“Day Three is focused on movement.”
“And bymovement, you mean exercise.”
“That, too. Surfing’s a good workout, and I thought it would be a fun way to let off steam. Plus, you’ll be doing something you’ve always wanted to do.”
This was mentioned in George’s articles.Choose a new hobby. Shake up your day-to-day routine. Spend time outdoors.
“I assume you have a speech prepared about the positive impact of exercise on mental health. Endorphins, stress relief, et cetera.”
“Idid.” He gives me a sideways glance. “But it sounds like I can skip it.”
I laugh. “I appreciate how seriously you’re taking this. Some of the research you gave me was pretty illuminating.”
A corner of his mouth slants. “Oh?”
“Yeah. I know I didn’t cope well at the beginning. But reading those articles confirmed something for me.” I think of the question marks George had written in the margin.
“What’s that?”
“I don’t think Nate was the only one for me.”
George, who has been bobbing his knee, goes still. His face shifts an inch in my direction.
“I’m not sure there’s only one person for any of us. But if there was…” I’m caught off guard by the sudden crush of emotion, and I look into the evergreens, their trunks straight and proud, bare of needles until the uppermost branches.
“If there was…” George quietly prompts after a few seconds.
“If there is one person out there, one person for me and only me, then that person isn’t Nate.”
I turn back to George. “I wanted it to be him. I wanted the kind of relationship Aurora and Betty have. I used to think having a partner would be like tying an anchor to my leg.” I’d either drown or need to get the thing off to survive.
His laugh is low. “Believe me, I know.”
“But Aurora and Betty are so good together. They have their own lives, their own careers. They build each other up—they’re more together, not less. I’d never seen an unfailingly supportive relationship like that.”
George tilts his head. “What are you talking about? Your parents support each other.”
I give him a sharp look. “My mom wanted to help whales. My dad wanted to be a woodworker. Who got what they wanted?”
He takes a bite of his bar and makes a sound like he doesn’t agree.
“She got pregnant and gave everything up,” I say.
“Do you think that’s how your mom sees it? She and your dad were in love.”
Mom moved from Halifax to the Kawarthas in ninth grade, and Dad always says he fell for her the moment he spotted her in the cafeteria. But she didn’t agree to go out with him until their final year of high school. They broke up when she left to study marine and freshwater biology at the University of Guelph. She wanted to help bring North Atlantic right whales back from the brink of extinction. My dad stayed in the area to apprentice as a cabinetmaker, but every time my mom came home to visit,they’d find themselves at the same parties and they’d nestle into a quiet corner and catch up.
Four years went on like this. My parents were apart more than they were together, but they thought about each other constantly. The summer before my mom moved back to Halifax for her master’s, their friendship spilled over. This time, their connection was deeper than it was when they were teenagers. It felt inevitable and impossible to stop. They spent a year in a heated long-distance romance, colliding like tectonic plates whenever they saw each other. They were young and in love, and they had no real plan for the future except that they wanted one together. Then, my mom threw up during her advanced molecular biology final. She was pregnant. She said farewell to her whales.
“I know they were in love,” I say to George. “But look at what it did to her. To us.”
It takes him a moment to respond. “I think,” he says softly, “that you’ve been telling yourself your own version of your mother’s story for a long time. Maybe you should ask her to tell it herself.”
It’s annoying how reasonable he sounds. “It’s annoying how reasonable you sound,” I tell him.
He chuckles. “So you were saying…We’re blaming Aurora and Betty’s perfect relationship for Nate?”
“Ha. Yes.”
