The One That Got Away by Bethany Chase Page B

so, John looks skeptical.
    “Doesn’t look like your sort of thing, honey.” He reaches for the slice of pizza and takes a contemplative bite. “Speaking of Mr. Harlow, how was your visit down there?”
    “It was wonderful,” I say. Though I know he was still upset by my decision not to visit later in the summer, Noah had clearly decided to let it go, and to make the most of the time we did have. He cut back on his hours in the office as much as he could, and we had a glorious week’s worth of long late-night dinners, heavenly steak, and Malbec. One of these days he’ll have no choice but toabandon his pet project of teaching me to differentiate between varietals, but after spending two solid weeks this year guzzling Argentinian wine, I feel
exceedingly
confident about Malbec.
    “Did you get to climb around on that blue glacier like you wanted?”
    I pick at a tuft of Newman’s hair that’s embedded itself in the sofa cushion. “Well, no…Noah had to work every day, so we couldn’t get down to Patagonia….”
    John grunts. “Seems like a waste of life.”
    “He doesn’t have a choice. And besides, he likes his job,” I add, although this is not strictly true. Noah likes the intellectual challenge, and the status, and the salary, but the actual work itself often depends on obsession with infuriatingly picayune details. His talent lies in generating the abstract concepts that establish how a transaction gets structured, not arguing with the other side’s lawyers about whether a sentence in the offering document needs a colon or a semicolon.
    “Well, then, that’s something. Is he going to keep having to go back down there?”
    “Yeah, probably a couple of times a year. But he won’t have to do anything like this again.”
    John crosses his arms over his chest. “Good. Just as long as you don’t call me up a year from now and tell me you’re moving to Argentina. I want to be able to see my grandkids more than once a year.”
    The worn cotton of his shirt is soft under my fingers when I squeeze his shoulder. Everyone else’s outbursts of nosiness regarding Noah’s and my future seem to revolve around getting us hitched; John has proceeded directly to grandkids. “You will, I promise. Maybe I should ship them off to you for the summers instead of sending them to camp.”
    This doesn’t scare him; he’d like nothing better. I’m not surehow Noah would feel about his children spending a quarter of the year in the deepest heart of Appalachia, though.
    Nicole told me I was a weirdo when she discovered that I’d never given any particular thought to picturing the features and personalities of my unborn children. Noah is the one who likes to do that. For me, I fail to see the point in fantasizing about who our kids will be, because I know perfectly well that they will turn out completely different than I expect. When I do think about them, all I see are images of Noah and me from childhood photos: a sweet boy with freckles, a spiky brown mop-top, and blue-green eyes sparking with sunlight; a skinny-limbed imp with messy toffee-colored braids and a devilish, gap-toothed grin.
    I do have my daughter’s name picked out, though. Have known it for years. She’ll be named for my mother, and the hills that nurtured her: sweet little Virginia Leigh.
    “I wish you would spend more time at home, kid,” John says, reaching over to tug gently on my ponytail. “Except for the Christmas concerts, you haven’t been home in so long. You’ve never even brought Mr. Harlow. You know, Dave and Ellie and everybody, they always ask about you.”
    “That’s so kind of them.”
    “They’d like to see you.
I’d
like to see you more. I miss my girl.”
    I lean against him, and he wraps an arm around my shoulders. He smells cinnamony, like original-flavor Old Spice, the way he always has. “I miss you too.”
    “Why don’t you come in the fall? You used to love the leaves so much.”
    At his words, I remember an