Chapter 32
JULIA WAS CURLED UP on the couch next to Nate, her legs tucked underneath her, as the end credits for Some Like It Hot rolled on, sitting in a way that made her look smaller, that made him suddenly remember her as a kid, a teenager.
She was sixteen, running on the beach, laughing, calling after him to follow, to keep up.
I would follow you anywhere, he’d thought then.
But, of course, that wasn’t how things worked out.
Julia went back to Chicago, then to college in New Haven, law school in DC, and he had settled here, in the house he’d grown up in.
As teenagers, they’d talked about moving somewhere together after college, but when his mom got sick, he’d suddenly understood he couldn’t leave.
And Julia? Julia had wings. The truth was, his whole life, he only got to follow her one week a year, one May week.
Except for this year, when her terrible loss had inadvertently turned their time together into three weeks.
Julia chewed on her bottom lip, that way she did when she was thinking. “I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone, but you have to promise me you’ll put it in the vault.”
The vault. It was the worst goddamn idea Nate had ever had. But he didn’t say that to Julia now. He simply nodded.
“I mean it, Nate. You can’t tell anyone. Not even Nora or Emily. Especially not Nora or Emily. They can never know.”
“The vault is sacred,” he said. What he really meant was stupid. The vault was stupid. But he would never betray Julia’s trust.
“I think my mom is in Santa Monica.” Julia said the words in such a rush that Nate thought he’d misheard them.
“What?”
“My mom,” she repeated. “She’s living in Santa Monica.”
“I thought your mom died giving birth to Nora?”
Julia nodded. “So did I. But I found some letters Grandma Vera had in her armoire.” She paused and chewed on the side of her thumbnail.
A nervous habit that Nate had seen her do since she was at least twelve.
“They all had a return address with my mother’s name, a place in Santa Monica.
And postmarks that spanned at least fifteen years after Nora was born. ”
“What did the letters say?” Nate asked, skeptical that any of this could be right. It felt like a mistake, a giant misunderstanding. Vera herself had told him her daughter was dead when he was just a little boy. Why would Vera have lied?
“I don’t know,” Julia said. “I never read them. They’re in a box in my closet. I haven’t opened the box since I cleaned out Grandma Vera’s house.”
Nate thought about that week seven years earlier: the last time Julia had been in Coronado alone, without her sisters.
The last time they’d put something in the goddamn vault.
How broken she’d seemed that night. How she had begged him to hold her close, and how much he’d wanted to even though he knew he shouldn’t.
When she’d left the next morning after they’d spent the night together, he’d even written her an email, asking her to come back, to forget about renting out the house next door and to really consider moving in after she graduated law school.
He hadn’t worked up the courage to actually send the email though, and next thing he knew, three months later she was engaged to Ted.
“But I memorized the address.” He realized Julia was still talking, and he turned back to look at her. “Can you take me there now? Please?”
The problem with Nate was that he could never resist Julia, not when Julia needed him for something.
He knew deep down he should’ve told her to go home as soon as she got out of the hospital.
And he knew that he shouldn’t agree to take her to Santa Monica now either.
What good could come of this? If her mother was there, it would destroy her.
If her mother wasn’t there, that might too.
“Please?” Julia pleaded. “I just want to see if she’s real. I just want to talk to her. I need to ask her why she did it. Why she left us.”
“Okay,” Nate said, fighting against all his instincts to say no. “But why don’t we sleep on it and see if you still want to go in the morning. If you do, then I’ll take you.”
Julia woke him at six the next morning, asking if they should get out in time to beat the traffic.
He threw on some clothes, grabbed the keys to his truck, and next thing he knew he was driving her up I-5.
Traffic was still light and they didn’t stop through San Diego or Orange County, not even for coffee, until they hit Santa Monica proper.
And only then did it occur to Nate to ask Julia exactly where they were going.
“445 Ocean Lane,” she said, “but let’s not go right away.” She pointed to the Santa Monica Pier in the distance. “Let’s go spend the day there instead.”
It seemed like a strange request after she had spent most of the last two weeks pale, listless, and inside his house. And Julia didn’t seem like she would enjoy the rides. “Are you sure?” he asked her.
“I’ve never been to an amusement park,” she said.
He laughed. “We should’ve stopped at Disneyland on the way.”
“Maybe on the way back,” she said, sounding completely serious, though he had been joking. “Will you ride that roller coaster with me now?”
“It’s not going to give you motion sickness?” he asked.
“It probably will. Will you hate me if I puke?”
“Jules,” he said softly. “You know I could never hate you.”
They rode every ride on the pier and Julia threw up twice.
Then they ate cotton candy for lunch and fish stew for dinner.
They walked along the beach, and as it started getting dark Nate wondered out loud if they should get a hotel.
Julia nodded. “Yes!” she exclaimed, sounding more alive than she had in weeks.
“We’ll stay the night and then we’ll do Disneyland tomorrow. ”
He knew something wasn’t completely right, but he didn’t question her. He drove them to a little inn he’d stayed at once with Becca.
“This is adorable!” Julia gushed. “Why haven’t I ever been to Santa Monica before? It’s so lovely here!”
Nate shrugged. He would take the more low-key vibes of Coronado any day of the week.
“Okay,” Julia suddenly said firmly. “Now I’m ready. Can we go to her house?”
“Now?” Nate glanced at his watch. It was after eight, already dark.
Julia nodded.
And so they walked back out into the parking lot, to his truck.
Number 445 was a small house, a Mediterranean-style bungalow with a tiny porch and a tile roof. A residential area, not too far from the water.
They sat in Nate’s truck in the dark for a few minutes, and he could hear Julia take a few deep breaths as they both stared at the house across the street from them. He wanted to reach out, hold on to her, but he continued gripping the steering wheel instead.
The blinds were open in the large front windows of the bungalow, the lights were on inside, and everything was illuminated.
Suddenly a woman walked into the front room, straight into the lights.
She was late middle-aged, with long curls, shockingly like Nora’s.
And it hit Nate that this was really her. That Julia hadn’t been mistaken.
“Shit,” Nate said. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, and Julia offered him a small frown, then shushed him.
The woman inside the house was talking on a cordless phone, Nate noticed now. She had it tucked between her ear and her shoulder as she spun around the room. Suddenly she burst out laughing. Her small frame shook with joy. She seemed giddy. A woman who didn’t have a care in the world.
“Drive,” Julia said so quietly he almost wasn’t sure she’d said anything.
“Don’t you want to go talk to her?” Nate asked.
She shook her head. “No,” Julia said firmly. “I want to leave.”
Nate drove them back to their room at the Ocean Inn, and when they walked inside, it suddenly occurred to him there was only one bed.
They hadn’t brought an overnight bag. They had nothing but the clothes on their backs and each other.
It seemed like a terrible combination. But now it was late, and he was overcome with exhaustion.
“I can… sleep on the floor,” Nate offered, eyeing the cold hardwood.
Julia shook her head. “Please don’t. I just had a miscarriage. It’s not like I could do anything, even if I wanted to.” She said the words so sharply, he felt physical pain in his gut. “Just… sleep in the bed. Like you said before, I’m pretty much your sister.”
He bit his bottom lip. He had said that. But he had never once in his life thought about Julia like he would a sister.
It was a king-sized bed at least, and he lay down on one side, all the way near the edge so she could have her space.
She did the same and then she flipped off the light.
The only sound in the darkness was her breath escaping her chest. Then what sounded like the tiniest of sobs.
Was Julia crying? Nate wasn’t sure. But he felt something expanding in his own chest.
“Nate?” she said quietly after a little while, testing maybe to see if he was still awake.
“Yeah?” he answered.
“Will you really take me to Disneyland tomorrow?”
He hadn’t been to Disneyland since he was a kid, with his mom. But he nodded, and then realized she probably couldn’t see him in the darkness. “Sure,” he said. “If that’s what you want.”
“Nate?” she said his name again.
“Yeah?” he answered again.
“Why are you always so kind to me?” She choked out the end of the sentence, and now he was sure she was crying.
Dammit.
He rolled closer to her, reached for her, and wrapped his arms around her.
Maybe it should’ve felt strange or awkward.
But instead, holding her close to him, he felt like he had finally come home after the longest time away.
“Is this okay?” he asked her instead of answering her question.
“Can I hold you like this, just until you fall asleep?”
“Put it in the vault,” Julia said sleepily, curling her body back into him. So what choice did he have but to pull her even closer, hold on to her tighter? He kissed the top of her head softly. And then she murmured, “Disneyland.”
But when he woke up the next morning, Julia was already gone.