One True Theory of Love (33 page)

J
onathan knows me in a way no one else ever can, because he knew me back when I was an innocent, back before my heart formed its aching black holes. Even as it was him who damaged me, the fact remains: he knew me before I
was
damaged, and not many people in this world do.

In any case,
Can a person rewrite history?
is the wrong question to ask, because no matter the answer, it still deals with the past. Here’s the better question: in the moment that matters, who are you going to be?

 

 

 

 

The next morning was coffee-shop day. Soccer day. Henry’s clear-cut, hanging-out-with-Ahmed day, and Henry had no idea that Ahmed had walked out of Meg’s life and possibly his, too. Meg had yet to figure out the riddle: how did you tell a person something that you knew was going to break his heart?

Very carefully
was the answer Ahmed had given, and she knew he was right. The grown-up heart was tougher than she’d given it credit for. It endured attacks. Got cut open, stitched back together. Got shocked into obedience. Could be forced to keep beating even as it gave up the fight.

Meg could handle her father falling in love with Sandi. She could handle, now, ten years later, the fact that Jonathan had cheated on her and then left. Ahmed could have handled Jonathan’s reappearance. In fact, Meg knew now they likely would have come through the experience better for it. In trying to protect Ahmed, she’d hurt him, because in trying to protect him, she hadn’t honored the capacity and strength of his heart.

She’d been a wreck after he’d left. She’d begged off movie night with Henry and instead invited Violet to spend the evening. The two kids continued their Monopoly marathon while Meg lay in her darkened room and tortured herself with recriminations and cried more tears than she would’ve thought she had in her. One sole hopeful thought got her through the hours: it couldn’t really, actually, in true fact, be over between them. Such a punishment in no way fit the crime, and Meg clung to the hope that after Ahmed cooled off, he’d see that, too.

Besides, they were still alive.

For that reason alone, it wasn’t over. Their love was forever. They’d whispered in the crevices of the night about babies they might sneak into the world. Licked each other’s lovemaking sweat. Talked of growing old together.

Their love wasn’t ended. It had just begun.

But at dawn, she was alone.

When she and Henry arrived at LuLu’s, LuLu was behind the counter, arranging the pastry display. She smiled broadly at Henry and watched Meg with increasing worry, confirming what she already knew—she looked haggard. Puffy-eyed. Pathetic.

“Where’s your boyfriend,
chica
?” LuLu asked.

Meg made big don’t-ask eyes at her.

“He’s running errands,” Henry said. “We probably won’t see him until soccer.”

Meg ran her hand through the uncombed hair of her sweet son, who still believed what she told him to believe, who still believed in her. “You want cocoa today or cider, baby boy?”

“Cider,” Henry said. “And stop calling me
baby boy
.”

“But you’ll always be my baby.” Henry pulled away from her tangled caress.

“And you?” LuLu said. “The usual?
Pobrecita
, you don’t look so good today.” She drew a mug of coffee and passed it across the counter to Meg. “Coffee’s on the house.”

LuLu’s small kindness threatened to plunge Meg right over the edge. It was hard to be there without Ahmed—he was part of them now, and his absence was palpable. His absence was throbbing, actually. Meg thanked LuLu for the free coffee, paid for their scones and cider and braced herself as they rounded the corner to the seating area, hoping against hope that he’d be there. That he’d come to his senses and seen the symbolism in beginning again where it had all begun before, in this lovely little coffee shop.

But he wasn’t there, as she’d known he wouldn’t be. She’d just let hope get the best of her yet again.

“Let’s sit over here today, Henry.” With a hand on Henry’s shoulder, Meg guided him to a darker corner table by the swinging kitchen door.

He resisted. “But that’s our spot. We always sit there.”

“Let’s dare to be different,” Meg said. “Change is good.”

“Whatever.” Henry tossed the chess set on the table.

Meg took a seat. “We need to talk,” she said. “It’s going to be a somewhat difficult discussion.”

Henry looked at her blamefully, as though he knew already she’d done something wrong. Stubbornly, he lifted the lid off the chess box and began to set up a game.

“Ahmed and I had a fight last night,” Meg said. “It was bad, and he’s pretty mad.”

“You’re a poet and you don’t even know it,” Henry said without a hint of a smile. “I’m white. I go first.” He moved a middle white pawn forward two spaces, then looked at her. “What’d you do?”

How do you
not
break a boy’s heart?

By telling as much of the truth as you possibly can, Meg decided, and what you hold back, you do out of consideration, not cowardice. That was the only way Meg knew to keep a heart intact when the information to share might be upsetting.

“Remember when you called you-know-who in New York?” she asked him. “Your father, Jonathan?”

Henry’s eyes were wary beyond his years. “Yeah?”

“Well, he came to town last week and I met him at the park,” Meg said. “I didn’t tell Ahmed.”

“You should have told me!”

“Shhh,”
Meg said. “Keep your voice down. I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to tell anybody. Grandpa’s the only one who knew.”

Henry’s look was scolding. “That’s a bad secret.”

Meg sighed. “I know.”

“And Ahmed found out and got mad at you,” Henry guessed.

“That’s right,” Meg said. “How’d you know?”

“Easy,” Henry said. “That’s what happens to me every time there’s something I don’t tell you. Don’t worry. He won’t stay mad forever.
You
never do. Go. It’s your turn.”

Meg laughed, appreciative for his sweet nine-year-old perspective. She made a quick move, a side pawn forward one. “Sometimes grown-ups aren’t so quick to forgive one another as they are to forgive kids.”

“He’s gonna forgive you,” Henry said. “You know how I know?” Arms folded and hands crossed, he leaned forward across the chessboard. “He’s going to ask you to marry him.”

He nodded knowingly, gloating. “I saw the ring. He took me out to dinner to ask me if it was okay. I said it was, of course. Duh! And Ahmed said maybe I can go to Sam Hughes for fifth grade if it’s okay with you. By then I’ll be old enough to stay by myself until you get home, and that way, I could be on the chess team and in orchestra and I’d still get to see Violet every day. So can I?”

Meg choked on nothing and coughed emptily. “Excuse me.”

She slapped her chest and coughed more to buy herself some time, to keep herself from falling so far she wouldn’t be able to get herself back up. Ahmed with the creamy-coffee eyes and smooth patrician skin
had
, in fact, wanted to marry her. Meg wished she could pull some stunt, like getting really sick and having to be hospitalized, to make him rush to her side, to be reminded how much he loved her. Maybe she could cough herself to near-death.

“I didn’t know you wanted to join the orchestra,” she finally said.

“Well, I do.” Henry took a sip of his cider, the chess game long since forgotten. “What was it like? Seeing him, I mean. My real father.”

His real father. As if he had any other.

Meg gulped her coffee. “Weird,” she said. “Very weird.” “Did he ask about me?”

Meg’s heart quickened. Here it was, coming back around, what had frightened her in the first place, introducing this powerful element into their lives and not knowing how it would affect her most-beloved boy. Henry would remember whatever answer she gave for the rest of his life, and while it may or may not be true that we find ourselves in the broken pieces of our heart, she didn’t want her boy broken. Period. Life would break him soon enough, and she’d be there for him when it did, but for as long as she could, she’d shield him. Because that was what you did with the ones you loved—you shielded them if you could and comforted them if you couldn’t.

Which, she realized, was what her father had been doing for her when he continued on the previous night with his lie.

And so Meg lied to Henry, because damned if it wasn’t the right thing to do. The truth was, Jonathan hadn’t asked much about Henry at all. She’d been the one who’d offered information about him.

“He wanted to know everything about you,” she said. “Your favorite classes at school. What position you play in soccer. What sort of books you like to read. He probably asked a hundred questions about you.”

“He knows we’re with Ahmed, right?”

“He knows,” Meg said. “And he told me you called him to find out what I did wrong with him so I wouldn’t make the same mistakes with Ahmed. That was very sweet of you, Henry.”

“That’s why you bought me the iPod, isn’t it?” Henry asked. “As a thank-you?”

Meg shook her head, although he wasn’t entirely wrong. “I bought it because you’re my favorite boy in the whole world.”

Henry basked for a moment before he asked, “So? What did you do wrong?”

Meg straightened. “As a matter of fact, he told me I did nothing wrong.”

“Good,” Henry said. “Ahmed should like hearing that.”

W
hen Ahmed missed the soccer game that afternoon, with Catherine of all people filling in as coach (how was
that
not a slap in the face on Ahmed’s part?), Meg called him—several times—always getting his voice mail. After her fourth call, her anger started to build. Couldn’t he even pick up the phone if only to tell her not to call anymore?

All day he ignored them.

Meg and Henry spent the evening down at the pool with the Loop Group and Violet. Meg tried to get into the expected spirit of frivolity, but with her phone in front of her, taunting her with its silence, the evening was interminable. Several times, she was tempted to leave Henry in someone’s care and drive over to Ahmed’s just to see where his head was at—to see if there was a chance for them. But each time, she talked herself out of it, because what if he’d decided it was, truly, over forever between them? If that were the case, she preferred not to know quite yet.

When they arrived at Amy’s the next day for brunch, Clarabelle was already there, accompanied by Andy. Both chatted with David as he grilled chicken and corn. As Henry ran off to find his cousins, Meg waved a greeting and then tracked down Amy, who was in the kitchen and smiling for a change.

“Come on,” Meg complained to Amy, gesturing to Andy and Clarabelle out the window. “Bringing her boy toy to brunch?”

Amy laughed. “I think they’re cute. And they’re not being lovey-dovey or gross about anything.”

“It doesn’t bother you that she’s seeing someone your age?” Meg asked.

Amy shrugged. “Live and let live. They’re two consenting adults.” She finished sprinkling pine nuts on the salad and took the bowl to the table. “I think the only thing we need to be careful of is that no one takes advantage of her. Takes her money or anything. Not him, necessarily, but I’m sure there’ll be others.”

“This is surreal, thinking about our parents dating,” Meg said, shaking her head. She paused and then added casually, “How upset would you be if Dad dated someone?”

“When will you stop blinding yourself to the obvious?” Amy gave her an exasperated look. “He
is
dating someone. He’s dating Sandi.”

Meg gasped. “How’d you find out?”

“Mom’s known for years,” Amy said. “And she hasn’t exactly been quiet about it.”

“She’s suspected,” Meg said, “but that didn’t mean it was true. Although it is, by the way. And why am I always the last to know these things?”

“Because you’re Meg,” Amy said. “You see what you want to see. You want everyone happy and
Leave It to Beaver
all the time. Come here. I’ve got something to show you.”

She led Meg to the laundry room, flung open the door, and swept her arm out. “Voilà! My new poetry room. What do you think?”

Meg looked around the room in wonder. What had been a boring, functional room now had soft yellow walls with Magic-Markered poetry scribbled all over them.

“I love it!” Meg said. “Good for you.”