Page 103 of Love What's Left
“I’d never actually seen it on your head before that. You were too worried about wear and tear.”
“Growing up, I kept most of my belongings in a garbage bag to move from home to home. If I got something that was important to me, it felt like the end of the world if something happened to it. One of my coaches gave the hat to me in high school and told me it was my lucky charm. Wherever I had a locker, I had to have my lucky hat. This isn’tthehat. It’s just ‘a’ hat. But it’s a nice memory.”
“At least your lucky talisman was headwear and not an unwashed jockstrap. I’ve seen way worse superstitions.”
She grins. “So have I.”
With the last of the well-wishers moving to the backyard, Sydney and I stop off briefly in the kitchen before heading out to the patio together, my palm on her lower back and an open can of flavored seltzer in her hand.
“I never had a real birthday party before. I saw in the photos and social media that we had dinners out and cake, but birthday parties are usually for kids,” she says.
“You just signed your fate. You’re getting a birthday party every year.”
“That’s too much.”
“I don’t make the rules. I just enforce them with extreme prejudice.”
She sputters and shakes her head. Finally, she says, “Okay. But small.”
“Clarissa, James, and little Marc are three more people next year. So a little bigger.” Clarissa and James weren’t comfortable bringing their newborn out, yet. But we did get to meet the little guy before we came here. Neither James, nor I, are ready to resume our old schedule of playing basketball a couple of times a week. Maybe in six months we’ll find time. Maybe a year.
An image of Sydney, in some distant future, holding our child burns into my brain, and I shut it down. She’s never wanted that with me. It’s one thing for her to agree to stay married. She knows she can walk away at any moment if I let her down. Her apartment remains, fully furnished and waiting, in case she needs it. Having or adopting a child with me is a level of trust she’s never been capable of. I’m grateful for what we have. She loves me. That’s enough.
Sydney watches Mom and Dad playing cornhole with Phee, Bronwyn, Rory, and Sam. When Dad picks little Sam up and stretches him over the line for his toss, Sydney laughs. “What are they doing?”
“That’s Miller cornhole,” I say.
“It’s a free-for-all.”
“Love hard. Remain loyal. Fight dirty. Or in this case, play dirty,” I say.
Her brow furrows, and she swallows hard. “What is that?” she whispers.
“The game?”
She shakes her head, her expression intent. “No. What you said. Love hard.”
“It’s the McRae family motto. Bronwyn was around six. I was eight. Henry ten. I don’t know which one of us came up with the idea, but we decided we needed one. We were going to grow up and save the world,” I say with a smile.
She turns those beautiful eyes on me. “You saved me.” She stretches on tiptoe and presses a kiss to my lips, then settles back on her heels. “The motto . . . ?”
“We ended up fighting about the thing that was supposed to remind us we were a team. After a week of squabbling, Mom and Dad sat us down in the study. All of us lined up in our little chairs in front of his desk. Dad said the motto got three lines. We each had to choose one and that was the end of it.”
Expression fascinated, she glances over at Henry where he stands talking to Bronwyn’s husband Dean, then over to Bronwyn and back to me. “Are you going to tell me who chose which line?” she demands.
“I’ll bet you can guess.”
Her face works as she appears to chew on the inside of her lip. “All three fit all three of you, but I think Bronwyn said ‘Love hard.’ Maybe I’m wrong, but I can’t see you or Henry as little boys wanting your motto to sound sentimental.”
I laugh. “We were frothing at the mouth in fury over it. At least she didn’t say, ‘Princess Sparkle Pants’ or ‘Love and Flowers.’ Small miracles.” I examine my fingernails, then buff them on my shirt. “One down. Two to go.”
“Henry can be very literal, and he expects things to be fair. Ten-year-old Henry chose ‘Remain loyal.’ Then, you added ‘Fight dirty,' probably because you thought it was funny, and also you were a little bit of a troublemaker.”
I grin. “You’re right.”
“What’s my prize?”
I give her an up and down lascivious look. “I’ll give it to you later.”
