The Code for Love and Heartbreak - Jillian Cantor Page 0,54
I feel bad I waited so long to FaceTime her. “I was working on a paper all day, and I haven’t eaten anything, and now I’m trying to look up flights...” Her voice breaks, and she wipes at her cheeks with the back of her hand.
I was freaking out about Dad, and I was only twenty minutes away from him when I found out what happened. And I had George to drive me to him. I can’t imagine how upset Izzy must be all the way across the country.
“Iz,” I say, wanting to calm her down. “It’s okay. He’s okay. You don’t need to come home.” I explain to her what the doctor told me, about how putting in the stent is a minor procedure that will open up Dad’s artery, and how he’ll have to rest for a few weeks and work on his exercise and diet, but that he’ll make a full recovery. This was a warning, and he got lucky. We all got lucky.
“But what am I doing here three thousand miles away?” she shrieks.
“2,764 miles,” I say softly, correcting her.
She frowns and keeps talking. “I should be with Dad. And what about you? Are you all right?”
I think of all the times last summer I begged her to stay, how I thought I didn’t know how to exist without her. But so far this year, I’ve managed pretty okay. I do wish Izzy were here, but not because I need her to take care of me. Just because it would be really nice to hug her right now. “Iz,” I tell her. “I can take care of myself just fine. And Dad will be home from the hospital tomorrow, and I’ll take care of him, too. You don’t have to worry. Really.”
There’s a weird silence on Izzy’s end, and she stares at me for a minute with her mouth open, not saying anything. She plays with her hair, nervously redoing her bun. Finally, she says, “But you’ll call me if anything changes... The second anything changes.”
I nod. “I’ll make sure Dad FaceTimes you tomorrow when he gets home from the hospital, okay? Go finish your paper. Don’t fail out of college. That would really not be good for Dad’s heart.”
“I’m not going to fail out of college!” she shrieks again.
I smile and shrug. And I reach my finger up to my phone screen, letting it linger on Izzy’s sad pretty face for just a moment before we hang up.
Chapter 19
The plan all along has been that Izzy and John would stay in California for Thanksgiving, since they’ll be home for Christmas break just two and half weeks later. But after Dad’s health scare, Izzy calls him and says she wants him to buy her a last-minute ticket to fly home for Thanksgiving. Dad assures her he really is fine. She’ll see him in a few weeks over Christmas break, and he tells her it’s too expensive, and too much travel, for her to fly home twice in such a short period of time. “That’s just the way things go when you go to school so far away,” Dad tells her. He doesn’t sound upset about it, more matter-of-fact, and I can’t help thinking about how if I get into Stanford he might be saying the same exact thing to me next year. How can Izzy and I possibly both be that far from him?
Dad’s health aside, I’m still sad about a Thanksgiving without Izzy, and without our pie bakeoff. Every year, for as long as I can remember, Izzy and I have each secretly found and baked a different pie recipe for Thanksgiving. We don’t tell Dad whose is whose, and then we make him eat a slice of both and declare the winner. I’ve won the past three years. Last year, I made a macadamia nut white chocolate chip, while Izzy stayed more basic with a cream cheese pumpkin pie. Chocolate and nuts always beats pumpkin in Dad’s book—it was almost like she wasn’t even trying.
Dad asks me a few days before Thanksgiving what pie I plan to bake this year. He’s off from work until after New Year’s to recover, and he’s been working on eating healthier, so he’s actually been home after school and cooking plant-based dinners for us every night, too. It’s been kind of nice not to come home to an empty house, and to have an actual home-cooked vegetarian meal.