I laugh, grabbing Miriam’s hand as we push through the throng. My eyes smart the closer we get, and then I don’t just hear Jerry’s voice on the phone. I see him.
He’s grinning ear to ear, and Dad is behind him, and I have a full-on breakdown right there in Grand Central Station during the chaos of holiday rush hour. Dad’s hair has more salt than pepper now. Jerry got new glasses. I haven’t laid my eyes on them in almost two years, and the time apart hits me in the chest right now, asking me to pay the toll of time and distance and whatever self-preserving walls I constructed from a half-assed belief that I had to be who I was without them.
Tears stream down my face as I get swallowed into a hug. Dad ruffles my hair. All southern twang and long vowels, he says, “Hey, honey!”
He and Jerry smell like old leather and I breathe it in like a balm.
When I turn around, Miriam’s crying, too (fourteen years of friendship will do that to you). She and I hug, because why the fuck not, and then she and Jerry and Dad hug.
“Your father did really well on the plane,” Jerry tells me. “He only cut off my circulation three times and yelled at a very small flight attendant once!”
We all four walk to the hotel where they’re staying, just a handful of blocks away, near Bryant Park. They both gape in audible wonder at the Chrysler Building, and I can’t even find it in me to make fun of them because my first trip to New York was magical, too. While they settle in and freshen up, Miriam and I have a drink at the hotel bar. When they come back down, Dad’s wearing his cowboy boots and Jerry has on plaid. They’re adorable.
There’s a round of shots, something made in Kentucky, and then we’re off in a cab, cruising toward SoHo for the prix fixe menu at Balthazar.
“Thanks for letting me tag along,” Miriam says.
“Are you working tomorrow?” Jerry asks her.
“Yes, and let me tell you, there’s no place more interesting than the emergency room on Thanksgiving Day.”
At Balthazar, Dad makes a disgruntled comment about how close all the tables are, and why must he be subjected to the neighbors’ conversations about French conservatism and skin boils, left to right respectively? But that’s the only hitch in our otherwise perfect evening. We drain several bottles of wine, devour our soups du jour and birds du domestique and pies du pumpkin, catching up about life up here, life down there, the past, the present, and yes—the future.
“Sorry,” Dad says, shaking his head. “You want to move to London? Christ, Casey, is this not far enough already?”
“Um,” Miriam says, standing. “Bathroom.”
I can see how this comes across to him—me avoiding Nashville for two years, then moving to another continent. “Dad, it’s not like that. I’m not running away from my family forever like Mom.”
The hurt is etched between his brows. “Then what’s it like, Case? Help me understand this so I don’t spiral into thinking I’ve chased you away.”
“You haven’t,” I say, grabbing his hand. “I just … I just want to, you know? And, like, I’m surprised as shit that I want to, don’t get me wrong. I’m still the same kid who made you pick me up halfway through sleepaway camp. But also, I’m scared this feeling will leave if I don’t just … act on it. And it’s different than Mom moving here, because I swear to you, I will be just as excited to come home again, every single time.”
He leans forward and narrows his eyes at me. After what feels like the familiar prelude to all my childhood scoldings, Dad says, “When you visit your gran—which you will do, because she is your mother’s mother—you will not let that tiresome woman change a single thing about you.”
Gran’s never been Dad’s biggest fan. Back when my grandfather was still alive, they refused to attend my parents’ wedding, then spent years trying to convince Mom to leave Dad and bring me back to London so they could raise me “right.” I have this memory of Gran at the funeral accusing Dad of failing Mom, even though I know for a fact he bent over backward to get her the healthcare she needed. That was pretty much the last time either of us heard from Gran. The only reason I know she’s still kicking is because I check to make sure on Grandfather’s firm’s website now and then.
“I promise,” I tell Dad. “That I’ll visit, and that I won’t let her change me.”
“I mean it, Casey, you better come back to me exactly like this. No High Street Burberry, no shit-talking Meghan Markle—”
“Okay, but what if it’s vintage Burberry?”
He laughs, and Jerry makes a motion with his hand, and then Miriam reappears, sitting back down. “If you got anything from your mother, kid, it’s the clothes.”
I cock my head. “I thought you said I was her total opposite.”
The glass of red wine pauses halfway to his mouth. “Did I? Hmm. That’s not true at all.” He sips and looks at me. “She knew her own mind, and so do you. I think she’d be proud of you right now. And I think she’d also be touched.”
“Well.” Jerry grabs the bottle of wine to top off his glass. “When does this London excursion begin?”
“Summer,” I declare firmly, speaking it into existence. Since I spoke with Alex about the BTH presentation last week, my confidence in both our futures has been renewed. “That’s all I really know so far.”
“And you’ve decided on this?”
“Unless she falls in love!” Miriam jumps in.
I shoot her a dirty look. “The only girl at this table who’s in love is—”
“Me,” Miriam sighs. “With this pie.” She shoves a huge scoop of pumpkin and whipped cream into her mouth.
“I love you, Casey,” Dad says. “But my love falls just short of flying across the Atlantic for the holidays.”
“I know, Dad.”
“You remember how I feel about the open ocean.”
“I remember, Dad.”
“It’s too deep. I don’t trust what’s down there, and I don’t trust what secrets the water breathers are keeping.”
“I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not,” Miriam says.
“He’s dead serious,” I tell her. “It’s Marty Maitland’s fatal flaw.”
“We prayed for Greta Thunberg every night of her sea voyage,” Jerry notes.
“Good name for a song,” Dad says, stroking his beard. “Marty Maitland’s fatal flaw.”
A half laugh, half groan spills out of me. “If you really believe that, you’re already jonesing. Check, please.”
* * *
Miriam goes to the hospital after breakfast in a flurry of scrubs and scarves. Dad, Jerry, and I bundle up in an equal number of layers, heading toward the madhouse that is the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. We traipse about Manhattan, guzzling Irish coffees between mittened fingertips, huffing excitedly under our breath as we walk, watching our words frost into the air. When we find the perfect spot near Central Park, we ooh and aah appreciatively at all our favorite floats.
“Did you do this last year?” Dad asks me.