Chapter Eighteen #2
“Kayla? What is it? Are you all right?” He reached for her, touching her lightly on the arm, which sent a shiver through her.
“I…” She didn’t know what to say. How could she tell him that she was feeling devastated because she thought she’d missed him?
“Kayla?” he prompted, moving closer, his brown eyes deep with concern.
“Yeah. I mean… yeah.” She forced a smile. “I’m fine.”
He studied her for a moment. “How did it go with your father last night?”
How had he read her so clearly? Her shoulders slumped. “He just said some things I didn’t agree with,” she mumbled.
“What did he say?”
“He’s kind of a jerk, actually. He said…” She trailed off. “He said I should go back to where I came from, basically. That immigrants like me are destroying the fabric of France.”
Nadim sighed. “Oh, Kayla. I’m very sorry. I’m afraid there are many here who feel that way about immigration. But to say such a thing to his own daughter…”
“It was just… he was so unkind and condescending about it,” she said miserably.
“You know what’s bothering me most, though?
The fact that I still feel this desperation to know him, despite everything.
Like, what’s wrong with me that I want a relationship with a father who very clearly doesn’t want me here?
” She felt foolish and vulnerable the moment the words were out of her mouth. Why was she telling him all of this?
But Nadim didn’t seem to be judging her. In fact, he stepped even closer, close enough to kiss. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” he said. “It is only human to want to know one of the people who gave you life, I think.”
“Even if that person isn’t all that great?” She couldn’t bring herself to look up and read the expression on his face.
“Even then,” he said. “I think, though, that when people close their minds, it’s often due to a lack of knowledge.
Maybe in getting to know him better, you can introduce him to a different point of view.
” He touched her chin lightly, tilting her face up.
His brown eyes, she noticed for the first time, were flecked with green.
“Kayla?” Nadim said after a moment. “I’m afraid I have to head home now; my parents are expecting me. ”
“Oh, right,” she said, trying not to sound as crushed as she felt.
“There’s someplace I’d like to show you, though,” he said. “Do you have time to meet me tomorrow?”
Her heart skipped; was he asking her out? “I have to work a double, but I’m off on Friday. Would that work?”
“Sure. Would you meet me at this address?” He pulled a pencil from his bag and scribbled down a place in the fifth arrondissement on the back of a receipt, handing the slip of paper over to her. “Say eleven a.m.? I’ll take the afternoon off.”
Kayla slid the piece of paper into her pocket, butterflies fluttering in her stomach. “Yeah, okay, I’ll be there,” she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt.
“Good.” Nadim took a step closer. “I look forward to seeing you again. And, Kayla?”
“Yeah?”
“If your father can’t see what a gift you are,” Nadim said, holding her gaze, “that’s his failing, not yours. Don’t forget that.”
Jackson knew, as he and Julia strolled toward the Seine, that he’d made a huge mistake in not telling her who he really was.
After all, if she was a fan, she would have recognized him already. So maybe it wouldn’t matter. Maybe he could tell her that he was a musician named Jackson Quick, and she’d simply shrug. But the problem was that he’d lied to her; how could he explain that?
“I don’t know why I didn’t come back to Paris sooner,” she said, interrupting his guilty thoughts as they strolled. He wanted to reach for her hand, but he didn’t want to be too forward. He’d never felt this nervous with a woman before.
He tilted his head and looked at her, waiting for her to go on. She looked up at him with a sad smile.
“This was the place where I think I was the best version of myself,” she said.
“When I came back to the States, I told myself I’d be back all the time.
I imagined an adulthood full of strolls along the Seine with my future husband and pushing boats in the fountains with my future child.
And then, the years passed and life happened, and I never returned. ”
“It was the same for me. This was the last place I felt like myself before—” He cut himself off abruptly before he said too much.
“Before what?” Julia asked with a smile.
He swallowed hard. “Just before. Before I grew up. Before life got in the way.”
She nodded. “I wish I’d come back earlier.”
“But maybe we can make a promise to ourselves,” he said. She looked up at him. “A promise that we’ll come back again soon. That we won’t waste the years we have left. That we’ll try to find those versions of ourselves again.”
Julia looked away, but before she did, he could have sworn he’d seen tears in her eyes. “What if there isn’t time?”
“There’s always time.”
“Not always.”
He was about to ask what she meant, but they had reached the river, and she grabbed his hand as she looked over at Notre Dame glowing across the water.
“When I lived here, I used to walk by Notre Dame every night and think about everything it had survived. I mean, it’s been here for more than seven hundred years, and it’s just as solid as it was in the thirteenth century. ”
Jackson looked down at her hand holding his and intertwined his fingers with hers.
He waited for her to pull away, but to his relief, she instead looked him in the eye and then gently squeezed his hand.
“When the fire happened in 2019, I was afraid it would collapse,” he said. “And then, when the spire came down…”
Julia shuddered. “It would have been an unimaginable loss. There’s something about knowing that it has borne witness to history—and that it still keeps watch over the city—that makes me feel like nothing is ever gone, not really.
” She went silent for a few seconds and then added, “If the places that have held us remain, then a piece of us is always here, too, isn’t it? ”
“I like that thought. That we leave a piece of ourselves wherever we go.”
“Would you… walk with me to Notre Dame?” She sounded hesitant.
“Of course.” They crossed the short pedestrian bridge just ahead of them and strolled to the front of the grand cathedral, still holding hands.
Jackson felt as giddy and nervous as he had a lifetime ago when he’d gone on his very first date at the age of fifteen.
How could it be that he was fifty-five now and had never felt that blend of butterflies and happiness again until now?
“I wish,” Julia said, “that we could stay longer, too.”
“We can stay as long as you want.”
She smiled and looked up at him. “No, I mean, on this earth. How do we only get such a small number of years? Our lives are so insignificant in the grand scheme of things, aren’t they?”
“Not if you leave something behind that matters.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Like art that outlives you, maybe.”
She squeezed his hand again. “What kind of art would you make?”
“Honestly? I’ve always wanted to write songs.
” He couldn’t believe he’d admitted it aloud—not only because it skirted dangerously close to revealing who he really was, but because he’d never said that to a soul.
Since he’d become famous, he’d always sung words and melodies written by other people, and the few times he’d tried to share things he’d worked on, Cash had dismissed him.
But maybe Julia was right. Maybe it was time to leave a piece of himself behind in the world, even if no one listened, even if it didn’t sell records.
“Songs?” Julia smiled. “Are you a musician?”
It was his chance to come clean, but he chickened out. “I, um, dabble.”
“That’s amazing. I’ve always wished I had musical talent, but I can’t carry a tune.”
“But you’ve raised a child, haven’t you? Piper, you said? Your daughter is the future in a way that a song could never be.”
Her eyes filled. “Do you have kids?”
“No, I don’t.” It was one of his many regrets; he thought he might have been a good father, but it was too late now to know.
Sure, he could pull a Mick Jagger or a Billy Joel and get himself a younger girlfriend and become a father anytime.
But he couldn’t see that happening. Parenthood was a ship that had sailed long ago, when he wasn’t looking because he was too busy worrying about his career.
“I wish I did, though,” he said honestly. “Tell me about Piper.”
“She’s incredible. She’s getting her master’s in English, and she’s one of the smartest, kindest people you’ll ever meet. I know parents are supposed to feel that way about their kids, but she really is something special.”
“That’s something to be proud of,” he said. “Having raised a good person.”
“Thanks.” She looked up at the cathedral for a moment and then looked back at him. “So what would you write a song about?”
“I would write a song about you,” he said before he could think it through, and then he immediately closed his eyes, mortified. “I’m sorry. That was too much.”
“No.” Julia was staring at him when he opened his eyes again. “That might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. What would your song say?”
He hesitated, lyrics tumbling over themselves in his head.
He sang to her softly before he could stop himself.
“I wish I could tell you what I’m starting to feel.
That the way you inspire me is so new and so real.
I wish you knew how perfect you look in this light.
That as long as I breathe, I won’t forget tonight. ”
He stopped, abruptly, because there were tears in her eyes. “That bad?” he asked.
“No. That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. You just wrote that? Just now?”
“It wasn’t that good. The meter wasn’t even right.”