Chapter Twenty-One
Darla
We jump out of the car and race each other to the counter like a couple of ten-year-olds. After we get our cones, we sit outside on one of the picnic tables. I am so tired, but I’m wired all the same. I try to keep ahead of my ever-melting ice cream, but I’m not very successful in this summer heat. Stella would love an ice cream on a day like this.
While we lick our ice cream, Theo grabs my unbandaged hand and presses my thumb down to start a game of thumb wrestling. I’m distracted by ice cream and eye candy. He beats me at another thumb war, but I don’t care who wins. I like holding his hand. I think that’s why he likes the game too.
When he writes out a Hangman puzzle on a napkin, I roll my eyes. “You’re getting soft on me. ‘Ice Ice Baby.’”
He shrugs. “You caught me on a bad day.”
“Slacker.”
“This is exactly what I needed,” he mumbles with a mouth full of ice cream.
“The ice cream?”
He winks at me. “That and other things.” Eep.
“So tell me, who is Mrs. Lopez?”
He takes a long lick of his mint double fudge ice cream cone and closes his eyes tight.
“Brain freeze? Stick your thumb to the roof of your mouth.”
He slides back into the booth, still squinting. “You want me to look like I’m sucking my thumb?”
I chuckle. “Try it. I promise it works.”
He shrugs and sticks his thumb in his mouth right as I click a photo of him with my phone.
“Oh, you are dead.”
“What?” I bat my eyes. “Are you going to get all macho on me?” I wink at him. It could be fun if he did.
He holds his hand out for my phone. “You wish.”
“Oh, all right.” I relinquish it. “Party pooper.”
He deletes the photo. “Let’s do another selfie.” He leans over the table, and we butt heads. “Ow,” he says with a laugh. “Say ‘ice cream.’”
“Ice cream,” I say. But before he takes the photo, he rubs his cone on my nose. I squeal. I cannot believe I fell for that. It’s something an eighth grader would do. I grab for my phone, but he leans back in the booth so I can’t reach him.
“Done. I sent it to myself.”
I wipe my face with a napkin. Oh, I know how to get him back, and it doesn’t involve ice cream. It doesn’t involve photos or even a cell phone. “That’s too bad. And I was about to ask you if you wanted to stay the night.” After seeing this side of him, I want him to stay a whole bunch of nights.
And boom! The grin, the laughter, and the joke are over as his hands scramble around with my phone. “Oh crap. How do you unsend, delete. Come on, there has to be an undo button on this stupid thing.” His fingers fly across my phone screen as he begs me with his eyes. “Uh, you were kidding, right?”
I shrug. “You’ll never know now, will you?”
He scrunches his eyebrows together. “You don’t play fair.”
“Aw, poor baby has met his match,” I say while I pinch his cheek.
He swats my hand away. “Back to your question about Mrs. Lopez, you evil beast. When I was in middle school, my mother met her at Goodwill. And when you meet my mother, you’ll find out she never meets a stranger. It wasn’t long before she and Mrs. Lopez became half-price thrift-store buddies every Wednesday. She’s been in our lives ever since.”
He gets this faraway look in his eyes. “My parents knew her family didn’t have much, but they were very proud, so we adopted her. You know, we would have the standard birthday parties but did something for her on our birthdays also. Sometimes, they would come to our house for the holidays, and other times, we’d surprise them with food. We would bake dinner—well, Tommy would do most of the baking—and we’d buy gifts for her kids, rake her leaves, stuff like that.” He shrugs as though it’s no big deal.
I can’t keep my eyes off him. If God ever created a perfect human being, Theo is it. He has such deep compassion.
“We still do what we can for her, especially on our birthdays.”
“That’s why you work the extra shifts in the ER.”
“Among other things, but not for an engagement ring for you-know-who.” He winks. He finishes his ice cream and stares at me. “Do you know why I went to medical school?”
“I’m guessing you want to help people.”
“Sure. This country’s flooded with doctors, but in Africa and other parts of the world, it’s not that way.” He’s staring at my eyes, but he’s peering much deeper, way deeper, right into my soul. He’s trying to tell me something.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I want to be a part of Doctors Without Borders.”
I sit back. “That’s wonderful,” I say when I can find my voice again. I’m not sure I mean it. “I toyed with the idea of doing something like that, but it’s not possible being a single parent. Speaking of being a parent…” I wipe my mouth with my napkin in case there’s a trail of melted ice cream anywhere.
“You see, that’s the beauty of not having to answer to anyone.”
The nerve of him. Right when I’m on the verge of telling him about Stella, he goes and says something so insensitive. Maybe I was wrong about how he would take the news.
“Excuse me? I find that having to consider another human in my choices to be… beautiful and very worthwhile.”
He sits back in his chair. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
I hold my hand out to stop him from speaking. “What you mean is you enjoy doing whatever you want at the drop of a hat. Right?”
His mouth opens, but no words come out.
“You can fly off to Haiti or the Ivory Coast or Guatemala on a moment’s notice.”
“Well—”
“And people like me, a single parent, can’t make choices like that. Our decisions are made for us.” My face is on fire. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to defend myself because what I wanted to do conflicted with what I needed to do. And until Theo has run a mile in my size-six Nikes, he’ll never get it. While he was off doing who knows what with Mallory, I was changing dirty diapers, kissing boo-boos, and having to justify my single-mommy status every step of the way.
He swallows. “I, uh, no matter what I say, it isn’t going to take back the fact that I was being kind of high-and-mighty. All I can say is I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”
I fold and unfold my napkin, managing a slight nod.
He clears his throat. “Not to change the subject, but the whole family will be in town this weekend, so Mom wants to have a cookout. Want to come?”
“Uh, sure.” I’m completely shocked that he wants to be in the same county as me after the two scoldings I have given him today.
“Great. I’ll let you know. But just so you know, it’s not a birthday party. ” He takes my hand and kisses each knuckle. I guess it’s a nonverbal “I’m sorry” gesture.
I don’t know what I’m going to do. A few hours earlier, I was ready to tell him everything. But now that I know he plans to head off for months at a time, I’m not sure that would be fair to Stella. Meeting him when he plans on leaving might break her heart. And I don’t know if he can handle being in our lives full time. Stella deserves no less than everything, and if he can’t give her that, I don’t know if he deserves any of it.