Cris nodded. “I didn’t tell him what to do, I swear. He called me after theGood Morning Americathing. I don’t know if you saw it,” he said, flicking his eyes down a tick. “He said he was proud of me, thatmy dad would have been proud of me. I think I really needed to hear that.” He paused.
“Let me set this down until you decide what you want to do with it, okay?” She took the box out of his hands and placed it on the counter.
“We ended up talking about a lot of things, and your mom was one of them. He loves her so much. He knows he made so many mistakes, but he also knows that he doesn’t know where to start over and how to try again. All I told him was that it doesn’t matter where you start over, as long as you do. And I said that as long as he’s on this earth, if he loves her he’d better tell her. We never know how long we will get.”
“I guess that worked.” Ellie swallowed, willing the lump in her throat to go away. “That was pretty good.”
“I don’t know about that.” He looked down again, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “It’s easier when it’s not your own life, right?”
“Giving advice that you don’t take? Yeah. I guess I know something about that.” She looked down, remembering her outfit, and crossed her arms over her chest.
“How is… I mean, Ben told me you were teaching out here. How is that going?”
“It’s great, actually. I am enjoying it so far. I start informally shadowing the head of the department of clinical psych in a week or so, which is kind of mind-blowing. I never thought I’d be back in that environment.”
“Will you try for an internship again?”
“In the new year, yes. I hope so.”
“Until then, you’ll be here, though? I mean, in LA?”
“Yes, but after that—” She paused but couldn’t quite finish the sentence.
“Who knows, right?”
“Who knows.” She shrugged. “What about you? Do you like the training?”
“I actually start Monday, so I don’t know. That’s why I went to New York this week. You know—to get it done before I get rolling. I am really looking forward to it though.”
“I saw the show.”
“Oh.”
“It was… I mean, it was very…” she trailed off, not sure what adjective would explain exactly what made her drop a gigantic remote control on ceramic tile at five in the morning.
“It was a near-disaster,” he said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I want you to know I didn’t plan any of that. The end part, I mean.”
“I see.”
“No, I don’t mean it like that,” he said, pausing to let out a breath. “I meant everything I said, I just didn’t plan to talk about it on live TV in front of millions of people. I know you don’t need that.”
“It wasn’t about me.”
“But it was. It was about my life and who I am as a person. When I was pushed to talk about who I am, what I love, and what I want to fight for, you were the first thing I thought of,” he said, pausing to look her in the eyes. “I know that I have made so many mistakes with you—not only in the past, but even now. But I didn’t come here to talk about that.”
“I suppose you didn’t come here just to bring me whatever is in that box, either?”
“That’s kind of part of it. Look, I accept making mistakes because none of us is perfect. But I do not accept making another big one on top of it all, which is giving up on us completely. I had a feeling thatconvincing you of that was going to be difficult, and it’s not something I would ever try to do unless I was standing right in front of you. So, here I am,” he said, landing his hand on the countertop.
“I’m not sure I know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything yet. Hang on.” Cris turned the box around so that the opening would be facing Ellie. “The hardest thing is knowing where to start to fix things, just like your dad said. I know there’s no science to this, but when I thought about it, and, believe me, I thought about it a lot, one image kept repeating over and over again in my mind.” Cris opened the lid of the box and Ellie smelled what it was before she saw it.
“That’s a blueberry pie.”
“Yes.”
“From Palo Alto Creamery.”
