Chapter Fifty-Two
fifty-two
eighteen months later
Lanie
■ 27-AUG ■ National Airways ■ Flight: 824 ■
JFK-John F. Kennedy Int’l Airport ? SFO-San Francisco Int’l
Seat Assignment: 8C
As she moved through the baggage claim, Melanie Turner decided that after this, she was never moving again—it was too much trouble. She was not accustomed to traveling with this much stuff.
The lesson of the day was, clearly, flying was very different when you were taking your whole life with you. Far less fun. In addition to her trusty carry-on, she had three large suitcases with her. That didn’t even include the boxes that were being shipped freight to San Francisco. And right now, the cart, piled high with her luggage, slipped across the smooth linoleum flooring in the arrivals terminal in the opposite direction of where she wanted it to go. It just seemed to have a mind of its own.
It was like these plans: once they’d been set in motion they just seemed to go. And there was a part of her that still couldn’t believe she’d agreed to it all. Of the two of them, Ridley was supposed to be the one who was risk averse, but this had been all his idea. It was Lanie that had taken some convincing. But she admired his bravery and drive to make this happen. To make this life together for the three of them work.
Lanie still couldn’t believe it—that Ridley would pick up his life to follow her . But he had. It was one of the ways, he’d told her, that he wanted to prove that she was a priority for him. Lanie still didn’t know what special alchemy had brought a man that wonderful into her life. But she was grateful for it. For him . Because Ridley wasn’t kidding when he said it would take some work and time. Nearly two years of it, in fact.
Ridley and Dash had to finish the clinical part of their trial in London before being free to work on the data sets with the new New York coordinator remotely. Then Ridley and Bea had had to sell her house, which incidentally had left Bea independently wealthy at the tender age of almost sixteen. And with enough money to afford the college of her choice. Ridley and Gavin found a high school for her in Piedmont while Ridley searched for a new job. Luckily, San Francisco State University was more than happy to scoop him up when they heard he was on the job market. But overall, it had meant eighteen months of massive change for Ridley and Bea. These two people for whom Lanie had become so important that they had been willing to pick up stakes and make this gargantuan move.
On Lanie’s side, there was a shorter move but no less risky a change. In finally applying for the offered position as a teaching assistant in Dr. Markham’s Plasma Physics Department, she had agreed to move across the country. And while technically accepting it only meant she was an employee at Cal Berkeley, not a student, as she promised Professor Skinner—and Dr. Markham reiterated—it also meant she was dipping her toes back into academia. Which was enough.
Baby steps .
Of course, the prospect of her daughter moving away had terrified Ryan. But with Narcisa’s help—and an open-ended train ticket—Lanie’s mother came to see the change as good and necessary...for the both of them. Still, separation anxiety was an ongoing challenge.
Lanie put a hand up to her face to shield her eyes from the sun’s glare as she came out of the terminal doors. She struggled keeping her cart on track as she peered around for the faces she’d recognize.
“Lanie!” Bea bounded up to her and gave her a hug.
After a year and a half of Lanie and Ridley going back and forth once a month, Lanie was grateful she and Bea had managed to get closer too. It helped that Ridley had brought his daughter for that long summer visit he’d promised and allowed Lanie to show Bea all the cool New York places that only she knew about.
“You have a lot of stuff,” Bea remarked.
“I lived in New York a long time.”
Bea tried to take over but slipped side to side trying to control the unwieldy luggage cart. In the end, they pushed it together.
When he saw them coming, Ridley flagged them down and hopped out of the car at the curb. “Sorry, I couldn’t leave the car or they would have towed us.” He ran up to Lanie and pulled her into a hug.
It felt like months since they’d seen each other last. It had only been a couple of weeks.
“You’re here,” he whispered into her hair. “Finally.”
“I am.” She turned her face up to receive a light kiss.
“We’ve only managed to unpack the bedrooms without you,” he said as their lips parted.
“That’s okay.”
“You could have left me in the car, Dad. I can drive now,” Bea groused as she stepped off the curb to open the trunk.
“Oh, honey, I wish.” Ridley shook his head, then adjusted his glasses. “But you don’t have a California license yet.”
“Neither do you.”
“Mine’s in the mail, where’s yours?” Ridley told his daughter, though his eyes never left Lanie, as if memorizing her face, holding her tightly to him.
“Can we get my stuff in the car please, people?” Lanie laughed easily but she was actually quite tired. It had been a long week of packing her life up to ship across country and then a long flight to get herself there too.
“You ready?” Ridley whispered into Lanie’s ear, before planting another kiss on her temple and the car keys in her hand.
She nodded. “My dress is in my carry-on.”
“It can fit in your carry-on?”
“It’s just a little jersey-knit, sequined thing.” She shrugged. “But it’s white, which was all I cared about, in case they lost my luggage.”
“Now, you’re sure about this? San Francisco City Hall is pretty but it’s also pretty no-frills. Most people need at least a little pomp. I don’t want you feeling cheated later.”
“I told you, I’ve already planned one wedding in my life. I’m good.”
He smiled. She’d gotten good at getting him to do that.
“And your mom?”
“Once I showed her that there was a train route that went all the way from Grand Central to Jack London Square Station in Oakland, she was much more willing. I put her on the train myself, she’ll be here on Thursday.”
“Your grandmother, Gem, Les?”
“Gran and Les are getting in the day after tomorrow. So, I hope we can get the guest bedrooms done by then too. But baby Tori’s got an ear infection. No one wants a cranky toddler on a plane for ten hours. So, Gem and Jonah send their love.”
“We could wait until they can make it?”
“Uh-uh, no, we can’t.”
Ridley barked a laugh.
“Hey! I can’t do this by myself!” Bea cried out, struggling with the lightest of the three oversized suitcases.
Lanie and Ridley broke apart hurriedly to help. As she watched her fiancé and his daughter bickering playfully, Lanie thought again that it was nice to be home and that perhaps she and Ridley were really done with their traveling. At least for a little while.
Although there were still all those frequent flier miles to redeem.