One True Theory of Love (36 page)

Phillip sat back, stunned. “I don’t know what to say.”

“How about you’re sorry?”

“I am sorry,” he said.

Meg crossed her arms. “I’m disappointed in your lack of respect for Mom. I know you two aren’t right for each other and I believe one hundred percent that you’ll both be happier apart. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about things, and what you did was selfish, and what’s more, you took the coward’s way out by beginning an affair while you were still with Mom. I don’t like that my father’s a coward.”

Phillip looked devastated. “Do you remember that time I took you fishing at Silverbell Lake when you were about seven?”

“Vaguely,” Meg said.

“You cried when you found out we had to put hooks through the worms.” He smiled at the memory. “And then you cried when you saw the hook in the fish’s mouth. You always were a very sensitive soul.”

Meg shrugged. “The idea of sport fishing still bothers me.”

“I never fished after that day,” he said.

“Really?” Meg thought back. “I guess I never knew that.”

He squinted at her through his glasses. “You make me want to be a better person, Meg. You always have. I’m sorry I let you down.”

Meg’s heart softened as Ahmed’s words came back to her:
I’d take a flawed father who loves me over a nonexistent father any day of the week . . . Wouldn’t you?

He’d known, when he’d said it.

He’d already known this moment would come.

Yes,
she’d said.
As long as there’s love amidst the flaws.

The peach-lady’s voice from Whole Foods came back to her, too:
Is your father still alive? Then treasure him.

Meg looked at her flawed father—at the balding, aging man before her in the out-of-date glasses—and she knew without question that he loved her, and that therefore, they could work through anything.

“Let’s make a deal,” she said. “Let’s hold each other to a very high standard going forward.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “Let’s not lack courage, you and me.”

M
eg did something she’d never done before: she took two personal days off from work. She dropped Henry off in the morning and picked him up afterward, and in between, she withdrew into herself.

The first day, she had coffee alone at LuLu’s and did some journaling. Afterward, she went for a seven-mile hike in Sabino Canyon, and when she was about three miles into it, surrounded by a forest of saguaros, she began to tremble uncontrollably. She’d put up a good front for Henry and Ahmed, but it was strategic bravado. Here in nature, the truth burst through: she was terrified of losing Ahmed.

Their love had felt fated. She’d asked Ahmed once—pestered him, actually—why he’d gone to LuLu’s that first day. Why
that
coffee shop on
that
day at
that
time?
It’s not for us to question,
he’d said.
Only to appreciate.

But really. How did a person come into your life seemingly out of nowhere and turn out to be exactly what your soul needed?

And how could he later be inclined to leave?

And how—how—could you make him stay?

Meg trembled three miles into her hike because after poking at the questions from every which way, she realized she already knew the answer to the last one.

You couldn’t. There was nothing you could do to make a person stay if he was inclined to leave.

She walked to the top of the canyon road, found a boulder to sit on, took a few deep breaths and called Ahmed. He, good heart that he was, picked right up. “How are you today, Meg?”

Meg took his friendly tone as a good sign. “I’m doing well,” she said. “I’m playing hooky from school and wanted to know if you’re free for a lunch date.”

“Ah, I’m not,” he said. “I’ve got a committee meeting over the lunch hour.”

“How about coffee afterward?” she asked. “Or you could come over to my place for tea, wink, wink. Henry’s not home.”

“I’m booked, Meg,” he said. “All afternoon. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not going to quit asking,” she said.

“I don’t want you to.”

Hope fluttered in Meg’s heart. “Just how mad are you?”

“Not very.” Ahmed’s voice was generous. “I appreciate your persistence quite a bit, actually.”

“It’s that hokey-pokey thing,” she said. “You just gotta keep putting your whole self in.”

Meg took in the beautiful fractured canyon, so green, so brown, with the sky so blue in the background. She wondered how a person would have felt to be sitting on this same boulder back when the earthquake struck Mexico those centuries ago and rippled upward, tearing open the earth to create these canyon crevices. Scared, she’d bet. But still. It would have been unforgettable, had you survived it. It would have been a story for the ages.

Go there,
she thought.

“I heard you bought me a ring,” she said.

He sighed. “I did, indeed, buy you a ring. I can’t believe Henry told you. He promised he wouldn’t.”

“For future reference, you can’t count on Henry to keep a secret,” Meg said, “no matter how much he swears he’ll keep it.”

“Well, so much for the surprise,” Ahmed said cheerfully.

“I think maybe we should take the ring off the table for the time being,” Meg said.

“I think maybe we shouldn’t,” Ahmed said.

Meg swallowed hard. He wasn’t making this easy on her. “I think we should focus on right now instead of on forever.”

“But I’m a forever kind of guy,” he said. “And I want to have babies with you.”

Meg smiled at that. “I’m changing by the minute,” she warned. “I’m not the same person I was yesterday, and who I am today won’t be who I am tomorrow.”

“We’ll change together,” he said. “Love is what you become together, right?”

Birds chirped. The sun shone. The cactus in front of Meg was hundreds of years old and would live for hundreds more.

Somewhere in the world, church bells were ringing and the water was pure and men were shaking hands and meaning it.

In other words, there was hope.

In my nightmare, I am there, in water up to my knees, inhaling the thick fish-salt air and stretching my arms wide, letting the day embrace me, thinking all’s well. And all
is
well. Around me, birds squall and children shriek and Henry is right there, shimmering in the sun, loving his life as the waves crack against his back. For Henry, getting knocked over is the fun part. Time and again, he comes up laughing. There’s no place he loves more than the ocean.

 

 

 

 

It was time to deposit the check.

That was Meg’s only real goal for her second personal day off from school. She’d put off depositing it for a variety of reasons, mostly psychological, and while she felt she’d addressed those as well as she ever would, one remained: she couldn’t get over the strangeness of actually having money. She couldn’t imagine handing the check to a bank teller who probably made twelve dollars an hour and say,
I’d like to deposit this check, please.
Would they even
take
her money, or would they think she was a forger, a fake? What did a person do after they’d deposited a check for a hundred thousand dollars? You had to buy
something,
didn’t you—something more than a four-dollar Frappuccino or a fifty-dollar pair of flip-flops? The problem, which wasn’t really a problem, was that her needs were few, her pleasures simple.

As she was dusting the photo of her and Henry at the ocean, Meg hit upon one way she could spend some of the money. She’d have to check with her father, but she was pretty sure she wouldn’t owe taxes on child support, so if she deposited the entire check and let the interest accrue, she could fund a week at the Hotel del Coronado every summer on the interest alone. Ha! They could even order room service. And if Henry was willing and things worked out, maybe they’d invite Ahmed to join them, maybe for a few days and maybe for forever.

That decided, a newly energetic Meg turned up the radio, 92.9 The Mountain, Jennie and Blake in the Morning, finished her cleaning, and jumped in the shower, eager now to get to the bank. When she stepped out, her cell phone was ringing. Worried it might be the school calling about Henry, she ran, wrapped in her towel and still dripping, to the kitchen counter, where she’d left her phone.

Jonathan’s number stared up at her.

“Hello?” She clutched the towel around her tightly, as if he could see her.

“How are you, Meg?” She smiled at his voice, even as she wasn’t exactly happy to hear it.

“I’m doing great.” She turned down the radio. “The birds are chirping in my world. What’s up?”

“You’re just on my mind today, that’s all.”

Meg couldn’t help herself. “Why am I on your mind today?”

“Probably because I’m standing right outside your door,” he said.

“No, you’re not.” Stupidly, Meg went to it, unlatched the chain and flung open the door.

Sure enough, there he was.

“Oh,” she said into the phone. “I guess you are right outside my door.” She stood dripping before him, dressed in only a towel. They simultaneously hung up their phones.

“Well, hello!” His eyes popped as he hammed up the awkwardness of the moment. “It’s been a while since you welcomed me in such a manner.”

Meg laughed. They’d gone through a sex-as-soon-as-you-get-home phase at one point, one of their better phases. “I suppose I should invite you in.”

She stepped back to allow him entry, feeling naked in just the towel. She
was
naked in just the towel.

“Henry’s not here, I take it?” Jonathan asked.

“He’s at school.”

He entered and glanced around, then peered at her. “And why aren’t you?”

“Personal day,” Meg said.

“But you never take personal days.”

“I’m a changed woman,” she said.

Jonathan had one particular smile that came out in moments that had the potential of turning a certain way, like when an argument was ready to escalate or when they reconnected at a party where they’d been separated. It always stopped the traffic in her heart. It was a hey-wouldn’t-you-rather-go-have-great-sex smile. The smile had always, always worked on her.

And he was smiling it now, and all that was between them was a towel held up with a shaky, perhaps disloyal hand.

Ahmed,
Meg reminded herself.

Yes, there was Ahmed to consider. If he showed up right then, he would not be happy. She could imagine the look in his eyes. They’d be dark, hardened. Like the flat surface of a lake that had just sunk a boat with no apologies to offer or accept.

Yes, there was Ahmed to consider.