Louisville 2006
It was time to leave. Randa and Susie had told Cressida about the opera house and the Honeycutt connection, which had made Cressida cry a little.
“For Richard,” she'd explained. “And Mother.”
Randa had promised they would come back to Louisville for the next big family gathering. There was more catching up for them to do, they all agreed—years of it—but for the moment they were all talked out. Even Susie had had it. Besides, Randa and Susie had a plane to catch. Cressida walked them out to their rental car with advice about highway traffic and the best route to the airport, and kissed them both good-bye. But suddenly, Randa realized she couldn't leave. Not yet.
“Cressida, when I was a kid …”
Her mouth was dry. Why is this so hard? It happened a million years ago.
She stumbled on. “My father was on the road with a play …” She ran out of steam again.
“Yes, ” her aunt said carefully. “Barefoot in the Park. It was given in a dinner theater in Indianapolis. My family and I were supposed to see it.”
Just let it go. It doesn't matter anymore.
“Why didn't you come?”
“We did, dear. We drove over to Indianapolis with both of the children. But Richard had given me the wrong date. We were a week late.”
Oh God.
“I should have checked with the box office, but I was so excited to hear from him, you see.” Cressida's eyes were starting to fill up again. “I should have known …”
I should have too. All those years, I should have known.
“We tried phoning the company in New York that produced the play to find out where you were going next. We thought we might catch you. But they said Richard wasn't working in the show anymore. They did have a home phone number for him, and we tried to call it …”
“But we had moved,” Randa finished for her.
“I probably could have tried harder to find him, but I didn't want to seem like I was pressuring him, you know? I thought when he didn't call me, that maybe he was embarrassed because he'd made a mistake in the date. Or maybe it hadn't been a mistake, and he'd changed his mind about seeing me …” She trailed off.
“He hadn't,” Randa said softly. “Really.”
Her aunt looked at her for a long moment. “I'm sorry, Randa. It must have been so hard on you back then.”
“Thank you for coming to the play” Randa said.