Chapter 41 Teenage Sainthood
Teenage Sainthood
They flew out to New Jersey three days before Christmas.
Morgan stared down at the snow-covered plains, her mind whirling.
It had been over six months since she’d seen her family, and so much had happened that she hadn’t shared with them.
Her job loss, Heidi, her new job, Aunt Linda.
Despite her resolution to be more open and honest with them, she still curled and died a little when she imagined saying the words, “I was fired.” They would be mortified.
Ashamed of her. Worried what the neighbors would think.
Ha! As if the neighbors would ever know or care.
But to her mom, appearances mattered. Reflexively, Morgan smoothed her hair.
Next to her, Heidi accepted coffee and the tiny pack of cookies from the flight attendant.
At least Heidi seemed relaxed about the trip—their first one together as girlfriends.
Even now, she was chatting to the older woman in the aisle seat, an artist from New Mexico who was telling her about an exhibition she was having in Jersey City.
“We’d love to come if we can,” Heidi said, turning to Morgan. “Wouldn’t we?”
She dragged herself away from her inner monologue. “Absolutely.” What had she just agreed to?
Once off the plane, they went over to the car rental desk. Morgan had insisted on renting a car while they were there, mainly so that if she or Heidi needed time away from the Favola household to breathe, they could escape to the Jersey Shore for a while.
While Morgan familiarized herself with the strange controls, Heidi wiggled in her seat. “How long is the drive? It feels so much colder here than Denver, yet we’re practically at sea level. Does that make us super fit, like the athletes who train at altitude?”
“Forty minutes or so, depending on traffic. And there’s more moisture here—that makes it feel colder. And I guess being at sea level will make you a bit fitter. We could go for a ten-mile walk along the Shore.”
“We’d freeze!” Heidi turned up the heater. “My feet are icy.”
They made the drive mostly in silence. Morgan concentrated on the traffic, Heidi stared out of the window, occasionally commenting on how different it was from Denver.
Morgan turned off the freeway into the township of Toms River and followed the surface roads until she pulled up outside of her parents’ house.
For a moment, she rested her hands on the steering wheel, staring up at the modest house adorned in holiday lights.
“Maybe it was a mistake coming for five days. I should have come for two, like I always do.”
“It’s okay.” Heidi unclipped her seatbelt and leaned across to wrap her arms around Morgan’s shoulders. “If it was only two days, you’d fall back into your ‘everything is peachy in my life’ evasion. ‘Nothing to see here, move along please.’”
Morgan huffed a laugh. “Maybe.”
“No maybe about it. No, the new Morgan opens up to the people who love her.”
“As I did to you.”
Heidi sat back and stared. “Are you asking if I love you?” Her lips twitched. “Fi was telling me on our call the other day—not asking, telling me—that I love you.”
Morgan froze inside. “I’m sorry. That puts you on the spot, and I didn’t mean that.” Her mind was filled with a million thoughts flying in all directions. “What is love, anyway? Sometimes, I’m not sure.”
“I’m sure.” Heidi picked up Morgan’s hand and started counting points off on her fingers.
“Love is so many different things for so many different people. I love my parents. I love my siblings—most of them, most of the time, anyway. Other times I want to murder them, but even then, underneath, I love them. I love Minty—my brother’s dog.
I would die for that dog, especially when she snuggles her head on my lap and looks up at me with big soulful eyes that make me think she loves me too, although the reality is she’s begging for cheese.
I love an icy margarita made with premium tequila and fresh lime juice, and a spicy, salty rim.
So”—she took a deep breath—“as I’ve got margaritas on the list of things I love, why wouldn’t I include you? ”
“You love me?” Morgan stared as the jumbled thoughts in her mind scattered to the four corners of the earth, leaving her with only one: Heidi loved her.
“Well, yes. Fi told me I did, so it must be true. And you’re on the list. It’s not a list in order, by the way. So, if I numbered it, you might come in above Minty and premium margaritas. If that’s okay with you.”
“It’s okay with me. It’s more than okay. I’m just surprised. We’ve gone from awkward housemates to love.”
“I guess four-or-so months is fast for some people. But in that time, we’ve also pulled off a virtual bank heist and probably saved a life.
You’ve secured a dream job in a dream company, and I’ve taken the first baby step toward a proper grown-up job.
We’ve also cleaned snow off miles of sidewalk, drank more wine than we should, had some amazing sex, and fought over the best way to load the dishwasher.
Honestly, I think we’ve accomplished most relationship milestones, except this last one.
So, here’s the last one again for you: I love you, Morgan. ”
She blinked. Blinked some more. She had to have something in her eye, something scratchy that was making it water.
Heidi reached across and wiped a finger gently under Morgan’s eye. “It’s okay to show emotion. It’s okay to cry—although I hope they’re happy tears.”
Morgan blinked some more, then gave up and let the tears fall. “I am happy. And when you put our relationship in that way, it’s obvious what love is. And it’s obvious I love you.”
Heidi leaned in again, and Morgan unsnapped her own seatbelt to meet her halfway.
Their kiss started off soft, grew like a sunrise over the mountains that she loved.
And like those mountains, the kiss made her breathless, as if there wasn’t enough oxygen.
Her heart raced, and its beat seemed to echo Heidi’s name.
A tapping on the window made them draw apart. Morgan refocused. Her mom’s face loomed through the glass. Morgan opened the door slowly, allowing her mom to step back.
“Morgan, you’ve been sitting out here for too long. Your butt will be frozen to the seat. Come inside, both of you.” Her mom turned away, up the path, without waiting for a response.
Morgan sat for a few seconds. Was this how it would be? Her parents would ignore Heidi, her mom would pretend she hadn’t seen them kissing in the car. Indeed, she’d probably been watching through the window since they’d driven up.
“Sorry,” Morgan said. “We’d better go in.”
They took their bags and walked up the path to the front door. Morgan pushed it open and continued on down the hallway to the living area at the rear.
Her dad rose to his feet and held out his arms. “Welcome home, Morgan.” He enveloped her in a hug. He smelled as he always did, of wood shavings and breath mints.
Morgan stepped back. “Dad, this is my girlfriend, Heidi Lincoln. Heidi, my dad, Walter.”
Her dad held out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Heidi. Welcome.”
Her mom bustled over from the kitchen, and Morgan introduced her and Heidi.
“It’s good to meet you both, Walter and Jinny,” Heidi said. “Morgan’s told me so much about you.”
“Are we sleeping in my old room?” Morgan asked.
“Yes. Although I don’t know if Heidi will be comfortable there.” Her mom swept back to the kitchen and resumed kneading a pillowy pile of dough.
“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” Heidi said.
“Let’s take our things upstairs.” Morgan picked up her bag and led the way to her room. “Oh!”
The small double bed that she’d always had was gone, and a twin bed was in its place.
The other side of the room was taken up with a long table.
Two sewing machines were pushed to the back, and patchwork squares were stacked neatly in color-coordinated piles.
A half-finished quilt hung over the opened closet door.
Morgan turned to Heidi. “We’re going to be squished.”
Heidi lifted up the valence on the bed. “There’s a pullout bed underneath. We’ll be fine.”
Morgan swallowed the unsettled feeling. Her room had always been her room.
Her last trip home—more than six months ago, she remembered with a guilty pang—her room had been how she’d left it: the small double bed, her old clothes in the closet, her posters on the wall.
She pulled open the closet door. The clothes rods were gone.
Instead, a rack of open containers held reels of thread and a variety of fabrics and swatches of different types and colors.
“We should have told you.” Her mom’s voice came from the doorway. “But you come home so infrequently, I didn’t think you’d mind. All your stuff from the closet is bagged up in the garage, waiting for you to decide what to do with it.”
She took a moment to compose herself. When she was sure she could smile and look like she meant it, she turned to face her mom. “That’s fine, Mom. It’s silly keeping my room as it was, when you could use it.”
“This is lovely, Jinny.” Heidi touched the edge of the half-finished quilt. “I love the colors and the pattern you’ve put together. It reminds me of the sea.”
The worry eased on Jinny’s face. “That’s exactly what it’s supposed to do.” She came into the room and took Heidi’s arm, drawing her closer to the quilt. “See here, I have dolphins and starfish.”
“It’s beautiful. What color are you going to use for the edging?”
“I thought navy blue.” Her mom turned. “Morgan, I know you always sleep here, but if you prefer, there’s the third bedroom. It’s smaller, of course, but it’s the room we use for guests now.”
“I’m sure we’d be comfortable here,” Heidi said, “but we wouldn’t want to keep you from your quilting.” She turned to Morgan. “Shall we look at the guest room?”
Morgan nodded. Maybe the guest room would be better. She followed her mom down the hallway.
“Oh, this is lovely,” Heidi said.
The guest room was the tiny room Morgan remembered, but her double bed had been moved there, and it butted up to the window, set in the sloping eaves.
Morgan’s old bedside table was there, and a small chest of drawers was the only other furniture.
She looked at the drawers. It was carefully made, with a mix of dark- and light-colored timber.
The surface was a complicated parquet pattern of the two woods. “Did Dad make this?”
“He did. We’re both more creative these days. Most of what he makes gets sold to benefit the Men’s Shed, but this one was too beautiful to part with. We thought it looked good here.”
Morgan ran her hand over the polished surface. “It’s beautiful.” She raised an eyebrow at Heidi. “Are you okay to sleep here?”
Heidi grinned back. “Of course.”
“I’ll let you get settled,” her mom said.
“Come down when you’re ready. Linda’s coming to dinner tonight.
Just her—the kids will be out with their friends, but they’ve both moved back home for a few weeks while she has radiation and recovers from surgery.
” She fumbled for Morgan’s hand and gripped it.
“I’m proud of what you did, and so happy that Linda’s getting treatment. She’s a stubborn one.”
Jinny left, and Heidi lifted her bag onto the bed, then took the two steps to close the door. “Are you okay here? You looked like someone had kicked a kitten when you saw what had happened to your old room.”
“I’m fine—now. It was a bit of a shock. I guess we always expect our bedrooms in our parents’ house to always be there for us, a shrine to our teenage sainthood.” She scoffed. “Guess not. But it makes a lot of sense for Mom to have that room.”
“My old bedroom at home is now a junk room. Fiona’s is now the playroom for the dogs, and the twins’ room is the guest room.
It could be a lot worse. Your mom is creating beautiful things in your space.
My old room has a cardboard mountain and a pile of broken electricals that are supposedly fixable—but will never be looked at again.
” Heidi plonked onto the bed and patted the space next to her.
“But we have this comfortable bed, big enough for two, small enough that we’ll have to spoon.
And, yes, you can be big spoon if I get the window side. ”
Morgan sat and wrapped an arm around Heidi’s shoulders. “Maybe we’ll do more than spoon.”
Heidi turned into Morgan’s embrace and kissed her. “As long as we’re quiet, I think there’s every chance of that.”