Page 44 of Take Two

I run my hand lightly along the banister as we move deeper into the house, fingertips trailing across the smooth, warm wood.

“They did more than take care of it.” The words leave me in something close to awe. I’ve stood inside more polished spaces than I can count, sprawling mansions with no soul, streamlined penthouses that photograph beautifully and feel like nothing, entire rooms that appear to have been assembled from a mood board down to the fringe on the throw cushions. This is something else entirely.

His smile appears briefly at the corners of his mouth, unhurried and unperformed. “Yeah. They really did.”

We both pause as he lets me take it in at my own pace, neither of us in any rush.

“Come on,” he says a moment later. “I’ll give you the tour.”

I nod and fall into step behind him, or at least I try to. The problem is that every few feet, something stops me cold.

The hallway walls are lined with photographs, and not the kind that occupy space for the sake of occupying space. These aren’t the carefully curated, formally arranged portraits that covered every available surface in my parents’ house, everything matted, framed, and approved before it was ever allowed near a wall. These are candid. Unposed. Joyful in the kind of way that doesn’t care whether anyone is watching.

A younger Jamie stands beside a slightly younger woman I can only assume is Tazja, both of them laughing so hard neither appears capable of looking directly at the camera. A few frames farther down, I spot who has to be Jacques, younger here, a little gangly and awkward in the way teenagers so often are, standing between his siblings while someone just off camera has clearly said something that sent all three of them sideways.

I stop entirely, just looking at it. Looking at this unguarded snapshot of the man I’m slowly discovering is far more layered than I ever gave him credit for. A man I genuinely want to keep knowing, to keep unravelling. At least for the time I have left here.

Jamie’s voice carries from somewhere farther down the hallway.

“. . .and that’s the guest room.”

I glance up, but he’s already halfway ahead of me. When he notices I haven’t followed, he backtracks and finds my gaze fixed on the photographs.

“That one was Jacques’ graduation.” He tilts his chin toward one frame in particular and my eyes settle on it.

The whole family is crowded together on a front lawn. Nobody is standing straight or holding still for the camera. My mother would have had a quiet but devastating coronary at the sheer lack of composed presentation. Someone is mid-blink, arms flung wide. Someone else is laughing so hard their face is barely visible. The whole thing is gloriously, unapologetically imperfect.

The picture shouldn’t stand out more than the others, but it does. Julian and I were never afforded that kind of freedom in front of a lens.

“You all look happy.” The words leave me before I’ve thought them through, but they’re true. These walls say everything about the people who surround this man, about what he comes home to.

Jamie’s expression softens, the corner of his mouth lifts in a quiet smile as he glances back at me.

“We usually are,” he replies, simply and matter-of-fact, as though happiness isn’t something they labor toward but something that just runs through the foundation of them.

All I can manage is a nod as we continue deeper into the house.

The farther we go, the more photographs I find.

A young Jamie standing beside his father after a hockey game, both of them windswept and grinning. Family barbecues in full summer heat. Thanksgivings crowded around a table that looks barely large enough to hold everyone. Christmas mornings with the whole lot of them in matching pajamas. Again, matching pajamas. Then a photograph of Jamie holding the Stanley Cup aloft while what appears to be half his family surges around him in pure, unrestrained chaos.

The trophy is there, but it isn’t the point. The point is the people pressing in around it, arms around shoulders, faces tipped back in laughter, the whole scene spilling slightly out of frame.

That tells me more about him than the trophy ever could.

The kitchen stops me all over again.

White cabinets stretch toward the ceiling above dark countertops, and modern appliances sit comfortably alongside original architectural details in a way that feels entirely deliberate, updated without surrendering any of the history. A large island anchors the center of the room, surrounded by stools that carry the quiet evidence of actual, regular use. Against the far wall, anchoring the entire space with obvious authority, sits a six-burner stove that belongs in a professional kitchen.

“You cook.” I say it as a statement, because the room makes the argument for itself.

Jamie pauses, turns, and crosses his arms over his broad chest. His white t-shirt pulls tight around his biceps with the movement, and I am forced to perform a swift, quiet act of self-discipline. “What kind of accusation is that?”

I laugh, startled. “It’s not an accusation.” I shake my head, because I genuinely didn’t frame it as a question. The room simply doesn’t look like it’s there for appearances.

“It sounded like one.” He gives me a frown that dissolves almost immediately into a small, reluctant smile. God, this man.

I gesture broadly around the room. “This kitchen gets used. That’s all I’m saying. No offence intended.” I hold both hands up in a gesture of surrender.