Or like I’ve just come back from a long holiday.
“Are you nervous?” Julian asks as we hit the road.
Thinking about it now, I have to say I am. “Yes. I don’t know why. It’s not like she’ll be there, but you know when you’ve had this idea in your mind about something all your life, and then you finally come face-to-face with it . . .” I glance over at him, and he nods, casting a quick glance at me.
“You don’t want to be disappointed.”
“Yes. Exactly that. Not that I can imagine I will be, but I wonder if the place will offer me the calm and solace I’ve been expecting.”
“It’s what you make of it, not what it makes of you.” Julian’s words slowly sink in, and it leaves me with a question I need to know the answer to.
“Where is your mother?”
His expression changes for a moment before he smiles sadly. “She was killed when I was young. Her plane crashed on her way back from China, where she was meeting with her business partners.”
“I’m so sorry, Julian.” Even though Julian said it was when he was a boy, I can’t imagine that pain and heartache ever goes away.
“I think that was the moment my father broke. He was good to me, don’t get me wrong, but I know that he loved her very much. He always had photos of her around the house and spoke about her often.”
“That’s good. Do you have photos of her?”
“In my wallet, just a photo of me on vacation with my folks, and she’s holding me up on the beach. She had one of those wide-brimmed hats on.” His expression is filled with sadness and happiness that seems to meld together, and I want to hold him. Listening to him talk about her makes me happy, and I’m ecstatic that at least he has happy memories of her.
“What about you?”
“Well, my mother was a single parent, and I remember every moment I spent with her. Just how much she loved me, how she would tell me she was proud of me for things I achieved. I know she would be happy that I made it here.”
“I remember you said she wanted to bring you down here.”
I nod. “Yes, she wanted to show me the city that held her heart. But we never got a chance. She was sick before we could plan the trip and then, not long after, she was diagnosed and I lost her.”
“I think that is worse,” Julian says as he takes a left, and soon, we’re stopped against the sidewalk, and I know we’ve arrived at the house, but I can’t turn my attention away from him.
“What is worse?”
“Watching her get sick, seeing her take her last breath,” he tells me, and the lump in my throat makes it difficult to swallow my emotions. “Come on.” Julian takes my hand and presses a kiss to my knuckles before he exits the car. He rounds the front before opening my door and helping me from the seat.
We’re standing on a road lined with beautiful homes. Nothing like his house, but they’re gorgeous with architecture from years ago, still in pristine condition.
“These are all so stunning.”
“The people tend to look after the properties, and especially those who have the porches out front. Normally, you’d find a road like this filled with tourists taking photos.”
Julian takes my hand, and we walk down the road. It’s only a few houses down when he stops and turns me around. We’d been facing the wrong way. When my eyes land on the familiar house, I know in my heart this is it. Nothing has changed. The photo and the reality are one and the same. My chest tightens. I pull out the photo I’ve kept in my purse since my mother died, and I knew this is where I would one day end up and hold it against the backdrop of the home in front of me.
“It’s a carbon copy,” Julian says. “Do you want to see if you can go inside?”
Do I? “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t want to bother the owners. No, this is enough. Just seeing it, knowing it’s real.” He nods silently and then stands there for a long while beside me. We just look at the house, and I can almost see my mother when she was younger. As if a movie is playing out in my mind, I watch her racing down the street, playing with friends. I imagine her coming home from dates, and her dad waiting outside for her. Everything she did was on this street— the most formative years of her life.
Tears sting my eyes, and I have to blink back the emotion.Chapter 27JulianNea has been different over the past few days. She’s attentive, affectionate, and I’ve found myself falling more and more each day I spend with her. I don’t want to rush into something, but I would like her to move in with me. The need to have her close has taken over my thoughts, and each day she comes to work, I want to broach the question, but I chicken out when we actually sit down together.