Chapter 58

On Saturday, Sol, Willow, and Thea have planned to go to a winery “up in the county” that’s having a live band. Sol explains to Shyla that Baltimore City and Baltimore County are two separate things, and the city isn’t a part of the county. Sol’s used to this since she grew up here, but she can see how it may seem a little strange too. After a carb-heavy breakfast and lots of coffee at her favorite quirky place to take visitors, Papermoon Diner, Sol and Shyla pack up a picnic basket full of water, fruit from the produce stand, and snacks. Willow said she was going to make lunch for all of them, but Sol thinks she’ll bring extra just in case one of Willow’s culinary experiments doesn’t exactly work out. Plus, she thinks more food is always merrier!

When they all arrive at the winery, Sol excitedly introduces Shyla to Willow and Thea. They chatter away and are happy to get to know each other. They stake out a spot under a tree. The day’s starting to get really hot, so they try to find a space in the shade, but the competition is fierce. The grapevines all around make such a pretty scene, and the grapes are starting to ripen. They head into the tasting room to find which wines they like. Shyla exclaims over everything. “I feel like I’m in a movie! Or Napa or something! I can’t believe this is right near you but seems like a totally different world! I would be shocked if we have any wineries near me with the weather up there, but I will have to look. That would be amazing!” she says.

Once they pick out their wines to start with, they get settled on their blankets, and Willow and Thea start asking Shyla questions. “How is your mom doing? Tell us everything. What’s it like to meet Sol after all this time? Is she what you expected?”

Shyla laughs. “First of all, cheers! To my new sisters!” she says. “You know I’m including you all whether we share blood or not. I went from being an only child to having four new sisters! Too bad Dove isn’t here. Now tell me what sizes you wear because I’m coming to borrow your clothes!”

“Oh yeah, Shyla is a bit of a style mogul!” Sol adds. She looks over at Thea, who is wearing a body-hugging leopard-print dress today that she had explained was inspired by Eartha Kitt. Sol knows Thea understands about being a style mogul.

“Hey, we all have our passions!” Shyla says laughingly. “Mom is doing okay. She says to tell you all hi and to please come visit soon. I kind of think she’s lying to me, though, and trying to put on a brave face so I don’t worry. I talked to Dad about it and he feels the same way. I mean, we do talk to her doctors too, and I’ve done my own research. There’s a huge community of people who are either on the kidney waiting list or have had a transplant already, so there are a lot of stories out there. But at the end of the day, she’s just really hard to match. That’s why we were so excited when Gordon–that’s my cousin—matched and was willing to do the transplant. You know, all these crazy thoughts are going through my head like, ‘Can I pay someone for their kidney?’ I’m seriously thinking about the market for body parts! I understand now how desperate people do desperate things. I just want her to live as long as possible!”

“Oh wow, yeah, I can see how that puts you in a really hard spot!” says Willow with a concerned look on her face.

Sol’s mind is racing, thinking about Patty, but she tries to keep a neutral face. She thinks she had better keep a close eye on how much wine she drinks so she doesn’t say anything she’ll regret. She didn’t tell anyone the real reason for their argument. She’s angry at her mom, but she doesn’t want to create extra drama. She’s still hoping Patty will change her mind.

Just then, the band starts playing, and the women look around to check out the rest of the crowd. “Hey, we’re all single, right? I’m going to try to find some guys for us!” Willow says.

They all laugh, and Sol feels thankful for her younger sister who always finds a way to cheer her up. The food that Willow brought all turned out delicious too! Sol is so happy that they are all getting along. She did feel a little nervous about them meeting. Sol doesn’t want to feel caught between the two families, and she’s glad that Thea and Willow can now partially share in this new aspect of her life.

The band is mostly playing oldies and when “Shout” comes on, everyone jumps up to dance with the small group that has formed on the grass. They are all crouched down on the “softer” part when someone accidentally bumps into Sol. She loses her balance and falls over onto the grass and looks up to see Mickey.

“What are you doing here?” she blurts out.

“Well, hello to you too!” he replies, laughing.

“Sorry, I just didn’t expect to see you.” Sol tries to recover quickly. “Did you know we were going to be here?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Your mom just said an oldies band was playing and that was enough for me! Maybe one of your sisters told her.” Mickey shrugs.

“Oh. Where are you sitting?” Sol asks neutrally.

“We’re right over there. See your mom? She said she needed a little more time to warm up before dancing. Or did she say, ‘more wine before dancing’?” Mickey laughs at his own joke.

Sol is annoyed but tries not to show it. She doesn’t blame Mickey, but now that she thinks of it, maybe he deserves it too. She looks around for Willow, but the others have disappeared. She wonders if she could have set this whole thing up. She knows it’s not unusual to see people you know out and about around Baltimore. It’s one of the things she loves about it. Even now, she looks over and sees a teacher from one of the schools she works at. But if her sister deliberately put them together, she is definitely going to be angry.

She’s not ready to see her mom, and especially not with Shyla there. But it looks like she doesn’t have much of a choice. She can’t tell them that her mom’s a match for her bio mom’s kidney transplant—at least not yet. She’s going to have to make the most of it. She says a quick prayer, “Help me, Lord.”

She finally locates her sisters and Thea getting another bottle of wine at the tasting bar and joins them. She whispers to Willow, “Did you know Mom is here?”

“What?!” Willow replies. Sol looks at her closely to see if she’s faking it, but it doesn’t seem like she is.

“Did you tell her we were going to be here?”

“No, I didn’t. But you know what? I think the event was listed in an email that Mom forwarded to me. So maybe that’s how it happened.”

“Uh-huh. Well, you know I haven’t talked to her since our fight.”

“Yeah, and what was that fight about anyway? I mean, you’re going to have to talk to her sometime. And don’t you want her to meet Shyla?”

Sol takes a deep breath. She does want her mom and Shyla to meet, but she just wishes she had been able to do it on her own terms. But maybe this is what needs to happen—for her mom to see that Janice has a daughter who cares about her (a daughter besides Sol!) and that her decision to not donate is affecting other people.

She turns to Shyla and tries to act nonchalant. She hasn’t told Shyla she and her mom had a fight, and she doesn’t want to get into the reasons. “Hey, Shyla, guess who I just bumped into…literally! My stepdad, Mickey. He and my mom are here. I guess they heard that there was a band today too!”

“Oh my gosh! Are you serious? I’ve been wanting to meet them! Where are they?” Sol knows there’s no turning back now.

The three of them head over to where Patty and Mickey have their fold-up chairs and what looks like an entire smorgasbord of food on a portable table with an actual cloth tablecloth, Shyla talking excitedly the entire way.

“Hi, girls!” Patty calls out as they approach.

“Hi, Mom, I didn’t expect to see you here,” Sol begins, and then tries to brighten up her voice. “This is Shyla, Janice and Calvin’s daughter.”

Shyla shakes hands with Patty and Mickey with a huge smile on her face. “I’m so excited that we ran into you! I was hoping I’d get to meet you all this weekend, but I didn’t know it would be here! I just met Willow and Thea and am getting all the dirt on Sol! You must have more stories that you can share! Oh, what wine did you all end up getting? We got the Chardonnay and Riesling just because it’s a little warm—okay, blazing hot!—out, but I really want to try them all. We’ll see how far we get! Willow made some delicious chickpea sandwiches, so they are totally spoiling me! It looks like you have a good spread over here too. But how can we sit still when they’re playing these great oldies?! These are the best songs to dance to!”

Shyla finally takes a breath and Patty jumps in. “Shyla, it’s so nice to meet you! We’ve been hearing so much about you. We’re trying a bottle of rosé—here, take a little cup to try it. Do you all have dessert? Mickey made his heavenly mud brownies. Here, take some of those too!”

“Oh wow, thanks! Should we bring our blankets over? I mean, we did get a tiny spot in the shade, but it looks like the sun is moving, and we will be blasted with heat soon.” Shyla is catching on to the Maryland weather.

Sol gives her mother a meaningful look, hoping to communicate that she didn’t want to join with them, but her mother goes for the middle road. “We’d love to have you join us, but it’s okay if you want to just have some girl time too.”

“Aw, you’re so sweet! Well, Willow thinks she can find guys for all of us here somehow, so we’ll see how that goes!” Shyla says.

“I do see a couple of cute guys around, so I hope it works out!” Patty says, laughing. “We’ll see you on the dance floor!”

The women return to their blanket and proceed to eat and drink all the goodies. “Sol, what was that about? You seemed a little icy with your mom,” Shyla says.

“Yeah, sorry, I just wasn’t prepared to run into them. We had an argument,” Sol replies.

“Oh really? About what? You didn’t tell me.”

“Let’s just enjoy our day. I’ll tell you later.”

“Okay, but I’m glad I got to meet them anyway. I was hoping we could squeeze that in this weekend, but I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. I don’t know if you feel like you’re in an awkward position or what.”

“I appreciate it. I mean, the whole past couple months have been kind of awkward and hard. But I’m glad you got to meet them too.”

The sisters spend the rest of the afternoon tasting wine and dancing. They do find some guys to dance with, but they’re old enough to be their dads. It turns out they came with the band and live in Pennsylvania. They all agree that it was still fun, and even though they have been eating all day, they stop at a creamery on the way home for some fresh ice cream. They agree on their plans for the next day, and Sol and Shyla go back to Sol’s place, and after taking Jericho for a quick walk, they both crash on the couch.

“Wine always makes me so sleepy,” Sol says.

“Me too! Why is that?” Shyla says as her eyes close.

They both wake up two hours later, let Jericho out in the shared backyard, and change into pajamas. “Okay, I know you’re a lawyer, but does that make you not want to watch Law and Order? The original one, that is,” Sol asks.

“No, I love Law and Order!”

Sol makes sure to set the alarm for the morning, and they proceed to doze on and off in front of a Law and Order marathon. Sol eventually wakes up and makes her way to bed. She leaves Shyla to decide whether she can drag herself to the guest room or just wants to stay on the couch.