“He’ll miss her when you move.”
It wasn’t a question, but she nodded. “And vice versa. They’re crazy about each other. I promised to keep in touch and send pictures, and I assured her we’d come see her every time we visit the family.”
“So...family. How did they feel about your pregnancy? Your father, the surgeon? How did he react?”
So he remembered Simon’s spontaneous chattering during that dinner with Trevor. “My parents are...very traditional.” To say the least. “They’re only in their late fifties, but both come from conservative Catholic backgrounds. They might have expected something like this from my younger sister, who’s always been a rebel and a rule-breaker, but I think I shocked them. To be honest, they weren’t happy with me at all, and being so career-focused themselves, they worried that I’d put mine in jeopardy. It took them a few months to adjust, but they came around. They didn’t disown me or anything that drastic, but they have a way of making their disappointment known.”
Even in the near darkness, she could see Adam’s frown crease his face, which was still in profile to her. “How do they treat Simon?”
“They aren’t demonstrative people, but they love Simon in their own way, and he knows they do. My sister adores him. He’s very close to his aunt, Maddie, and as I mentioned to you before, she and I have grown much closer since all of this happened.”
Maddie had confessed late one night during Joanna’s pregnancy that their parents’ disapproval of Joanna’s behavior had made her feel more connected to the older sister who had always seemed such an impossibly flawless model to follow. Joanna hadn’t realized until then how pressured Maddie had felt all her life to be more like her dutiful sister. Now that she looked back on their childhoods, she didn’t blame Maddie for rebelling against those expectations, or even for resenting the sibling who’d made her life more difficult. Joanna was fond and proud of the strong, independent woman Maddie had become.
Adam brought her back to the present. “You said your mother is a school administrator?”
He never seemed to forget anything she said, even in passing. “Yes, she’s the principal of a Catholic high school in Atlanta.”
“Another PhD?”
“Yes.”
“And your sister? What does she do?”
“She’s an attorney.”
“Of course.”
Raising her left eyebrow, Joanna added, “A public defender.”
“Huh. I doubt your father likes that.”
She smiled. “I wouldn’t say that’s why she chose that particular job...but I’m not saying it wasn’t part of the reason, either.”
“So, a doctor, a school administrator, a lawyer and a psychologist. Come from a family of underachievers, do you?”
She didn’t quite know how to respond to the odd note in his tone, so she merely smiled again.
He kept up the low-key inquisition. “What else changed for you after Simon? Did your friends stand by you? I guess your dating life took a hit. You, uh, haven’t married or anything along the way, have you?”
“No, I haven’t married. I’ve dated, of course, but not a lot, and never seriously. I didn’t want to risk disrupting Simon’s life unless I knew there was a future in it. And, well, that’s just never happened.”
Adam continued to gaze out at the landscape, though she knew he listened intently. Leaning against the railing, she imitated his posture. Though she wasn’t looking at Adam now, she was so focused on him that she was only dimly aware of the beauty of the moonlight glinting on the ocean waters ahead of them.
“What about you?” she asked, trying to speak casually. “Never married? Come close?”
His reply was equally offhanded. “No to both. Never really thought of myself as the marrying kind.”
She wasn’t sure why the statement gave her a jolt. It wasn’t as if she expected anything from him for herself; the decisions facing them were all about Simon’s best interests.
“It sounds as if you’ve handled this all very well,” he said.
She shrugged. “I’m sure I’ve made my share of mistakes, but I’ve done the best I could. I have no complaints. No regrets. Simon has brought me nothing but joy, and I wouldn’t trade him for anything.”
Perhaps it was the vehemence of her tone that made him finally turn to look at her. She kept her gaze steady, letting him see that she had meant every single word.
After a moment, he nodded. In a gesture that was familiar to her by now, he reached up to the back of his neck. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for what you went through after I left you.”
She moistened her lips, tasting salt and the faint memory of his kisses. “Yes, well, I’m sorry you had to go to war. And that you were so badly injured. Something tells me you were much more alone than I was.”