Page 39 of Love in the Lab (Delaneys in Love #2)

Chapter thirty-two

Jonathan

I know I’ve made it with the Delaneys by the way Molly’s father sees me off at the airport the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

He pulls the car into the departures area at the Austin airport, shifts into park, and opens his door to pull our luggage from the trunk.

After setting the suitcases on the sidewalk, he wraps Molly in a bear hug.

Then, he turns to me. He shakes my hand. “Take care of her, Jonathan.”

“I can try to help, Mr. Delaney,” I tell him with a grin, “but she’s pretty good at taking care of herself.”

The smallest hint of a smile creeps across his lips. “Call me Ben.” He shakes my hand one more time before getting back into the car to drive away.

I meet Molly up on the sidewalk. “Did you hear that?” I hiss in a stage whisper.

She takes my hand and intertwines our fingers. “I did.”

“Does your dad like me now?” I ask hopefully.

She smiles. “Maybe. How could he not, though? It was only a matter of time.”

We spend the rest of the weekend combining apartments as much as makes sense when we’ll be moving in a month.

Even though Molly’s place is teeny tiny, we decide to stay there these last few weeks.

It’s close to work, and her lease is up sooner than mine.

We can sublet my apartment for the six months remaining.

I’m sorting my belongings into piles based on what I’ll need before the move to Charleston and what can get packed into moving boxes already when my phone rings.

I wipe my dusty hands on my jeans and pull the phone from my pocket. It’s my mom. I called her on Thanksgiving to let her know about my life updates, but I got her voicemail. Of course, they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in India. I left her a message to call me back.

Even though I didn’t hint in the message that what I had to say was life altering, I thought she would call me back sooner.

I swipe to accept the video call and move to the couch to sit down.

“Happy Thanksgiving, darling!” my mother greets me as her face appears on the screen.

“Happy Thanksgiving, Mom.” I pause awkwardly. “Listen, I have some really great, but surprising news.”

“Okay. What’s your news?”

“I got married last weekend. In Vegas.” I realize how that sounds and rush to add, “But it was on purpose, and no one was drunk!”

She’s quiet, an unreadable expression on her face. “That’s … reassuring, I guess?”

I chuckle. “What I meant to say is that we decided to get married while we happened to be in Vegas, so it was sudden but not hasty.”

“Okay. Just trying to wrap my head around this. I didn’t know you were dating anyone.” Her eyebrows pull together, emphasizing the deepening wrinkles on her forehead. How long has it been since I’ve seen my mother in person? Years, at least.

How long since I last talked to her, even? Not since the summer, so no, she wouldn’t know about Molly. “Yeah, for a few months now.”

More awkward silence. “Well, congratulations. I’m happy for you. Tell me about your wife.”

My wife. Still sounds so weird but amazing at the same time. Molly Delaney is my wife.

“Her name is Molly. We work together. We’ve known each other for a while—had classes together in graduate school.

She’s amazing. The whole reason we were actually in Las Vegas was to present her research at the CERA conference.

Research so impressive, one of the attendees offered her a job right after the presentation.

That’s my other news. Molly and I are moving to Charleston in January. ”

“A researcher, hmm? Sounds like she and I will get along. And Charleston is lovely. Maybe I can get away sometime next year to visit so I can meet her.”

“That would be great. And yeah, I think you’ll love her. Her research and career are really important to her, and they’re important to me , too, so we can avoid the kind of problems you and Dad had.”

More silence. I’ve never seen my mother so at a loss for words. “What do you mean? What kind of problems were there between your father and me?”

“You know,” I say. “He didn’t support your career. When you got the job opportunity at WHO, he didn’t think it was important enough to move for.”

“Is… is that what he told you?” She blinks several times in a row.

“No, he didn’t have to tell me. I saw what happened. You got the job, and we stayed in Ohio without you.” The familiar bitterness creeps into my voice.

She rubs a hand against her neck. “Darling, that’s not what happened.”

“Of course it is.” I was there. I know what happened.

She grimaces. “No. I … I asked your dad for a divorce at the same time I told him about the job. He was never … included … in my plans to move to Switzerland.”

Meaning Tamara and I were never included in those plans either? Meaning she left him , and not the other way around like I’ve believed for almost twenty years? “What? That can’t be true.”

“Your dad was happy with his life in Ohio. I didn’t want to disrupt that. Besides, our marriage hadn’t been what it should have for years at that point. I thought you knew.”

I shake my head slowly back and forth. “No.”

“Jonathan, I love you and your sister more than anyone. I loved your dad once, too. But, all the moving around I’ve done, from country to country, that would have been a hard life for you kids. You had stability with your dad in Ohio that I couldn’t give you.”

I’m drowning in cognitive dissonance. Wrapping my brain around this kind of paradigm shift, finding out that what I knew to be true isn’t true at all, leaves me feeling lost. I’m a sixteenth-century astronomer listening to Copernicus suggesting the sun is the center of the solar system.

I’m a geologist in the early twentieth century learning about Wegener’s theory of continental drift, introduced to the possibility that maybe the continents are not , in fact, fixed in their positions.

But I have to know. I push deeper, wanting more answers. “Would Dad have gone with you, moved all of us to Switzerland, if you had asked him to?”

“You’ll have to ask him that question, but I believe he would have. It’s why I couldn’t ask him to. It wouldn’t have been fair to him, not when I wasn’t as invested in the marriage as he was. I felt that I could do more in my career without … well, without that weight in my life.”

She might as well have slapped me for the way that statement shocks and hurts. “And Tamara and me? Did we weigh you down, too?”

“You and Tamara were better off living a stable life with your dad in Ohio,” she repeats firmly.

I force a smile, as if my mother hasn’t just turned my world upside down. “Listen, Mom, I’ve got to go. Nice talking to you.”

“You, too! Congratulations on your marriage and your move.”

“Thanks,” I mumble before ending the call.

I’m not sure how long I sit here, my head resting on the back of the couch, my eyes staring vacantly at the ceiling.

I feel almost disconnected from my body, detached and aloof.

I’m not sure that this time spent spinning the new information around in my mind, turning it this way and that, is helpful in solving anything, least of all the intense guilt and shame I feel for the way I’ve treated my dad all these years.

“Jonathan?” Molly calls, coming through the front door of my apartment. She spots me on the couch and holds up a stack of flattened moving boxes and packing tape. “I brought more supplies.”

When I don’t answer, she drops the boxes and tape and moves closer. “What’s wrong?”

Instead of responding, I reach up a hand and pull her into my lap. She yelps as her feet come off the floor. Her head nestles against my chest, and I hold her against me. Instantly, I’m in my body again, feeling the pit in my stomach and the tension in my shoulders.

The anger I’ve been holding onto for almost twenty years is gone, replaced with shame.

I think of my dad, left to finish raising two kids on his own—one of those kids a preteen boy mad at the world and taking it out on him.

And all the while, trying to cope with his own heartbreak and grief over losing the woman he loved.

For years, not having the relationship he wanted with his only son.

Finally finding someone new to love and watching his grown son pout like a child over his well-deserved happiness.

Molly strokes my cheek. “What’s going on, Jonathan?” she asks softly.

“I think I … we need to go to Ohio for Christmas.”

Molly doesn’t bat an eye at my announcement of the new plan for our first Christmas together. She slides off my lap onto the couch cushion and motions for me to join her. I lie on my back next to her, my head in her lap.

As I tell her about my conversation on the phone with my mom, Molly combs through my hair with her fingers. It’s soothing, but I’m not sure I deserve to be soothed.

“So, in summary, I’ve been a jerk to my dad for nearly twenty years because of an initial misunderstanding I never bothered to clarify.”

Molly is quiet for a moment. “I think you’re being too hard on yourself. You were just a kid.”

“At first I was, but I haven’t been a kid for quite some time now, and I’ve still been acting like a brat.”

“It probably feels emotionally safer to lash out at the parent who stays than the one who doesn’t.”

I close my eyes and lean into the feeling of her hand in my hair.

“How did I get lucky enough to have such a smart wife? You’re the best.” I still feel raw from my mother’s revelation and my own realization that I’ve been a terrible son to my dad while he’s been hurting in his own way.

But at this moment, I feel safe and loved, like no matter how badly I’ve messed up, I can make it right.

She laughs. “Me? You’ve been doing sweet, thoughtful things for me for months now.”

I open my eyes and smirk. “I’ve been trying to impress you.”

Molly leans down and kisses my lips. “You’ve succeeded.”

“I’ve also been trying to get you to see yourself like I see you: practically perfect in every way.”

She laughs again, but then her face turns serious. “I’m getting there on that, too, but I feel like it’s going to be a long process. I have to undo years of thinking. I hope you can be patient with me.”

I sit up and pull her against my chest, kissing the top of her head. “Of course. As long as it’s me you come home to at the end of the day, I can handle just about anything, wife.” I pause. “You do believe I love you, though, right?”

She blushes. “Yes. You’ve done a pretty good job convincing me of that, even if I don’t quite understand why yet.”

I kiss her forehead, then each cheek, and then the tip of her nose. “Then I’ll just have to keep showing you. Fortunately, it’ll be a lot easier now to leave sticky notes on your refrigerator.”

She smiles. “No more breaking and entering?”

I shrug. “I had a key so there really wasn’t any breaking, just entering.” I hesitate. “You don’t think you’ll ever feel like I’m weighing you down, do you? Like my mom felt about my dad?”

“Jonathan,” she says gently. She puts a hand on either side of my face. “You don’t weigh me down. You ground me when I need it so that when it’s time to fly, we can soar together.”