Grinning, I found myself curious. “How many selfies did you take?”
“Oh, like, a few every day. But my boyfriend at the time—husband now—was always asking for them, so I think it just became a habit.”
Ah!
AH HA!
Of course!
“Thank you,” I said, already unlocking my phone and switching the camera around to face me. “You just gave me an exceedingly excellent and exploitable idea.”
Abram was asleep when his parents and I arrived at the hospital.
Wait. Let me back up for a second, because I’m sure you’re wondering. Seeing Mr. and Mrs. Harris for the first time in over two years was significantly less awkward than I’d feared it would be.
Pamela stepped onto the jet, saw me, walked over, and gave me a hug. “I’m so glad you’re coming, but I worry for you, Mona. Abram says you’re not sleeping enough.”
Perplexed by her (shouldn’t she be mad at me for lying to her about who I was years ago?), her words (like we knew each other extremely well and often discussed such things), and my body’s reaction to both (which was to immediately return her embrace without nary a flinch), the profuse apology I’d planned stuck in my throat.
What is happening? What has just happened?
Stepping back, she held my shoulders and regarded me. “I also want to tell you how proud we were when we saw you on TV over the summer, giving those corrupt Washington jerks—excuse my French—a piece of your mind. But, honey, you look tired, and I don’t mean that to be insulting, I mean that because I’m concerned. Here—” she let me go and reached into her bag “I brought muffins. This one is lemon poppyseed. Or, if you like, you can have blueberry.”
“I like the blueberry,” Mr. Harris said, standing a little bit behind his wife, giving me a matter-of-fact look. “She uses the fresh ones.”
“It’s because this one—” she pointed her thumb at Mr. Harris and chuckled merrily “—built me that greenhouse in the back. I can get blueberries in the winter. Isn’t that something? Oh, I also brought you a de-stress mix of jojoba oil, lavender, and rose.” Looping her arm through mine, she steered me toward the back of the plane and to a built-in couch. “They just added this couch last year, it’s much nicer than sitting in the other seats.”
She took a breath, so I took my chance.
“Mr. Harris, Mrs. Harris, I wanted to apologize for lying to your family when I attended your birthday party several years ago. I have no excuse, and I—”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. You do have an excuse, a good one too, and Abram explained everything. It’s like roses. You’re still you. No matter what we call you, you’re still just as sweet. Now, I’ve been doing some steam distillation, and you know it takes thousands of roses to make just a bit of essential oil, but I got so many blooms the last two years, I managed a few drops.”
And so it went.
Slightly shell-shocked, I spoke of essential oil extraction techniques with Pamela—as well as various other topics of interest to us both—while Mr. Harris ate his blueberry muffin and read the newspaper. All the while I fretted.
Their forgiveness felt too easy. Who forgives this easily? No one I knew. Definitely not the world. People don’t just forgive anymore. Forgiveness, like everything else, needed to be earned, hard fought, won after proving oneself with huge, unwavering acts of self-punishment and atonement.