chapter 30 #2
even the handsome neighbor, who was married, would want her.
“I felt horrible after it happened,” he continued. “And what made it all worse was that she kept coming over, trying to interest
me again. I was afraid she’d destroy me!”
“Did you tell your wife about what happened?”
“I’m ashamed to say I didn’t. I looked at it as a mistake. It wasn’t an ongoing affair. I didn’t want to crush my wife because
of fifteen hormone-fueled minutes. I knew how it would look. It still looks that way! Instead, I convinced Cindy to move, and we put our house up for sale. She thought we were moving because
I was tired of the neighborhood. But I was doing it just to escape Sabrina. I didn’t want to let my desire for an eighteen-year-old
girl rip my family apart.”
“So you moved away.” Charlotte gripped her phone tighter. “Was that before or after you found out she was pregnant?”
“I never learned about the pregnancy. Before my house sold, Sabrina graduated from high school and was simply . . . gone.
I didn’t know where she went. I never dreamed she was pregnant, and I certainly wasn’t sure, if she was pregnant, that the
child would be mine. I’d only slept with her once, and she claimed to be on the Pill.
“Besides, I knew from how she’d behaved with me that she was very sexually active. But I heard whisperings around the neighborhood—things
her mother, Kathy, was saying to various people. I even ran into Kathy at the grocery store one day, and the scathing look
she gave me let me know what she thought.
I knew Sabrina would never have told her, feared the gossip was true.
So I went over to her house to speak with her.
If Sabrina was pregnant, I knew I had to come clean, risk the loss of everything I had over one stupid encounter.
But Kathy insisted there was no baby and slammed the door in my face. ”
“She didn’t want your financial support?”
“I think she was embarrassed by her daughter. They never got along. Kathy was a very religious woman, felt there was a right
way and a wrong way and Sabrina never seemed to choose the right way.
“Kathy also knew my wife. I think she acted to protect her and my children. I can’t be sure. But something about the way everything
happened left me uneasy. For years I tried to believe that what I did that day would never come back to haunt me. I ran with
that because my kids were still young, and I couldn’t bear what the truth might do to them. But as the years passed, I couldn’t
help wondering if I had another child out there, and if that child might need me. So I finally told Cindy about what happened,
and she supported me in submitting my DNA, just in case.”
Charlotte had thought such terrible things about this man. But now that she’d heard his story—now that he just seemed fallible,
human—she didn’t feel quite so hard toward him. There was no need for him to make up anything. He was the one who’d put his
DNA on that site so she could find him. She doubted he’d do that just to lie to her. The type of person she’d thought he was
would’ve tried to skip out cleanly.
“That was very nice of your wife.”
“She’s a far better person than I am.”
The fact that they were still married and had made the DNA decision together suggested he wasn’t as terrible a person as his
actions that one day might suggest. “I can’t blame it all on Sabrina,” Charlotte said. “She was so young.”
“I’m not asking you to,” he was quick to say.
“I guess what I’m hoping for is that you’ll forgive us both.
I don’t know what kind of life you’ve lived, so I don’t know if that’s even possible, but I also wanted to let you know that I’m willing to help with anything you need me to make up for .
. . for the fact that I’m partly responsible for bringing you into this world and then did nothing to support you. ”
At last, Charlotte fully believed him. People didn’t step up, apologize, and offer to make restitution if they weren’t sincere.
He could easily have gone on living his life without telling Cindy, without testing his DNA, without inviting her to contact
him. Why would he make himself vulnerable to such an ugly truth coming out if he wasn’t completely repentant?
And that was what made it possible for her to forgive him, as he’d asked. “Fortunately, I had fabulous adoptive parents who
didn’t let me want for anything. I’ve always been well-adjusted, happy.”
“Adoptive parents . . . So Sabrina didn’t keep you.”
“No. I was lucky she didn’t,” she said and went on to tell him everything she knew—about Sabrina’s death and the other child
she’d left behind.
“I’d love to meet you one day,” he said at the end of the conversation.
Charlotte knew he wasn’t too far away. They’d sold their house and left the area where he’d known Sabrina many years ago,
and were now in San Diego. She could drive down there one day—or have him drive to Orange County.
“I’d like that, too,” she said and meant it.
Julian loved geothermal activity, and Haukadalur Valley had a lot of it.
While he was in Iceland, Fagradalsfjall erupted, a volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula only about twenty-five miles out of Reykjavík.
He got incredible photographs, some of the best of his career, likely because he was feeling so fatalistic he was willing to get closer than the other photographers.
He’d been offered a lot of money for them, so that was a win.
But he wasn’t as excited as he should be.
Because of Charlotte. He’d stopped hearing from her several weeks ago, and it absolutely crushed him. He had to keep telling
himself he was doing the right thing—that this was what was best for her—to keep from breaking down and calling her. And that
wasn’t easy. The memories of their time together in Italy plagued him constantly. She was on his mind all the time.
It didn’t help that he was alone in Iceland. That gave him far too much time to think.
But he didn’t feel like staying in close contact with anyone right now, especially his family. They just badgered him to get
in touch with Charlotte. Lately, Sloane had even refused to tell him what was happening in Charlotte’s life. She said he couldn’t
use her to keep track and needed to contact her himself.
He hadn’t spoken to his sister since then, but when he saw a call from Sloane coming in, he decided to take it. He knew she
was visiting their parents and that his mother or father would just call him if he didn’t.
“What’s up?” he asked as he got back into his rental SUV after trekking out to the volcano to see if there was anything interesting
left to capture of the still-smoldering lava flows.
“Charlotte’s been in touch with her father,” Sloane said. “She just went to meet him last weekend.”
He’d been about to start the engine. At this, he dropped his hand and sat back. “You’re kidding. How’d she find him?”
“I’m not going to tell you,” she said. “You need to ask her. So what if you have Parkinson’s? Don’t let that stop you! Tomorrow
or years down the line, she could get cancer or another disease! Would you quit loving her if that happened? Kick her out
of your life?”
“Of course not. But she found out about me in time to avoid being bound to that kind of thing.”
“You don’t know what the future holds,” Sloane argued.
“You don’t know exactly what this disease will do to you.
It varies, depending on the person. They could even find a cure!
Life is both precious and uncertain, Jules.
You need to grab hold of happiness when it’s offered to you.
Do you hear me? Anything can happen to anyone at any time.
She loves you! She wants you! Now get your ass home and marry her, or I’m never going to speak to you again! ”
She must’ve handed the phone to their mother at that point because he heard Karen’s voice next. “Jules?”
He let his head fall back against the seat. “What?” he said dully.
“Your father and I second what Sloane said.”
“You’re going to hang up on me now, too?”
“I don’t want to. I’m worried about you. Won’t you just let the people who love you . . . love you? Why do you have to make
it so hard?”
For the first time, he allowed his mind to consider that what he wanted most might actually be good for everyone. He’d stand
by Charlotte if she was going through something like this, wouldn’t he? So why couldn’t he believe that she’d do the same
for him? Not out of pity, but out of love and commitment and the happiness they had when they were together.
Suddenly, hope blasted inside him like a giant gas flare on one of the oil rigs he’d photographed in Texas. He’d been trying
so hard not to be selfish, not to limit Charlotte to the future he saw ahead of him. But what if the years they could spend
together would be worth whatever it cost them?
“You’re trying to control too much,” he heard his father chime in even though Jerry wasn’t actually on the line.
“Do you really think it could work out somehow?” he asked, but he was talking to himself more than to anyone else.
“I think you two are destined to be together,” his mother said. “Don’t let her go, Jules. I admire what you’re trying to do, but it’s just as courageous to accept the truth and fight for what you want in spite of it.”
“Fight for what you want in spite of it,” he muttered. Those words somehow broke his resistance. He knew it immediately.
Starting the vehicle, he smiled as he put the transmission in Drive and tore down the dirt road leading to the highway. “I’ll
book the first flight I can get,” he said.
“Can I tell her you’re coming?” Sloane called out, revealing that she’d been listening in all along.
“No. Leave everything to me,” he said. “I mean that.”
“Fine!” she yelled. “Just don’t fuck it up.”
He laughed because he heard his father immediately scold her for her language and because he felt lighter than he had in months.