Chapter 8
I HAD GIVEN MY NOTICE at Condon’s and sold my car for cash, so I spent my last days in Charleston running errands in Paul’s Chevelle, which was bright blue with a white racing stripe painted down the middle.
It wasn’t the sort of car I’d have picked out for myself, but that didn’t stop it from being a whole lot of fun to drive.
As our departure date loomed, I bought a couple of suitcases and an Italian phrase book, had a cavity filled, and got fitted for a diaphragm.
At the drugstore, I tried to calculate how much spermicide I’d need if Paul and I had sex every day for two years (slightly optimistic, I now realize), then remembered that we might try to get pregnant at some point.
So I bought a dozen tubes and hoped they’d last.
Paul returned on the seventh of April, and we celebrated our reunion with a quickie in my parents’ garage before sitting down to a beautiful dinner my mother had spent the better part of the day preparing.
“To the adventures you’ll have together,” my father said as he raised a glass to us both.
When he thought we weren’t looking, I saw him wipe a tear from his eye.
The next morning, Dad followed Paul down to the port, where Paul dropped off his car at some office that promised to put it on a container ship bound for Naples.
The day after that, my parents drove us to Charleston “International” Airport, which, at that time, was a teeny-tiny airport with four gates, a baggage carousel, and not much else.
My parents walked us to our gate and sat with us until it was time to board.
“You’ve got your traveler’s checks?” my mother must have asked five times.
Ordinarily, that kind of thing bugged me, but I humored her because I knew it’d be at least a year, if not two, before I saw her again, and it was impossible to forget that the last time my parents had seen a kid off, he’d come home in a box.
I felt a lot of guilt, leaving them like I was doing.
Paul kept telling me I had to live my life and that they didn’t expect me to stay on James Island forever.
But going to Italy wasn’t like moving to Mount Pleasant or even Columbia.
I wasn’t going to be coming over for dinner or driving home for the occasional weekend or holiday.
I was going to be gone, gone. And I couldn’t imagine what it would be like for them, Lenny dead and now me on the other side of the world.
When our boarding call was issued, I started to panic. “You’ll come visit?” I said, even though I knew pigs would fly long before my parents did. My mother lit a cigarette and told me that for sure they were going to try.
Passengers were gathering their things and saying their final goodbyes, and I watched Paul hug my mother and shake my father’s hand.
Then he stood off to the side, waiting for me to do more or less the same thing, but I couldn’t move.
My parents seemed so old all of a sudden.
Surely I wasn’t going to leave them here, in this sad little airport, waving after me?
Dad must have realized what was going on inside my head because he covered the distance between us, folding me up in his arms the same way he had when I was a little girl.
I started to weep, and he patted my back for a minute or two, then kissed the top of my head.
“You’re going to be all right,” he said into my hair, but the words came out a little funny, to where I wasn’t sure whether what he was saying was a statement or a question.
I’d never know, because I let him pass me off to my mother, who kissed my forehead and held my face in her hands. “Be good,” she said, and I promised I would.