Julian lifts his head. He wipes his damp face with the base of his palm and glances away. His lungs rattle and shoulders vibrate.
James quells the instinctual urge to hug his son. He’ll be twelve soon, on his way to becoming a young man. Instead, he picks up and inspects a dead leaf.
“Why—” Julian snorts. He swipes the back of his hand under his nose. “Why didn’t you tell us she’s our grandmother?”
James twirls the leaf. “Because I didn’t know. I couldn’t remember who she is and she never told me. I don’t think she told any of us because I didn’t read anything in the journals that would make me think Señora Carla was my mother.” He phrases his words carefully. He wants Julian to perceive him and Carlos as the same man. He wants Julian to see him as his father, which means he must do the same. As Natalya told him years ago, and again last night, “same body, same heart, and same soul.” Just a damaged mind he was doing his best to fix.
“I didn’t know Señora Carla and my mother were the same person until she showed up at our house last week.”
Julian swipes his nose again. He picks up a twig and jabs it into the sand. “I bet you were mad at her.”
“I’m still mad,” James says, staring off to the ocean. The sun has passed the day’s highest point. Their patch of shade shifts away. Sweat beads along his hairline. He feels a drop trickle down his spine. “I’m angry with my whole family. Not you and Marc,” he clarifies at Julian’s quick intake of breath. “Just my mother and brothers. But you know who I’m angriest with the most?”
Julian shakes his bent head. He jabs the twig harder. It snaps.
“Myself.” He’s made more than his share of poor decisions, each one leading him further away from the future he and Aimee had plotted like a road trip. But each mistake had brought him closer to Julian and Marc. “I wish more than anything that I remember the years I forgot.” Julian’s chest rattles and James presses on. “I wish I remembered your mother, and everything you and I did together.”
Tears roll freely down Julian’s face. They drop into the sand, creating divots. James gently knocks his bent knee against Julian’s. “You know what?”
“What?” Julian sniffs.
“I was smart. I wrote everything down, and I remember reading all about us and our time together in Puerto Escondido. And as I read, pictures formed in my head like real memories.”
Julian nods, considering. “Why did you have to change?”
“I don’t know, Julian. My mind is sick and I’m trying to heal.”
Julian frowns. “How did it get sick?”
He shrugs. “I can’t remember. I don’t know what made me forget being James, and I don’t know what made me forget being Carlos.”
Julian blinks. His lower lip trembles. “Are you scared?”
“Very much so.”
“Me, too.”
James rubs his son’s back. “It’ll get easier for us, I promise. But whether I go by the name of Carlos or James, I’m still your father. Yo siempre voy a ser tu papá.” I will always be your dad.
Julian sucks in a ragged breath. Fresh tears flow like a clear stream over rivers rocks. “I still wish you remembered everything for real.”
“Me, too.” And he honestly did.
“Do you wish you remembered Tía Natalya?”
James dangles his hands between his knees. “Yes.”
“She’s very sad you don’t. I heard her crying last night.”
Something James can’t explain twists inside his chest. He’s been so focused on putting some distance between them and his brothers until he has the chance to think straight that he didn’t consider how difficult his being there, sleeping under her roof, must be for her.
“She loves you.”
“I know,” James says quietly. The way she looks at him, reaches out to touch him only to pull back, how she feels she must ask to hug him and not just do it. She’s opened her home, given them sanctuary without asking for anything in return.
Julian traces his finger where he’d been jabbing the twig. “I miss our home.”
James doesn’t know how he should respond to that. They’ll never move back to Mexico. He doesn’t belong there. And he isn’t in a rush to return to California. He doesn’t feel like he belongs there either.
“Can we live here?”
James arches a brow. “In Hawaii?”
“Tía Natalya wants us to stay.”
“Do you like it here?”
Julian extends his arms to encompass Hanalei Bay’s crescent beach. He gives James a look like he’s nuts not to consider otherwise. Julian grew up living beside the ocean. It makes sense he’s drawn to this one.
James fists the sand, then lets it spill between his fingers. “It is pretty nice here.”
Julian buries his toes. “I didn’t like California.”
“Hey, I didn’t say no. But we should get Marc’s opinion, too, before we decide.”
A watery smile pulls Julian’s mouth wide. Then he frowns and the smile disappears. He watches a trail of ants hike the hills and valleys beside him. “What’s Señora Carla’s real name?”
“Claire Donato.”
“What should I call her?”
“Why don’t you ask her?”
“Why did she lie to us?”
“She was afraid I would have sent her away.”
“Would you have?”
James opens his mouth to say yes but stops himself. He debates telling Julian the truth else he continues to see him as the bad guy. The one who’s tearing their family apart when all he’s really trying to do is put the pieces together. Then he remembers what got him into this mess. Withholding the truth. And he was starting to despise his shame more than the flaws that make him human. One of those being he has a terrible relationship with his mother.
“Yes,” he finally says. “I would have sent her away.”
Julian opens his mouth and closes it. James watches his son’s mind tick.
“Will you send Marcus and me away?” he hesitantly asks in a voice tinged with fear.
There it is, James thinks on a long sigh. What Julian has feared most these past six months. In quite a few entries, Carlos commented on his fear that James would abandon his sons. Carlos had expressed that fear with Julian. Talk about a heavy load of responsibility on shoulders so young.
James faces his son. “Look at me,” he says, and waits for Julian to lift his head and wipe his eyes. “I will never send you and Marc away. I’ll never leave you either.”
Julian inhales a sob and nods.
“I’ve never stopped loving you. Even last December when I first couldn’t remember you. I loved you back then. You’re my son, Julian. You will always be my son.”
Julian sucks in another sob. His body vibrates as he cries. James drags his son against him. Then he just holds him.
Marc’s eating at the kitchen table and Natalya’s storing condiments in the fridge when James and Julian return to the house. She lifts her head above the fridge door when she hears their arrival. “I made lunch.” She nods at the plates on the counter.
James lifts a brow at Marc, amazed he’s devouring the Spam-and-pineapple sandwich.
“Muy bueno,” Marc exclaims around a mouthful of food.
“If you say so, kiddo.” James eyes the sandwiches. He has his doubts.
“Gracias, Tía Natalya.” Julian selects a plate and takes it to the table.
“Thank you,” James says to her from the doorway. “I’ll take care of dinner.”
She nods. “I put away the groceries for you.” Natalya twirls the bread bag closed and puts the loaf in the pantry. “And your mom”―she lowers her voice, her gaze darting to the boys―“went back to her hotel.”
James isn’t surprised. She’s next on his list of family discussions and she knows it, too.
“She left with my dad.”
He stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Really?”