“Here.” She thrust a towel at him before the beverage could spill onto the floor.
“Thank ya kindly, ma’am.”
Jessie laughed again and handed him a couple of glasses once he sat back down.
Jack poured her a glass, then filled his own before returning the bottle to the chilled bucket. He lifted his glass and said, “To new friends.”
“I can drink to that,” Jessie said before clicking her glass to his. She sipped the wine and relaxed back into the seat next to him. Her gaze moved to the roof to catch the bottom view of a jet taking off. “You know, I’ve seen people park here all the time, but I never once thought to do it myself.”
“It’s amazing how they keep those hunks of metal up in the air.”
“I don’t get it, either. I’m surprised there aren’t more problems with them.”
“It’s still the safest way to travel,” Jack said.
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve only been on a plane once.”
“Really?” That was hard to believe.
“I was twelve; Monica, my sister, was nine. Mom met some guy who told her he was visiting from Seattle. She’d fallen head over heels for him in the course of two weeks during the summer.”
“I take it your mom’s divorced.”
“A few times over,” Jessie told him, without even a hint of a frown on her face. She was obviously used to her mom’s ways. “Anyway, this guy gave her a line about how he’d love to be with her and us kids, but he couldn’t live in Southern California. He had a business in Seattle to run anyway. He couldn’t ask her to leave here and drag us girls up north…blah, blah, blah.”
“Then what?”
“Mom bought us tickets, packed our bags, and took us to Seattle.” She shook her head at the memory.
“I take it that didn’t go over with Mr. Blowhard.”
“No. Mr. Blowhard’s wife wasn’t too fond of opening the door and finding us there.”
“Ouch.”
“Monica and I never even had a chance to feel the Pacific Northwest rain they always complain about. Mom took us to the airport, where we stayed for nearly two days until we could get a flight home.”
“Two days? Why so long?”
“My mother didn’t have the foresight to buy round-trip tickets or even have enough money to buy our way home. A friend of hers wired money, but we still had to wait on standby in the middle of the night to catch a cheap flight. It was a mess.”
“Kind of takes the fun out of flying,” he told her.
Jessie sipped her wine again. “What about you? Your parents still married?”
“Ah, no.”
“You don’t sound too sure.”
“Well, my mom took off when I was in my early teens. She kept in touch, in her own way—a phone call here, a letter there. She kept my dad on the hook until my sister graduated high school, then she filed for a divorce.” He remembered that day. “It was June. The weather in Texas was starting to heat up. My dad was working too many hours. Then one day I walked in and found my dad sitting in the den, drinking whiskey.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad.”
“It was one in the afternoon on a Wednesday.”
“Oh. I take it that was out of character for your father.”
Jack saw true concern lace Jessie’s features when he glanced over at her. “My dad works hard,” he said in a low voice.
“It sounds like you admire your father a lot.”
“I do. He worked hard and managed two kids without the help of a mom. When my mom was around, he worked harder than anyone I knew. We didn’t see him very much, which might be why she left him. I don’t know. I don’t remember her complaining. Once she left, he was around more. He took taking care of my sister and me to another level. A better level. Anyway, Mom filed for a divorce, and now we exchange Christmas cards. Sometimes not even that.” Last year she was living in Italy with a guy named Pierre or some other god-awful name.
“Your dad took it hard, didn’t he?” Jessie set her glass aside and sat farther back in the seat.
“I think he always wanted her back. Even after leaving him for all those years, he would have taken her back without even an ounce of explanation as to why she left.” Which was sad beyond words. Why anyone would worship his mother was beyond any reason that Jack could see.
“Did your dad ever try to explain what happened with them? Why she left?”
“No. He’s never talked about it. The only thing I came up with is that she didn’t love him. He took care of her financially; she didn’t really want for anything. They didn’t fight. But what did I know…I was a kid.”
“Has your father remarried?”
Jack shook his head. “No.”
“He must still love your mom.”
He thought so, too. He knew now it had been a one-way love from the beginning.
“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t even get a card from my dad at Christmas.” Jessie shifted in her seat, kicked her shoes off, and tucked her legs under her.
“Really?”
“Not a word since he walked out on us.”
“Why did he leave?”
Jessie’s eyes gazed beyond the moonroof as she spoke, her thoughts deep in the past. “He wanted nothing to do with parenthood or monogamy. My mom said he cheated on her from the beginning, but she was willing to look beyond it.”