, she wouldn’t know how to live without her presence in her life.
He shrugged a little. “I wouldn’t trade the experiences I’ve had, but if I knew then what I know now, I would hope I’d have done things differently.”
“How so?” she asked curiously.
“I would have settled down along the way. I did for a time, but it didn’t last. Because I couldn’t let go of the need to go and play golf. And she…well, eventually she got tired of waiting for me.”
Amy found that tidbit very interesting. She wondered what it would be like to be in a relationship with him. She wasn’t famous for waiting, either.
“And it’s a little late for it now.” He picked up his beer, took a long draw of it.
“A little late to settle down? Or change things with your parents?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged again like it was decided. It was strangely disappointing to hear him say that. Any small hope that this thing between them could be more than a fling began to dissipate. Her instincts were probably right—he was having fun on his vacation. Wasn’t that what she was doing, too? “So,” she said, trying to mask her disappointment. “Do you like who you are now?”
He smiled. “I’d rather think how much I like you.”
“Okay. Given that I vomited all over your shoes, how much?”
He grinned. “You missed my shoes. So I still like you a lot. Is it not obvious?”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “I might have thought it obvious if it hadn’t been for my bothersome family.”
