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I accompanied him inside. Mom came out to greet me and asked me if I wanted anything. When I said no, she furrowed her brow.
“Nothing? Not even a little tea?”
“No, I’m good.”
“Orange juice?”
I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Fine, an orange juice.”
“I knew you wanted one.” She winked.
My father sat in his easy chair and asked me about my recent work.
Mom passed me the juice a few minutes later and sat down with her hands crossed over her legs and a curious expression. “I don’t want to be rude, honey, but why are you here? You’re worrying me.”
“Why does everything make you think of something bad?”
“Believe me, every time they used to call me from your school, I would pray it was for a good reason, a trophy or an unexpected A, but it never happened. I realized I was only ever right when I thought it was something bad. You know I adore you, dear, but…”
“For fuck’s sake, that was forever ago!”
“That mouth!”
“I just wanted to bring you two your anniversary present.” I got up to take the slightly bent envelope out of my pants pocket. My mother’s lower lip twitched when I handed it to her. I waited nervously while she opened it, trying to decipher her expression, but it was almost impossible because she was excited, surprised, but also scared, with a tense face.
“A trip to Rome…” She looked up at me. “You’re giving us a trip to Rome?”
“Yeah.” I shrugged.
“But that’s…so much money…”
“It’s your dream, isn’t it?”
My father looked at me with gratitude.
“I don’t know…I don’t know if we can do it…” Mom put the plane tickets in her lap and brought her hand to her lips. “There’s the café and…other things. I have the cake competition…”
Dad took a deep breath, and I saw determination in his eyes when he turned to her and grabbed her by the cheeks. I wanted to get up and leave, let them have that intimate moment to themselves, but I couldn’t move.
“Honey, look at me. We’re going. And it’s going to be the first trip of many. We’ll dip into our savings account, we’ll get on that plane, and we’ll start a new phase. Are you listening to me? It’s time to move on, Georgia.”
She nodded slowly, almost like a little girl. Sometimes emotions and the way we assimilate them don’t have much to do with age. I thought about that and the different ways we all have of accepting the same thing, loss. I guess in a way life consists of trying to jump over the pits that show up along the way and spend as little time as possible lying on the ground uncertain how to get up.
I stood. My parents insisted I stay a while longer, but instead, I kissed each of them and said we would see each other on Friday night. I knew they needed to be alone, and I…wanted to be back with her.
Maybe because I missed her. Maybe because I’d gotten used to spending every second by her side. Maybe because I knew in a few days, everything would change.
101
_________
Axel
I walked in through the back door and saw Leah’s surfboard on the porch. I smiled at the thought of her feeling the need to get lost in the waves in my absence. I saw her through the door. Her back was turned, and she was kneeling on the floor in front of a big canvas with a palette full of fresh gobs of paint. All she had on was her bikini from earlier, and I caught a spectacular view of her ass.
I took off my shirt and walked over to her. She looked at me over her shoulder and smiled.
“Don’t move,” I said before I knelt down beside her. I hugged her, slid my hands under the fabric covering her breasts, and brushed my thumb against her nipple until she panted and dropped her brush. “I missed you.”
