Suddenly by Barbara Delinsky Page B

always running around, getting into things, always curious. And I’m not saying that you aren’t curious, just that you’re more normal about it. You’ll be happier in the long run, Paige. You’ll be more peaceful, more content, and you’ll do good things in your life.”
    “How do you know?”
    “I know. You’ll do good things. I promise.”
    For a long time Paige hadn’t been sure. She did well in school, had lots of friends, and grew closer to Nonny every year, but she continued to blame herself for her parents’ absence. She racked her brain when they were home—dressed differently, talked differently, behaved differently—but nothing was good enough to keep them there. They always left her standing at the parlor window while the car pulled away.
    Inevitably people asked about Chloe and Paul, and for a time Paige simply repeated what Nonny had said. “Wanderlust” became a part of her vocabulary long before any of her friends knew the meaning of the word. “My parents? Oh, they’re in Alaska. They have wanderlust,” she would say with a nonchalance that hid her hurt.
    Then came junior high, an exclusive private school, and a new circle of friends. Paige was an adolescent, old enough to understand what jet-setting was, worldly enough to have friends with jet-setting parents, rebellious enough to be angry. When asked, she took to saying that her parents were dead—until the horrendous day when they did indeed have a close call in a small plane. She never told the story again.
    There were, over the years, several longer stretches when Chloe and Paul were home. Sometimes they stayed with Nonny, sometimes at Paul’s family’s estate, and in either case Paige was always beside herself with anticipation at the thought of their being around. It wasn’t until the summer of her seventeenth year that she was able to admit to herself that anticipation always exceeded fact. Nonny was right. Her parents couldn’t stay put. They grew restless, impatient, irascible when restrained.
    At the end of that summer, when her parents left again, Paige didn’t stand at the parlor window watching the car pull away. She kissed them each, then turned and, feeling something akin to relief that the normal order of her life would finally return, walked Nonny back to the house.
    The lesson of her sixth birthday conversation had finally sunk in. Paige’s need for her parents’ love would never change—and birthdays would always be painful—but she could finally accept that their love would come only on their terms. To compensate, she had Nonny.
    “I’ll always be here for you,” Nonny had promised when she tucked Paige into bed on that sixth birthday, and Paige had always known it was true. She’d left Nonny to go to college, then to medical school, and by the time she was doing her residency in Chicago, Nonny had moved back to her own childhood home in Vermont. Through it all, though, they were in constant touch, sharing their lives, being there for each other, and although Paige still loved her parents, Nonny was the one in whom she confided.
    That was why Paige had risen early on Sunday, bathed and fed Sami, then packed up a proper diaper bag, strapped the baby seat into the car, and driven to Nonny’s.
    Turning away now from the white wicker-framed photograph, she took the deepest, steadiest breath she had taken since learning of Mara’s death. Nonny was a balm, a reassuring presence even before she spoke, and her home was as cheery as the woman herself. It was a tiny garden apartment, done up in the red and white that Nonny had insisted upon when she had sold the larger Victorian.
    “ Everything red and white?” Paige had asked at the time.
    “Everything. I adore red and white. I’ve always adored red and white, even when I was the littlest girl, only we didn’t have the money to decorate then.”
    “But I thought you liked blue. Our house in Chicago was blue.”
    “That was for your mother, who was rarely