A/N: I did a ridiculous amount of research for this chapter, but if it seems vague, that's because I've never been to this particular geological formation.
Chapter Thirty: Grand Canyon
Tony flipped the calendar to April, preparing for the month to turn while they were away. Mona had already left for a road trip to Santa Fe with Ricky. When she was called in for her deposition, she skillfully talked the agent into giving her permission to visit neighboring New Mexico. She had decided to make her relationship official and exclusive a few weeks earlier when she realized she hadn't seen or talked to another man in more than a month. They were going to try to make it work, long distance.
It was still early, but Tony and Angela had agreed to hit the road by eight. He packed the cooler with sandwiches, snacks, and drinks, and brought it out to the station wagon, setting it in the middle of the backseat. He went back in expecting to have to yell at his lagging family members, but Angela and the kids were already at the bottom of the stairs with their bags.
They had modified their plans several times, eventually abandoning the whole idea of camping and making a reservation at a motel when meteorologists predicted a nasty cold snap. They were going to spend a half day in Flagstaff, a day exploring the various vista points of the South Rim, and a half day in Sedona.
As they pulled onto the main road, Tony revealed the grand plan. "During this trip, whenever we're in the car or away from other people, you can be yourselves," he said.
The kids looked at each other stunned while Angela glanced over at them. "Mom?" Sam questioned.
"Samantha, you may call me by my name," she said formally, feeling an odd sensation in the pit of her stomach. Could it be regret? Grief? The whole point of this getaway was to reconnect with their true selves. Sam wouldn't be forced to play her daughter for the next few days. Why did it feel so harsh to tell her the good news?
"What about me?" Jonathan asked.
"You can call Tony by his name, darling," Angela replied. It felt strange to reestablish this distance when her son was accustomed to relying on a present and involved father. Father-figure, she corrected herself.
Both of the children sank into their seats feeling a little rejected by their stepparent. "You can talk about your dad, Jonathan," Tony suggested.
"Oh. OK, Tony," Jonathan responded. He couldn't think of a thing to say.
"And you can talk about your mom and your old friends in Brooklyn and Fairfield, Sam," Angela submitted.
"OK, Mom. I mean Angela," Sam replied, confused. After a few minutes, she poked her head between the front seats. "Are we moving back?" she asked.
"Not that we know of," Tony said. "Angela and I just wanted to give you a nice long break from pretending."
"Oh." Sam felt numb. She didn't need to actively pretend after three-and-a-half months. Unlike Tony and Angela, the kids hadn't used their real names at all since leaving their Iowa waystation. They had a few coded conversations around Christmas and mentioned "Ohio" or "home" from time to time, but otherwise, they lived in the present place and time. She stared out the window and watched the scenery as U2's War tape played through the speakers.
Jonathan reacted similarly. He missed very little about Connecticut and had adjusted quickly to his lower socioeconomic status. His father hadn't been around much anyway, and Tony hadn't belonged to him in the same way Bobby belonged to Chris. It took half an hour for him to come up with something worth saying. "Mom, if we're being ourselves, does that mean Tony works for you?"
"No, honey. Tony and I came here as friends, not because he worked for me," Angela tried to explain. She recalled being rudely informed that she was not allowed to enslave her household staff and his child.
"But you're not just friends anymore, right?" Sam interjected.
"Um, no," Angela said quietly. It was difficult enough to understand the odd relationship. They hadn't really discussed it with the kids for months.
"Because you're really sleeping together, and you wouldn't be doing that if you didn't love each other," Sam insisted.
Tony and Angela exchanged a look, agreeing to let Sam's assumption about adult relationships go unchallenged. "We do love each other, sweetheart," he said.
"So you're dating?" Jonathan asked.
"Yes, Tony and I have been dating as ourselves, darling," Angela clarified.
"Hmmmm. Would you keep dating if we went home?" he asked.
"We're committed to each other," Tony said, not really answering the question. "And to both of you, as well."
"So you'd stay married?" Jonathan clarified.
Tony looked at Angela. "I guess we'd have to get married, honey. If you want to, I mean."
"Are you hypothetically proposing to me, Tony?" she inquired with a smirk.
"Would that be alright with you, Sam?" he asked.
"Sure," she said flippantly. "Maybe you could hypothetically conceive a hypothetical sibling for us while you're at it," she said, killing the conversation.
The mood lightened as the landscape changed, and terse exchanges turned chatty. They took their time, opting for the Prescott route on the way up and stopping at a Native American and cowboy museum. The docent gave them directions to Watson Lake Park, where they saw the strangest rock formations in a beautiful pool of blue water. A fellow tourist was nice enough to take a picture of the four of them together in front of a sign for the National Forest.
The family reached Flagstaff feeling fairly tuckered out. It was cold at higher elevation, with a chance of snow overnight. Jonathan wanted to build a snowman, but he was only going to get a few snowballs if luck was on his side. Tony parked by the motel office and went in by himself. "I'm checking in for two nights. Moretti," he told the clerk.
"Two queen nonsmoking. That'll be eighty-three thirty-one with tax," he said, waiting for Tony to open his wallet. "Pool is still closed for winter. Ice machine right outside the office works, but the one down the hall is busted." He took Tony's hundred dollar bill and held it up to the light. "Sixteen sixty-nine is your change. Room twelve. Put this pass in your windshield," he advised, sliding over a key attached to a plastic disk and a yellow card.
"Thanks, buddy." Tony handed the key to Angela, set the card on the dash, and drove to the other side of the parking lot. She unlocked the room and looked in. It wasn't any worse than their Iowa motel had been, and it was certainly better than the Hidden Hollow Motel. Everyone brought their belongings inside and stretched out on the beds. Tony took the spot closest to the door, with Jonathan next to him, while Angela and Sam shared the other bed. They all managed to doze off in their jeans and puffer jackets.
Angela was the first to wake up. She stayed still, just watching Sam breathe. The girl was still solidly thirteen, though Jen would be celebrating her fourteenth birthday next Saturday. Pretty soon she'd be crushing on boys and struggling to balance school, sports, and friends. Then she'd be dating and deciding on college. Figuring out who she was and what she wanted to do with her life. It wasn't fair that she'd been torn from everything she'd just started to take for granted. Angela heard her take a deeper breath and saw her blink her eyes open.
"Hi Mom," she said, snuggling closer into Angela's quilted coat. "Do you mind if I call you that, Angela? I've gotten used to it," she said, sleepily.
"Of course, baby," she responded, feeling like the luckiest person in the world. She hoped, if there was an afterlife, that Marie approved. They drifted off again, tucked into each other's arms.
Next, Jonathan awakened and sat up in bed. Tony was snoring and his mom and Sam were sleeping right through it. He got up and went to the bathroom, hearing a commotion on the other side of the door while he peed.
Tony bolted up, the absence of anyone in his bed triggering a rush of adrenaline. "Where's Chris?" he shouted before he realized there was light coming out from under the bathroom door. His performance alerted Angela and Sam.
"Dad, calm down. Jonathan's in the bathroom," Sam deduced, though she hadn't seen him go in. The toilet flushed and the tap opened. When the boy stepped out, everyone was staring at him.
"Can we get breakfast for dinner?" Jonathan asked innocently. They had munched on string cheese and oranges in the car that morning, while he was used to starting the day with a hot meal.
"Ooh, yeah!" Sam cried.
Angela had noticed a diner on their way into town. "Fine with me. Tony, do you think we can walk the kids to that Denny's? It must be five or six blocks away."
"Sure, babe," he answered. "Now, we're all going to use our new names, just in case," he reminded the kids. They had signed the museum guestbook as the Moretti Family earlier in the day and managed not to slip up, switching back and forth.
Sam and Jonathan ran half a block ahead as Tony and Angela strolled along holding hands. "Think it's going to snow?" he asked her. "I really want to have a snowball fight," he confessed.
"Maybe. It's getting pretty cold," she observed, tucking her hands into her pockets. Tony moved to hold her arm.
"Someday we'll go on a real vacation together," he dreamed aloud. "Not for a wedding or work, just because we want to," he clarified.
"I never stayed in motels before you," she teased him with a grin. "Kind of a shame we haven't made use of them."
"I never stayed anywhere decent until I started traveling for work," he said. "God, I can't wait to get you in a hotel robe. Someday," he promised.
"What are you going to do?" she asked, eager to hear his fantasy.
"I'm going to peel it off you an inch at a time and kiss every sliver of new skin I see," he vowed. "That's all you get right now. Don't want to spoil the surprise."
"I'm looking forward to it," she assured him. "You know, with the way work is going, I can't imagine that I won't get the AD role on a permanent basis. We should be able to afford a little getaway soon."
"Look, even if you don't get it, I can still get more hours. I'm not registering for school until next month," he said.
"You don't think I'll get it?" she asked in shock.
"I didn't say that. I'm just saying we can work through it either way. You're bound to find something even better if the district doesn't come through."
"Let's drop it for now," she said. The kids were already in the vestibule of the restaurant, and she wanted to concentrate on them instead of fighting with Tony.
x
"It's snowing!" Jonathan shouted, as he pulled the curtain away from the window of their room.
"It's 6am, pal," Tony chastised him.
"I'm getting dressed and going out there," he insisted. The family dragged themselves out of bed and dressed in the previous day's clothes. They pulled on their coats and tramped across the parking lot to the mild slope behind the motel where yesterday, they had seen grass. There was about an inch of snow on the ground. They gathered it in their bare hands and hurled wet snowballs at each other in the dawn light. After a few minutes, with their children entertaining themselves, Angela leaned against Tony, hugging his waist.
"This is what it's all about, isn't it?" she asked, gesturing toward the two opponents. "I always wanted to give Jonathan a sibling."
"Marie and I wanted three," he shared. "She was real happy with just Sam, though. I think she might have decided to stop with one anyway."
"I wish I'd met her," she said, surprising him. "She must have been a really special person."
"Nick is with her. I have to believe that," Tony told her, not for the first time.
"Do you think she'd be upset about me pretending to be Sam's mother?" Angela whispered.
"No. Who says you're pretending about that, anyway?" Tony argued.
"She asked if she could still call me Mom and I told her she could," she said quietly. Her heart was pounding, and she looked up wide-eyed for approval.
"I'm not surprised. You know, she told me how much she liked you the day after we moved in."
"She did? I thought she only started to respect me when I got into that catfight," she laughed.
"No, she was impressed with your house and your job at first, but I think when she saw what a great mom you were, she wanted in."
"But she didn't think I was pretty," Angela said, referring to the girl's attempt to curry favor at their initial meeting.
"Awww, she was just buttering you up with what I told her in the van."
"You told her to tell your potential employer she was pretty? That seems like a risk."
"No, I told her I thought you were pretty."
"But you'd never seen me before. That we knew of," she said, thinking of their meeting at camp.
"Your mother showed me a picture of you and Jonathan, but it didn't do you justice. You're much more beautiful in person."
Sam and Jonathan had given up on their snowball fight to watch their parents converse and flirt. "It's so romantic," she sighed, as her dad kissed a snowflake off his mom's upper lip.
"Why would anyone want to taste the inside of someone else's mouth?" he asked with a sneer when the kiss deepened.
"You'll get it when you're older."
x
After walking around the college campus and going to another museum, the family was weary of public art, old buildings, and the history of logging. Jonathan was more interested in the steam engine that sat motionless on its tracks, preserved for posterity. They drove up to the South Rim and stopped at the first vista.
"This is pretty cool," Sam admitted.
"It's amazing," Angela said before launching into a speech about how the formation had been there for billions of years. There was something about the power of wind and water and the molten core of Earth, too, but nobody was listening. They were too caught up in the view.
"She learned that yesterday," Jonathan said under his breath.
A handful of vistas later, things were beginning to look the same at every stop. They skipped a few, got a photo at Hermit's Rest, and headed back to the village for burgers and fries. The geology museum corrected a few of Angela's misconceptions, and they bought souvenirs at the visitor's center. The kids posed in front of the watchtower, and they saw the sun set from an eastern overlook before going back to their Flagstaff base.
Jonathan fell asleep in the backseat, and Sam zoned out listening to music with her eyes closed. Tony reached over and found Angela's hand as he drove the straight highway. "I'm glad we were able to do this," he told her.
"Me too. I don't think I ever would have made it here from the east coast," she agreed.
"Is she asleep?" he asked, pointing his thumb over his shoulder at Sam.
"Yeah, I think so," Angela guessed. She had a feeling the discussion was about to get heavy.
"Honey, it's not that I don't believe in you," he said, resuming their discussion from the night before. "You have to know I do."
"It's Nate. You think he'll ask for something I can't give him," she sighed.
"Something you won't give him," he corrected.
"I don't need his help. I'm perfectly capable of making my own case for promotion."
"Actually, you do need his help. You can't fall back on everything you've done in your career. Jess Moretti isn't half the talented professional Angela Bower is."
"What are you saying, Tony?" she asked incredulously.
"Maybe you should let him think there's a chance."
"I can't believe you of all people would tell me that," Angela hissed. After all the jealousy, he was reversing course. "You want me to lead him on so I can get a promotion?"
"No, I want you to avoid shutting him down so he doesn't sabotage you."
Sam stirred in the back seat, and Tony and Angela exchanged a look.
x
There was no more snow in Flagstaff. The next morning, they checked out of the motel and packed up the car, stopping in Sedona for several hours. Angela insisted that they visit a vortex.
"You don't believe in that mumbo jumbo, do you?" Tony asked her.
"I believe there are things we don't understand," she clarified. She navigated to a parking lot and pointed out a short trail. There were no other cars around. They crunched along the red dirt until they reached an open area. The view was gorgeous and quite different from what they'd seen the day before. All four members of the family were stunned into silence.
"We're not going to be here forever," Sam said out of the blue. There were tears streaming down her face. "I'm going to have to leave Natalie just like I left Marci and Bonnie," she predicted, "but she's going to be ok. And someday I'll see all of them again."
Everyone was bewildered by Sam's seemingly spiritual experience. Although nobody felt exactly the same healing energy, her openness incited others to share.
"I didn't know if I could go from being a lowly housekeeper to leading this family, but you've all given me strength," Tony started. "Jonathan, I can't believe how you've adapted. You left everything you've ever known, skipped a grade, and found new friends, and you made it look like a cakewalk. Sam, you've been so helpful and kind and mature. You're a wonderful teammate, and an even better daughter. And Angela, I've always been in awe of you, ever since I was eleven. You sacrificed everything to hold our family together when I barely realized we were a family in the first place. You can do anything you set your mind to, and you decide to do this? The way I love you is something I never expected to experience."
"I thought being poor would be hard, but we still have everything we need," Jonathan said, trying to express himself in a way that suited the atmosphere.
"I thought I'd miss being important," Angela said. "But I used to spend all my energy trying to impress people I don't care about. I never loved advertising for its own sake. I loved being really good at something that society values. I thought I'd feel whole if I made enough money and drove the right car, if I was thin enough and had the right clothes. Living here with my family, though, I feel more at peace than ever."
Time seemed to stand still as the four absorbed the subtle electromagnetic force. Without speaking, they agreed to return to the car and proceed back to Mesa.