Page 10 of P.S. It’s Always Been You
My mother is a bulldozer. “Please. It’s my pleasure. There’s no need for a Lyft. Tell me though—were you surprised?”
I tap my chin. “Let’s see. You engineered for Daniel Highsmith to track me down in Queenstown in between shoots, you suggested the Valentina family contact him to hire me, and you regularly email my producers. I’d say surprising me at the airport isn’t at the top of your recent exploits, but it’s completely in character.”
Her jaw drops in faux shock. “Exploits? I have no idea what you mean.”
“No? Must have been your doppelgänger.” I wink, since I’m not mad at her for meddling. Besides, I took the job in part to see her, since I like to make sure she’s taking care of herself.
But she’s not the main reason I said yes.
We head toward the carousel as she squeezes my shoulder. “It’s good to have you stateside,” she says. “Just think of all the adventures you could have here. Did you know, for instance, that hiking in the Adirondacks is going to be epic this summer?”
Epic. This is my mom’s attempt to be cool. I don’t have the heart to tell her “epic” has gone out of vogue. Partly because I don’t want to hear her say “dope” instead. “Mom, you know I’m slightly past hiking in the Adirondacks?”
She shakes a finger at me. “Don’t get cocky just because you’ve climbed the Seven Summits fifty times. You can’t forget the basics. The Adirondacks are great for that.”
The Adirondacks are great for five-year-olds. But there’s little point arguing with her, so I give her a “Yes, Mom,” then we chat about what she wants to make for dinner as the baggage belt chugs along. When I spot my army-green duffel, I reach for it and hoist it over my shoulder.
Her eyes widen. “Ooh, a whole duffel. Please tell me you’re staying for the summer.”
“I’m staying to shoot the special.”
“But you could stay for the summer,” she says as we head for the exit.
I drop a kiss to her forehead. “Are you going to try every day to convince me to set up camp here? I do come home as often as I can.”
“A few times a year isn’t enough. You should have a condo here instead of Los Angeles.”
“And yet Los Angeles is where the network offices are.”
“I bet they’d be fine with you being here. I can ask them.”
I laugh. “You’ll do anything.”
“Can you blame me for trying to get you to stay, Hunter? I happen to like having you around. And I like you in one piece,” she says, patting my arm this time.
“Aww, I like you too, Ma.”
She rolls her eyes, then turns serious. “And I worry about you. Just like I worried about your father.”
The mention of my father makes my heart ache. It’s always made it ache, even though he’s been gone since I was twenty-one, more than sixteen years ago.
“I was right to worry about him,” she adds, her voice wobbly. “And I’ve been worried even more since that jump.”
“I know, Mom. But it all worked out.”
She sighs wearily. “Vik and I were talking about you. How much you’ve accomplished. How you could so easily retire. After all, Vik has retired from many of his crazier pursuits. You admire Vik. You could be like him.”
There are a million things to unpack in her remarks, most of them starting with I have no plans to retire. Ever. I tackle the simplest. “You still talk to Vik?”
“You introduced me to him at your last book signing. Don’t you remember how his wife and I hit it off?”
“You hit it off with everyone. No surprise, though, about Vik. He’s a good guy.” We’ve stayed in touch, and I consider him a damn good friend. It’d be strange if I’d fallen out of touch with him after what we went through in Antarctica. That kind of ordeal bonds you.
“He is. The four of us double-date. That is, when Jesse and I aren’t busy dating on our own.”
“Dating? Is that what you call it with Jesse? He lives with you, Mom. It’s a little more than dating.”
“And we love to go on dates. So yes, I’m dating the man I live with, and one of my favorite things about dating a professor is he doesn’t even jump down from the last step on the ladder when he’s fixing a light bulb. He—wait for it—steps down.”
“I’m going to be fine, even when I jump from the sky. I promise,” I say with more confidence than such a statement merits, perhaps because I still need some bravado when talking about jumps.
She gives me the sharpest of motherly side-eyes, knowing that’s not a promise anyone can make. “Your father said the same thing. Your brother said the same thing, and thank God he retired from the Army before his fourth deployment.”
