“You should have told me that earlier. Would have saved me a whole lot of trouble. Come on, let’s go.”
When we returned, all three women were sitting at a table by a window with checkerboard curtains. I paused, approached tentatively. Mary’s benign response notwithstanding, after the Great Chase, I wasn’t sure how I would be received.
I gave everyone a sheepish wave. “Hello.” Karen and Mindy didn’t look up from their menus.
“Eat. I. Starving.”
Ethan and I sat down next to each other. “I’m hungry too. We all are. Put your napkin in your lap. Come on.”
Karen did it for him. “Here,” she said. “Leave it there, Ethan. Don’t play with it.”
I drew a deep breath and jumped right in. “First off, as I told your mother, I’m sorry for what I did back there. My driving like that. I’m sorry. It was inexcusable.”
The girls, like Mary, seemed more interested in the menu than my apology. Mindy said, “Let’s order first, then you can grovel, Dad.”
“All right, okay.” I smoothed down Ethan’s tangle of hair, looked around the restaurant again, felt my spirits modestly rise. I liked being off the road, liked this homey place, and I especially liked the fact that, at least for the moment, we weren’t all screaming at one another. “Table all right? No drafts?” I asked Mary.
“It’s fine.” Mary slipped on her glasses, a sure sign she was tired. The half-moon earrings were nowhere in sight.
“You feeling okay?” I asked.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“You look a little tired.”
“We’re all tired.” Mary glanced over at the girls. “And I think we’re all sorry about what happened and what was said, aren’t we?”
Both girls shrugged, mumbled, “Yeah, sure.”
“Apology accepted.” I picked up Ethan’s napkin, which had already fallen to the floor. “Anyway, the motel looks fine. We may as well stay here. Call it an early night. They have a pool.”
“Swimming?” Ethan shouted.
“Maybe. Yes. After we eat. There’s one outside. I saw it. It has a diving board.”
“Nice. Outside.”
“It’s very nice out. Hot.”
The girls were quiet. They ordered their dinners in low voices. No one asked for any drinks, so I resisted the urge, though I could certainly have used one.
“So,” I said after the waitress left.
“So,” Mary said.
“I was thinking,” I said.
“Where. Sprite. Be?”
“It’s coming.” I handed Ethan my glass of water, since he had already drained his. “Once again, in addition to the way I was driving, which was dangerous, very dangerous, I also want to apologize over some of the things I said. You weren’t the only ones saying horrible, spiteful things.”
No one responded, so I went on. “Also, and much more important, I was thinking that maybe I was wrong about this whole thing. Maybe I am forcing things. Maybe you’re right: maybe I made the final decision too fast. I should have included you all in it. We all should have had a say. Maybe I can call them and say we need more time. I’m willing to do that.”
Everyone continued to be quiet.
“Isn’t that what you want?” I asked.
Mary took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “We’re willing to cut a deal,” she said.
“Cut a deal,” I repeated.
“The girls and I have been talking.”
“Talking? Really?” I looked at Mindy and Karen. “You two talked? When did that happen?”
“Phones, Dad,” Mindy said. “They work in cars now.”
“Oh.” My modestly rising spirits stopped rising. I had no idea where this was heading, and I feared another group mugging was imminent. “What deal?”
“A cease-fire,” Mindy said.
“Truce,” Karen said.
“We’ll stop the resistance if you stop being crazy,” Mindy said.
“No more kidnapping Ethan,” Karen said.
“I wasn’t kidnapping him.”
Karen said, “We’ll go up there peacefully and if, if we like what we see, he can stay there for six weeks on a trial basis. Six weeks. All of us have to agree to this though. If we all like it, he can stay. I’ll go up there and check in on him. I can make it to Maine one or twice.”
“You can’t see him for a month,” I said.
“I can check in with his aides, or whomever, get reports. Doing it firsthand is better than over the phone.”
“Me too,” Mindy said. “I’ll check too.”
I thought about this. “Okay,” I said. “What happens after six weeks, though? Then what?”
“Then we’ll evaluate things, make the final decision,” Mary said. “If we feel like it’s not going well, he’s coming back home, and we’ll wait for a place closer.”
“Where. Pickle. Be?”
I searched the bread basket, found a soft dinner roll, and handed it to Ethan. “We’ll lose a lot of money if we take him out then. Just so you know.”
“Money isn’t an issue,” Mary said.
“And we could wait ten more years for a place in Illinois.”