Dean’s brother Nick is one of the nicest men I’ve ever met. He brought his new girlfriend, a lawyer at another firm, and though she was uptight at first, she was sweet once I got to know her.
And Summer…well, she’s just Summer. No filters, larger than life, contagious laughter. Sometimes I think I love Dean’s sister more than I love him.
As sad as I am to say goodbye to the Heyward-Di Laurentises, I’m excited to see my dad. I decide to splurge and take a cab from Greenwich to Brooklyn, and it’s late afternoon when I roll my huge suitcase into the front entryway and call out for my father.
I find him in the living room, wearing sweats and reading a book called The Physics of Hockey. He greets me with an indulgent smile, then fusses and gripes as I kiss his cheek and hammer him with questions about how he’s feeling. He finally cuts me off to ask about my visit to Connecticut. When I reveal what an amazing time it was, he looks slightly disappointed, which makes me frown.
We speak on the phone a couple times a week, so he’s already aware I’m dating Dean, but he’s been surprisingly tight-lipped about it. After I told him, he simply grunted and hasn’t commented on the relationship since.
He comments now.
“He’s not long-term, AJ,” Dad says with a tired sigh. “I hope you know that.”
The blunt words sting. I mean, it’s not like Dean and I are planning to mail out save-the-dates next week, but I don’t envision us breaking up anytime soon. We’re twenty-two. We’re in love. Going forward might be tough, what with me in LA or New York, and Dean in Cambridge for the next two years, but I’m certain we can make it work if we try hard at it. And once Dean finishes law school, he’ll be able to practice law wherever he wants. Wherever I am. We haven’t discussed it, but Dean hasn’t given me any indication he wants to break up after graduation.
“He could be,” I say quietly. “Long-term, I mean.”
Dad gives an adamant shake of his head. “He’s not.” His voice loses some of its hard edges. “Do you want to know the most important thing I learned after eighteen years with your mom?”
I sit on the couch beside him and wait for him to continue.
“Relationships are a fucking pain in the ass sometimes.”
I have to laugh. “Mom told me the same thing.” The thought of the last conversation I had with my mother brings an ache to my heart. “She told me you guys had problems at one point in your marriage,” I confess. I’ve never discussed this with him before. Mom had been open about their struggles, though. Not in detail, but she did make sure I knew how hard they’d worked on their marriage.
“We did,” he confirms in a pained voice. “It was the traveling. Eva gave up modeling after you were born, so she was always at home. And I was always on the road.” He gives me a fierce look. “I never touched another woman, AJ. That’s not what our issues were about.”
“I know.”
“It was goddamn hard. The long separations. The brief phone calls. I’d come home and we’d feel like strangers, have to get to know each other all over again. It took a lot of effort to work through that.” Agony flashes in his eyes. “Then she got sick, and it got even harder.”
A lump forms in my throat. I was twelve when she was diagnosed with lung cancer. I remember begging to go with them whenever Dad drove her to chemo. They never let me, and on the days where the side effects were too debilitating, when her skin was grayer than ash and she was vomiting so violently she’d cracked a rib, they would send me to my aunt in Queens. They hadn’t wanted me to see her like that. But I saw enough.
“Dean…” My father clears his throat, shifting the subject again. “I know men like him. They aren’t equipped to handle the big stuff. The life-changing setbacks. The game-changers. If you—God forbid—got sick? Or injured? Or if a recession descends on this country and bankrupts your man’s empire?” A disdainful note bites into his tone. “He’d fall apart like a cheap tent.”
“That’s not true,” I protest. “Dean is a good man. And he’s good to me. Good for me.”
“You’re fooling yourself, AJ. Yes, he’s good to you—now. He lives a perfect life. He pays other people to clean up his messes. And as long as everything keeps going his way, he’ll be the best thing that ever happened to you. But if shit goes south? He’ll be gone. He won’t stand by you, because that would entail stepping out of his perfect bubble, letting the ugly stuff in. That boy doesn’t do ugly.”
“You’re wrong,” I whisper.
He curses. “Christ, it makes me sick to say this to you, sweetheart. You think I like seeing that hurt look on your face? Rips me apart, AJ. But I want you to be prepared for when it happens.” Dad lets out a resigned breath. “Mark my words. You won’t be able to count on him. Better wrap your head around that now, before it’s too late.”
*
I don’t allow my father’s warning—and his completely unjustified opinion of Dean—to ruin the holiday for us. I get it. He’s worried. He doesn’t want me to suffer another broken heart. And I can’t even get pissed about the blunt way he’d presented his case, because blunt is my dad’s middle name.
But he’s wrong. Dean would be there for me if I needed him. He already has, rushing to my dorm the night Sean’s verbal attack ripped me to shreds. So I’m choosing not to second-guess the relationship I’m receiving so much joy from, and forcing myself to enjoy the rest of the break.
I spend Christmas Eve, which also happens to be my birthday, at home with my dad. We watch It’s a Wonderful Life, as we always do, and I bawl my eyes out, as I always do. Then we drink hot chocolate and he gives me the same present he always does—three hundred bucks, with a scribbled note telling me to buy myself something pretty. Dad sucks at gift giving. I don’t care, because I already got the only gift I wanted: my father, as healthy as he can be at the moment, alive and here with me.
A few days later, Dean is back from St. Bart’s, looking tanned and relaxed as he picks me up at the brownstone. I’m surprised he chose to drive, since it would’ve been easier for me to hop the train and meet him in the city, but when I question him, he just grins and says, “We’re not going to Manhattan. I have a birthday surprise for you.”