Family Ties

I didn’t want to start an argument, especially when we were trapped in a plane, so I stopped her the only way I knew how: I kissed her.

“Relax,” I said. “Sorry I’m brooding. I’ll get over it. I just get frustrated when things don’t go like they’re supposed to.”

“I’m so sorry about the ticket. I completely forgot.”

“That’s okay. I just have to remind myself that you’re total chaos sometimes. I’m all about order.”

It’s the idea that opposites are really part of the same whole. You can’t have one without the other.

They’re the ‘cloudy side’ and the ‘sunny side.’ You’re the cloudy, by the way. And I’m the sunny, of course.” She beamed at me and then chattered away.

At least she wasn’t flustered anymore. That was something.

Christy’s ticket mix-up made life interesting at the other end of the trip as well. We arrived in San Diego and no one was there to pick us up, since we

hadn’t told them about the flight change. I had to take some of the blame, though, since I hadn’t even thought of calling them during our layover in Atlanta.

We found a pay phone. Christy glossed over the real cause and made it sound like we simply had to take a later flight.

“Don’t get upset,” she begged me after she hung up.

“But you totally just lied to your mom.”

“I didn’t lie. I just… left out a few details.”

“And how is that not a lie?”

“The same way you left out a few details about talking to Gina when I thought it was Sara.”

“Whatever. I’ll tell them… eventually.”

“They’ll find out anyway when you tell them how much the new ticket cost.

I mean, that was a pretty large check you wrote.”

“Oh, that?” She waved it away. “My dad’ll take care of it.”

My eyebrows shot up.

“He may yell a little, but he always fixes things.”

But a niggling part of me remembered Trip and Wren’s Halloween argument about money. Once again, I reminded myself that it wasn’t my problem.

It didn’t occur to me that Trip had probably told himself the same thing.

Christy’s brother Danny picked us up instead of her mother.

He pulled up to the curb and climbed from the driver’s side of a big Cadillac.

“Birdy-bird,” he called over the roof of the car.

She squealed in surprise. “Danny!”

“Mom sent me instead. I hope that’s okay.”

“Lemme pop the trunk and I’ll help you with the bags,” he said to me. He reached into the car and then joined us on the sidewalk. He gave Christy a hug and shook my hand. “Good to see you again. She’s hard to say no to,

“Oh, I think I do.