Threads of Hope: Quilts of Love Series (25 page)

“Neither did I. I thought it was off the menu, then it came back on.”

Now he colored with Jazarah, not bothering at all with lines and making ever animal purple. He listened to Nina detail the Janie, Brady, Daisy show that was now becoming a one-woman show, featuring his woman. Or at least the one he had hoped would be.

A herd of what looked like high school kids sat at the next table. Greg almost paid them to stay, so he didn’t have to be the loudest voice in what was quite a small restaurant. “Is this position one you have to fill?”

She narrowed her eyes, and he knew that was a precursor to the defensive position, but he couldn’t make himself stop. “So, you’re absolutely choosing to go.” The crayon tip snapped off as he spoke. After Jazarah’s “Uh oh,” he took the one she handed him. “Say what, Daddy?”

He’d forgotten the very manners he wanted her to learn. “Thank you, princess.”

She smiled and continued giving all the people green faces. Greg wanted a distraction while Nina spoke, especially one that meant he didn’t have to have eye contact. His animals became red.

“No one’s forcing me. No one needs to. Managing editor of the New York office is something I’ve dreamed about for years. How could I pass up this opportunity?” She creased her napkin
edges with her thumb as she spoke, so he knew he wasn’t the only person feeling like a balloon about to explode. “Elise told me to take my time, but the reality is, I’ve been thinking about this for years. And don’t ask me if I’ve prayed about it because I don’t do prayer.”

“Why?”

“Because Thomas died anyway. If praying isn’t going to fix anything, what’s the point?”

“I hafta potty,” said Jazarah, who, between coloring, had arranged most of the food on her plate in straight lines without eating hardly any of it.

“Would you like to come with me?” Nina held out her hand.

“Peas,” his daughter answered. “I be back, daddy.” She flashed him a smile that pinched something in his chest that he knew must be reserved for daughters.

Greg called Paloma to ask her if she’d be able to keep J. a few hours. For better or for worse, this conversation with Nina had to happen tonight.

Nina was grateful Jazarah knew the words to Bob Marley’s songs because she provided the entertainment on their way back to Greg’s house. He’d already talked to her about dropping J. off and going somewhere else. She suggested the park near her house.

When they arrived at Greg’s, Paloma walked outside to retrieve Jazarah. She and Greg discussed something about dinner and medicines, then he kissed his daughter good-bye. Nina had been checking her cell phone messages while they spoke, so the knock on the car window startled her.

“Kiss. Bye-Bye to Ne Na?”

“Of course,” she said.
How did this kid wheedle her way in so quickly?

Greg pulled out of the driveway and turned to Nina. “You see the problem already, don’t you?”

She saw it, and she felt it.
Am I supposed to allow a three-year-old to determine my decisions? One who isn’t even mine?
But she didn’t know what to do about it. “I understand what you’re saying, but I’m not sure what you want me to do. Jazarah is a precious child. How could I not adore her?”

“Exactly. You can adore her. But you can’t adore her then leave her. She’s been through that already. And, fortunately for her, she’s too young to remember her birth mother being the first woman to do that.”

Nina talked to the window and the blurs of billboards and shops and offices that stretched between their homes. “Greg, I’m not doing this
to
you. I’m doing this for myself.”

At the red light, he reached across the seat and covered her hand with his. “I get it, Nina, I really do. But, and maybe this is selfish on my part, I thought we were working toward something here between the two of us. The three of us.”

She wished her hand didn’t like the way his felt. It made this conversation all the more difficult. “Well, I thought so too . . .”

Greg let go to take the exit off the freeway. “Then why are you leaving? Could you consider, maybe, that all the things that have happened in your life and mine have brought us to this point for a reason? That your wanting to be a part of something important that can affect the world doesn’t have to happen in New York? God is showering you with so many blessings, and you’re running around looking for an umbrella.”

“Well, it can rain in New York too, right?”

In the driveway, Greg shifted into park, but he didn’t turn the engine off.

“I thought we were walking to the park,” Nina said.

Greg leaned back against the headrest, closed his eyes for a moment, and turned to her. “Here’s the thing. I care about you, I enjoy being with you, and I thought we could spend more time together . . . figure out where this might take us. But, if you decide that you want to stay there, I’m not moving to New York to start a veterinary practice to see if we can make things work. Elise, Peyton, Paloma, and Jazarah. My family is here.”

“Maybe it won’t work out, and I’ll just be right back where I was before at
Trends
. And then we could . . .” She pushed the button to let the window down. Even the muggy air outside helped balance the sharpness of what she felt sitting next to Greg.

Greg shook his head. “We could, what? Jazarah and I could wait for you. Just in case you decided to come back? We’re the consolation prize?”

“That’s not what I meant at all.”

“It’s not my place to ask you to stay or to tell you to go. And since you didn’t feel the need to discuss it with me before today, maybe that’s something I need to think about. This is your decision. I wish it was yours and God’s. I don’t want my daughter in the next few weeks to grow attached to you. I don’t want her to have to suffer through your leaving. And, what I’m about to say is so painful, I don’t even want to hear myself say it. But, since you’ve made this decision, I think it’s best we just stop where we are.”

Please don’t make me tell him good-bye one more time.” Nina closed her eyes and held up her hand so Aretha would stop handing Manny to her. “It’s bad enough the two of you had to get him a car seat, and he took the ride to the airport with us.”

The exhaust from the cars, the taxis, and buses burned Nina’s nose. At least that’s the excuse she gave Luke for why her face was red and puffy, from the constant sniffling. As Luke emptied the trunk of Nina’s bags, Aretha went through the roll call of tickets, purse, keys, cell phone, cash. . . .

“Got it. Got it. Got it.”

Aretha handed Manny to Luke and held out her arms. “I’m praying for you, even if you can’t pray for yourself. I love you, and you need to be careful. Call as soon as your plane lands, okay?”

Nina hugged her and wished that when she let go, she could take some of Aretha with her. She kissed Manny, who tried to wiggle his way out of Luke’s arms. She stood on her tiptoes, hugged Luke, and ordered him to take care of her friend. “She needs someone to watch her.”

He smiled. “I know. That’s my job, and I’m good at it.”

“I can’t do this. We have to go,” said Aretha. She turned to Nina on her way back to the car, “You know, no decision has to be forever.”

Nina nodded, afraid if she spoke it would be to tell them she changed her mind. Before Luke pulled away from the curb, Nina walked into the terminal. She couldn’t bear to hear Manny’s yelps or watch the car become smaller and smaller until it finally disappeared.

She detoured into the nearest bathroom, took a deep breath, checked for mascara runs, and lectured herself.
This is want you wanted, worked for, and dreamed about. This is your opportunity. You earned this
. The woman she saw in the mirror still didn’t look convinced.

Nina found the gate for her flight. She checked in her baggage, went through security, and looked for a place to eat breakfast. When she finally sat, choosing a place with just a few customers, the past two weeks of her life filled every empty chair at the table and then some. Elise, everyone at the office, Daisy, Shannon, Luke, Aretha, . . .

The interview with Martha nearly wiped her out, but Elise told her it was her best one yet. Nina sent notes to all the Threads of Hope people thanking them for opening their lives to her so that others could have hope.

Aretha’s quilt had been under her bed for so long, she’d almost forgotten about it. But she’d wrapped the box before she left, and Luke was going to give it to her today. Nina decided it would be her good-bye gift instead of her birthday one.

Every time her cell phone rang, she hoped the name Greg Hernandez would flash on the screen. But it didn’t. The time she and Elise were together, neither one of them mentioned his name. A boundary neither one of them wanted to cross.

She’d had dinner on Thomas’s birthday with her parents. They moved around the house as if they were strangers in
an elevator, careful not to invade each other’s personal space. Nina wished she’d bought a cake. They could have celebrated the years they all had with Thomas. After finding out about her brother, she just didn’t know how they could mend all that had broken for them as a family. Maybe, being away would help with that. Give her perspective.

Nina shivered, and rubbed her arms with her hands. What possessed her to wear a sleeveless dress on the plane? The person next to her would probably set the air on Arctic chill. Aretha thought the deep kiwi cotton dress was classic and made a statement. Nina hoped she remembered to tell her that whatever statement Aretha thought she heard, it was all wrong.

The waitress brought her a menu and poured her a cup of coffee. “Here you go. That should warm you up,” she said and made the last three words sound like one, warmyaup. A snapshot of Jazarah reminding Greg to say “thank you” flashed before her. She blinked, and it was gone. She thanked the waitress who said that she’d be back for her order. “No rush,” she said.

Nina set her cell phone on the table hanging on a thread of hope that Greg would call. Or like Richard Gere in
An Officer and a Gentleman
, he’d whip through the airport in his white lab jacket, scoop her up like she’s Debra Winger, and carry her out of the terminal.
Why? So you could blame him if the staying behind didn’t work out?
Nina closed her eyes until the silly romantic image disappeared. She didn’t need Greg to save her from herself.

She propped her legs on the chair across from her while she scanned the menu. The Belgian waffles with whipped cream and pecans were winning out over the Blueberry Blintzes, but the omelets held promise.

Nina felt a tap on her shoulder and, though an odd way of taking an order, she thought it was the waitress. “Oh, I haven’t decided what I want yet . . .”

“We could tell,” the man standing behind her said.

“Can I help you?” Nina said to the couple, who appeared to be in their seventies, as they made their way around the table. She made sure her purse was zipped and still on the chair next to her.

The woman wore an ash gray peplum jacket and a gored skirt that matched.
Definitely not a flight attendant
. The man next to her was dressed in a charcoal-shaded suit that had a faint gray pinstripe, and his silver tie was almost the same shade as his hair. “Actually,” the woman said, her eyes almost as dark as Nina’s coffee, “we were going to ask if we could help you. Weren’t we, Daniel?”

Nina looked around for cameras. Maybe this was some weird reality television show. There were still a dozen or so empty tables in the restaurant, so this wasn’t the last place to sit.

He nodded. “That’s right. We just thought you looked like you could use some company and, well, it’s just Roberta and me traveling by ourselves, too.”

Nina moved her legs off the chair, already a bit depressed her solitariness was a lighthouse beacon over her head. Greg’s yammering on about trust wound its way through her brain. Her conscience shrugged its shoulders and said,
Might as well do a test run here, Nina. You’re about to start the great adventure of your life
. Nina pulled out a chair, “Sure, have a seat. My name’s Nina. And you are Roberta and . . .?”

“Happy to meet you, Nina. My name is Daniel,” he said and stood behind his chair until Roberta was comfortably seated in her own before he sat next to her.

The man seemed almost senatorial, and Nina’s reporter brain whirred into action. She didn’t want to see a newspaper later to discover she’d had no clue that she shared a breakfast table with a distinguished politician and his bride. But none of the files her brain flipped through made any connection. Still, they seemed to have that patina of gentility that grew more beautiful with age, and she hoped her brain hadn’t misplaced an important file.

The waitress walked over. “Well, look at you. Made friends already,” she said and pulled her pen out her apron pocket. “Y’all know what you want?”

That’s why I’m here. Alone. Having breakfast with two elderly strangers
. Nina searched the menu one more time. “I’ll have the waffles. No, make that the blintzes.” She handed the menu over and regretted she didn’t stick with the waffles. Roberta and Daniel ordered coffee.

“Sharing those blintzes?” The waitress, eyes narrowed, looked at the couple.