Allison Parr - Running Back

I wiped away streaking tears. “I’m sorry. I never used to cry before I met Mike.”

Paul regarded me with frank terror. “Come on, then. Let’s get you to Aunt Maggie.”

She made me tea and gave me shortbread, and I felt better in minutes. I curled up on the faded couch in the fading light and imagined two men I’d never met playing here as boys.

Maggie sat down across from me. “I fell in love with Brian when we were fifteen years old. I thought we were soul mates.”

“But you weren’t.”

She regarded me with frank surprise. “Weren’t we?”

Oh. Foot in mouth. “I guess I just assumed—since you both married other people—”

“I never loved Patrick. Poor Patrick. Maybe he would have been happy with someone else.”

“But I don’t understand why you didn’t follow Brian. If you loved him, and he loved you. I mean, I know you were mad that he went off and that he spent all that money—but if you loved him—what was your reason?”

She sighed. “He destroyed my dream. That’s not easy to let go of.” When I just stared at her, she went on. “I’d started up a library and I agreed to let him take a loan out against it. Which he never paid back, so the bank foreclosed on the center.” She shook her head. “I loved him, but he was a mad one. Ruined his family. Ruined me. Sunk all his money into a cause but never knew when to stop, and ended up running from the gardaí to America. Left Patrick to clear everything up. Which he did, credit to him.”

“He sounds—” A little like me. “Like a jerk.”

She raised a brow. “Don’t most people, when they’re so single-minded in following their dreams?”

I blushed.

She shook her head. “There’s a difference between having a dream and never waking up.”

Jeremy drove me to the airport. I cleared my throat. I felt like I was breaking up with him. “I’ve been thinking about Kilkarten. And it’s a really hard decision, but I’m going to be working on my thesis for the next few years, and I think the best thing to do is to work on this site. And it’s something I find really interesting, and I really like the community here, and...yeah. That’s what I’m thinking. And doing.”

He was silent a long time. “I know.”

My head shot up. “You do?”

“You’re in love with him.”

I turned slowly. “Jeremy. That’s not why.”

“Yes, it is. Subconsciously, you’re hoping he’ll come back, and you’ll be tied together by this place.” He let out a long sigh. “I didn’t want to lose you like this.”

I kept shaking my head. “That’s not why.”

He slanted me a disbelieving glance.

And that’s when I saw it. I was just like him. He couldn’t see what he didn’t want to see. He couldn’t see that people had other reasons, and they were fine reasons, even if he didn’t agree with them. To him, I would always be the student who left because of her ex-boyfriend. The girl who traded Ivernis for a boy, not the person who gave up an intangible dream for something real. “I hope you find it.”

His fingers tightened around the wheel. “Oh, I will. I’ll keep searching until I do.”

There was always a thrill in coming home, just like there was a thrill in leaving. Part of it was just that “Welcome to America!” video Customs played, with a waving flag superimposed over amber fields of grain. Over the top Americana, but it kind of tugged at my heart. Just like the customs officer who said, “Welcome home, Ms. Sullivan.”

Cam proved her best friend credentials by coming all the way out to the airport so she could help me maneuver my luggage on the AirTrain and then on the subway, and then up our four flights. We ordering cheap Chinese food and laughed and told stories and went to a dive bar that gave us free pizza when we bought one drink and I remembered why I loved this city.

But New York was also grayer than I remembered. There were no rolling fields, and the water wasn’t wild, and nothing smelled right. Instead, it was all sewer smells and clouds of pot swirling out from side streets. Yapping rat-dogs shivered in the rain and men on cell-phones cursed loudly at ticket booths and everyone had the same boots and the same shirt and the same black leather jacket. Part of me wanted to pull out my own jacket and put up my hair just like all the rest, and go up to the bar on the twenty-fifth floor and empty my wallet for cocktails as I stared at the Empire State Building and fended off advances from men old enough to be my father.

But most of me wanted to sleep a lot, and my stomach felt funny. I supposed it was because for the first time I wasn’t as excited to arrive as I was sad about the place I had left.

“Maybe,” Cam said, “it’s because you’re heart-sick.”

I considered that. “I think I’m nervous about the conference.”

So I distracted myself for the next week by being social and remembering why I loved it here. The way I could get a veggie burger at a split second’s notice or fro-yo or good burritos, and how all the streaming sites worked and I could watch my shows the day after, like a normal person. And how the world had gone on and new blockbusters had come out and new songs were popular. I went out with my grad school friends and met up with my brother Evan for artisan white pizza in the East Village, in a tiny restaurant whose windows were papered with awards.

“Count her lucky that she got out,” he said when I told him about my mother. “My mom was so much happier afterward.”

“I guess. I think it is good for her. But I feel bad for Dad.”

Evan snorted. “Don’t.” He caught me watching. “What?”

“Don’t you ever want his...I don’t know, approval?”

He jammed a slice in his mouth and spoke around it. “You think I want him to walk me down the aisle? Come to parades? Yeah, right.”

“But don’t you wish he would?”

“What’s wishing got to do with it?”

“Nothing, I guess.” I wished love was real and dreams existed, but leprechauns granted wishes and leprechauns didn’t exist.

Mom’s new place had high ceilings and large windows, but it was small and filled with unfamiliar furniture. Still, she’d brought several things from home—pictures of my high school and college graduations, a poster of her when she was nineteen, signed by dozens of famous photographers. She hugged me tightly. “Darling, you look horrible.”

“Thank you, Mom.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. And I think I look great.” I held out my tan, muscled arms. “Look how gorgeous these muscles are. I’m in great shape. And my hair is all sun streaked.”

“And you have the saddest eyes in the world.”

Not quite true.

“What happened with this boy? I don’t understand why you’re not with him.”

I don’t understand why you’re not with Dad. Except that wasn’t fair, and I did. “Because.”

“Because what?”

“Because.”

She stirred her tea and apparently decided to give the subject a rest. “Have you seen your father yet?”

“No! I don’t want to.”

Her face collapsed. “Natalya...”

“Just... What’s the point of falling in love if you’re just going to fall out of it?”

“Oh, honey.” She sat down next to me, letting out a deep breath of old, stale sadness as she wrapped her arms around me. “You can’t let what’s happening between Dad and me affect you.”

“Yes, I can.”

She smoothed my hair back from my head. “No. Look at you. You’re so successful—you have a good career, and good friends, and this boy who seems like he loves you very much...”