Chapter 15 #2
After spending an hour in this house, it’s clear that the Harpers are the typical family I thought existed only on Nick at Nite.
Adam’s childhood is so perfectly painted in front of me: When he and Sarah come home from school Ford and Audrey have meat loaf ready for them, and at the end of each day they teach their kids a new lesson, not because they have to but because they love them.
Instead of feeling resentful toward the Harper kids for having had the kind of upbringing I never got to have, I want to soak up every moment of this and pretend like I have a family of my own.
Over coffee and lemon pound cake, Ford and Audrey pull out the old albums and share embarrassing baby photos of Adam and Sarah.
“ Adam. ” I bring a shot of Adam and Sarah dressed up as the Big Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood closer. “How adorable is this?”
“Mom used to make our costumes.” He smiles.
“You made this?!” I pass the photo to Audrey.
She nods. “Oh yeah, I used to love all those arts and crafts when they were growing up.”
I flip the page and see an almost sepia-toned photograph of a young Audrey and Ford in a hammock. Ford looks the same age as Adam, probably twenty-five or twenty-six.
“How did the two of you meet?” I ask them.
They smile at the question like they’ve never been asked it before.
“There was a carnival over in Cold Spring Harbor…it was ’79,” Ford begins. “We didn’t have much else to do on a Friday night back then.”
“Are you kidding?” Sarah says, lifting her feet onto the chair underneath her. “I would love to go to a carnival with my friends. I wish they still had them every year.”
“Ford was on a date with Nancy Harrison…” Audrey looks atme.
“I was with a group of friends,” Ford corrects her, and she playfully rolls her eyes. “I saw Audrey and her group lining up for the Ferris wheel, so I followed. Then we got seated next to each other.”
“What happened to Nancy?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I asked my friend Jim to keep her occupied for a bit.”
“And Jim and Nancy have been happily married for about thirty years now,” Audrey says.
I laugh. “What! That’s crazy! Audrey, what did you think when Ford sat next to you?”
“Well.” She smiles. “He was two years older than me, so I always saw him at school…thought he was cute.” She nudges him.
Audrey and Ford have been married for twenty-seven years.
They bicker like an old married couple and look at each other like teenagers in love.
People like to use the word soulmates when describing people like the Harpers.
Love like theirs was meant to be; they found their way to each other, and it just works.
For me, the idea of two people choosing to go through life side by side, to become one half of a whole, knowing one day you’ll lose them…is brave.
While Adam and I are standing in the kitchen drying dishes, he nudges me. “Want to see my room?”
“Your room ?” My eyes go wide. “With your parents home?”
“As long as you’re quiet, they won’t notice.”
“ Adam. ” I throw the dish towel at him, and he laughs.
I follow him upstairs and he takes me down the hallway, where I see more framed photos of graduations and family. I’ve always wondered what kind of families took photos at the portrait studios in Walmart or Sears, and it turns out, the Harpers are it. It only makes me love them more.
He opens a door on the left and I see blue walls and Star Wars posters.
My face breaks out into an uncontrollable grin as I walk over to the action figures on top of his dresser.
Beside them is a framed photo of Adam, no older than five, and his mom at a park.
There’s another framed photo of Audrey and Sarah in a photo booth and Adam and Ford popping in last minute and making funny faces. A small laugh escapesme.
“So this is where the magic happens,” I say, still analyzing every detail of his bedroom.
“Actually, aside from my mom, there’s a strict no-girls-allowed policy,” Adam says.
“Not even Sarah?” I say turning to him.
“ Especially Sarah.” He takes a seat on the bed and then looks at me. “They love you.”
“Adam.” I have that lump in my throat again. It’s a combination of sorrow and pleasure that I can’t shake. These past few hours have been so fulfilling and at the same time, heartbreaking.
“I’m happy you’re here,” he continues.
“Me too,” I say. “Your family is…”
“A lot?” He laughs.
“Perfect,” I say seriously.
Adam’s studying my face, and I follow his eyes scanning every part of me—my cheeks, my nose, my lips.
He lifts his hand up cautiously and then goes to tuck a piece of hair behind my ear.
I inch closer, because I want nothing more than to be near him, and he does the same, until our faces are close enough that we’re breathing the same air.
He puts his forehead on mine and his fingers are now grazing my chin, gently tipping my mouth to his.
This is happening, this is going to happen right now…
and then I remember he’s vulnerable and he’s not thinking clearly.
“We should go back downstairs,” I say, pulling away, and abruptly stand up. As I’m walking back down the hall, I don’t turn around to see if he’s behindme.
Ford and Audrey ask us to stay for dinner, and neither Adam nor I put up a fight.
Adam insists on cooking, so he and his parents go on a grocery store run while Sarah and I stay back and watch reruns of The Golden Girls.
She asks me if I know how to do a French braid and when I tell her yes, she begs me to do her hair.
“I want to paint my room,” Sarah says while handing me a comb.
“What color?”
“I don’t know. It’s this light pink right now. But I think I want something a little more neutral.” She shrugs. “It’s just a lot with my mom doing chemo right now.”
Before arriving, I had a slight anxiousness at the thought of meeting Sarah. Being fifteen is hard enough, and now having to watch her mom battle cancer is unimaginable. She seems lonely, and I feel like I see myself in her, which evokes a big-sister protectiveness inme.
“Well, next time Adam and I are in town, we can help you.” I wonder if it’s bold of me to assume I’ll be back, but Sarah turns her head, a big smile on her face.
“Seriously?” she says. “You wouldn’t mind?”
“Mind? Oh my God, I would love it. I always wanted to paint my room growing up.” I sit us both down on the floor and start brushing her hair.
“Is your hair naturally curly?” she asks.
“Unfortunately.” While I usually straighten it, I didn’t have time this weekend.
“I love it. I wish I had hair like yours.”
“I wish I had hair like yours, ” I say. “I guess we’re always wanting what we don’t have.”
“I guess so,” she says, and then a beat later turns her head a little. “So, are you Adam’s girlfriend?”
I will say, it’s concerning how a fifteen-year-old asking a mere question is making me go beet red. Thankfully she’s facing the other way.
“We’re just friends,” I say matter-of-factly, because as much as I appreciate her bluntness, I’m not about to have this conversation with a teenager.
“But you act like his girlfriend.” She blinks.
I do?
“I do?”
“Yeah, you’re always like smiling and touching each other.” She leans her head back and gives me a look. “And I don’t know why, but you find his jokes funny.”
“They are funny!” I defend him.
“If you like dad jokes,” she snorts, and it makes me laugh too. I place the brush down and run my fingers through her thick hair, parting it three ways.
“That’s friend behavior.” I shrug.
“Yeah but…I don’t know, it’s different with you,” she says, and I swallow because it looks like I am in fact having this conversation with a teenager. A very intuitive one.
“How?” I try to sound casual.
“I don’t know.” She starts picking at a hole in her jeans. “Adam doesn’t bring girls home,” she says, and I don’t know why her observation means so much to me. “What’s wrong?” Sarah turns around, and I realize I’ve stopped braiding her hair.
“Oh nothing—here, all done.” My voice comes out a little higher than I’d anticipated. I grab a hair tie off her wrist and finish the job.
Sarah reaches for the back of her head, and then her eyes go wide.
“Oh my God, it’s perfect! Thank you!” She gives me a hug, then runs over to the bathroom to look in the mirror.
“None of my friends can do it like this—they all wind up weird at the top,” she calls out, and then slowly emerges, playing with the bottom of her braid. “June?”
“Yeah?” I say.
“You know, I think it’s actually good you’re not Adam’s girlfriend.”
Oh. Ouch?
“Why’s that?” I clear my throat.
“?’Cause then you won’t break up.”
Before starting dinner, Adam tells his parents we’re going for a quick drive. We get into his dad’s pickup truck and I notice him picking at his thumbnail and chewing at his lip.
“We should invite Sarah over one of these days,” I say. “Let her spend some time in the city.”
He takes a deep breath as if woken up from a trance and looks atme.
“Yeah, she’d like that.” He smiles.
He reaches over to squeeze my hand before turning on the radio. My head turns to the open window and I close my eyes, feeling the breeze on my face.
We pull up to a small establishment next to the Long Island General Store that says Murphy’s Ice Cream Parlor on a pink neon sign. There are about five or six people inside, and based on the wear of the building, I can tell it’s an older business, maybe family-owned.
“Ice cream?” I give him a confused smile as he parks.
“Not just ice cream. This is Murphy’s,” he says like that’s supposed to mean something. “I used to work here in high school.”