“I’m not sure that I want to answer twenty questions right now.” Ellie laughed and took another sip of water.
“Okay, how about three?”
“Only if you answer them, too.”
“Fair. Ready for number one?”
“As long as it doesn’t make me think too much,” she said, furrowing her brow in a plea.
“There’s nothing on earth that makes you not think too much.” Cris frowned back.
“Just for once, I’d like to have only my things to think about. Is that too much to ask? I don’t want to be the camp counselor anymore.”
“I’m sorry about your parents.”
“They are honestly acting like children. I can’t believe they can be this stubborn.”
“I don’t know how to tell you this, but at some point we have to let them go out into the world and make mistakes for themselves. They’re not our babies any longer.” Cris smiled. Ellie rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, well, at least your parents had the sense to stay together—” she said, and then she stopped. Her eyes grew wide. “Oh my God. I am so sorry. I—I have to stop talking now.”
It wasn’t the first time someone had forgotten that he’d lost his father, midsentence. It may have been the first time he didn’t try to hide from it. Instead of doing some kind of evasive shuffle-step for the benefit of the other person’s shame, he just let it ride. Truth was, he didn’t feel hurt, especially given the person who said it.
“You know I am not going to pull that guilt trip thing on you. It’s not fair, I know.”
“But you really could,” she said, her face glowing from purple to blue and back again in the lights ringing the pod.
“Yes, I could. But I won’t. Let your mom and dad do their thing, okay? You know they are both good people. They’re just not good together right now. Are you looking at that moon?” Cris ducked his head and pointed up at the silver disk in the sky. They were up so high, it seemed to be at eye level.
“Good people, yes. Logical? Not even a tiny bit,” she said without turning around. “I did see the moon.”
“Well, if you knew that your relationship issues were going to break someone else’s heart, I’m pretty sure you’d feel kind of terrible, no?”
“Hell yes. I can’t be responsible for any third parties. My relationship track record would depress an undertaker.”
“So don’t put that kind of pressure on them. It really doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“But it does. Ben and I— My dad didn’t make life easy for us.”
“Sorry to say this, Ellie, but that’s between you and your dad. In my opinion, even if your parents weren’t getting a divorce, you’d still have to fix it with him if it means something to you,” he said as the pod paused, likely letting other passengers on. Ellie turned her face to the window again and gazed down at the ant-like crowds below.
“You might have a point.”
“Our dads were not the nine-to-five kind of dads.”
“True.”
“They were kind of fun, though, weren’t they?”
“True,” she said again, this time laughing.
“Are you thinking what I am thinking?” He laughed, too, remembering.
“The time they played each other in tennis with a swim fin on one foot each?” Ellie clutched her stomach.
“With the water polo caps on!”
“And they used one set of fins so—”
