The game was a success, a 6-1 Dodger victory, and Preston had the time of his life. Between the hot sun, the excitement of the crowd, three Dodger Dogs, and ice cream, he was napping in the backseat before they were halfway back to Amy’s house.
Preston and his cousins settled in for a movie once they were home, giving Ayla and Amy time to chat in the kitchen over a bottle of wine.
Amy hadn’t heard back from Charmaine yet, but Ayla had something else she wanted to ask her sister.
“Do you think, I don’t even know why I ask, but do you think if I manage to meet Mick, and things go well, and in some fantasy world we even get married, do you think mom and dad would ever want to be part of Preston’s life? Or mine?”
“Oh God, Ayla, I can’t even begin to imagine. Honestly, I think given the chance, Dad would. I mean today, right now. Dad is, and I hate to even mention it because the whole thing with you and them totally sucks, but he’s been an awesome grandpa to our kids. As involved as he can be, from three hundred miles away, you know, but yeah. He asks me about you. When it’s just the two of us. About you and Preston.”
Ayla fought back tears, and Amy rubbed her shoulder.
“But mom is a different story. She’s just the same. Maybe worse. It’s like she acts like what she thinks a grandmother is supposed to be like, but it’s all forced, you know? Fake. It’s not sincere. She’s so stuck on image, on what things look like, not how things really are, or should be.
“Whenever I’ve mentioned you, she always shuts me down. It’s like you could have killed somebody and you wouldn’t have done something as bad as having a baby out of wedlock. Or, actually, having sex, gasp, outside the bonds of holy matrimony.”
“It just sucks sometimes. We make due, I mean it’s a struggle, but I do all I can on holidays and everything. But I always envisioned big Thanksgivings and Christmases and everything with mom and dad and all our kids. And now Allan is, where, Germany?”
Amy nodded.
“And you’re here, and mom and dad live twenty minutes away from me, but they might as well be on Mars.”
“Trust me,” Amy said, refilling both their wine glasses. “You’re not missing anything not having Mom around. I guess you’re missing being endlessly judged and criticized, if that’s your thing, but truly you’re better off.
“Allan would love having a brother-in-law, or just another guy in the family, even if he was just around as Preston’s dad. especially somebody with a military background.”
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” Ayla conceded. “I mean; I don’t even know why I’d want to give Mom or Dad another chance, but there’s part of me that wants it to be the way it’s supposed to be. No matter how much they suck.”
“No, I get it. They’re still our parents, no matter how shitty they’ve been to you. I go through wanting to cut them out of my life for how they’ve treated you, but I know, we’ve talked about it, it’s not how you want me to handle it.”
As they spoke, Amy’s phone buzzed.
“Okay, it’s Char, let me see what she says. Here it is:
‘Hi Amy, okay, so I messaged Gunther’
“Gunther was her prom date,” Amy explained, and then continued.
“Gunther says he didn’t know Winston, he was a couple years older, but that he did know Wendryn, who was a year behind him at Oasis. He didn’t know her well, but he knew people who did, and that he might be able to get a message to her through a friend of a friend.”
“So, not dead end, but not super helpful, either. Maybe we ought to focus on the Mick side of it and forget the Watterson angle?” Amy said, setting her phone back down.
“Whatever works, I don’t know, I’m like climbing out of my skin with anticipation,” Ayla explained. “But, also terrified. If that makes sense.”
“It makes perfect sense, inasmuch as any of this makes sense.”
Noah, Amy’s husband, joined his wife and sister-in-law at the kitchen table, cracking open a beer.
“Any progress?” he asked.
“No,” Amy replied. “I told Noah all about what’s going on, I hope that’s okay. I wanted to get the male perspective.”
“Of course!” Ayla answered. “How are the kiddos?”
“They’re into the movie,” Noah said. “Mesmerized. So, was Charmain any help?”
“Not really,” Amy responded.
“How do you think you’d react if, hypothetically, you were single, no kids, and somebody came up and told you that you were a father?” Ayla asked.