Page 71 of I Love You in French

We spend the next three days enjoying Nashville. Since Sparrow has never been and Evan has an extra spare room, I want to show her pieces of my world that she’s never seen before. We’ve been visiting every coffee shop possible for “research” and stopping by every ice cream shop and pastry shop possible. Sparrow even tried to convince one of the owners that they needed to add French muffins to the menu. They gave her their card.

Mostly, since I told Evan I’m leaving to head back to Birch Borough as soon as possible, we’ve been holed up in the studio. And it’s the best feeling in the world. I have my girl and my music, and it’s so much different than before.

Not wanting her out of my sight, Sparrow has happily agreed to sit in the recording booth with me, so I get to sing while looking at her. After all, the songs are really about her anyway.

When we finally land in Boston again, with her hand in mine, we take a ride to the North End before catching our train home. We wheel our luggage through narrow streets to get some fish and chips and look out over Boston Harbor as the sun sets over the ocean. With my arm wrapped around her, I realize this is what it feels like when you start to feel whole.

∞∞∞

When we step off the plane in Boston, the surprise of my life is finding my parents waiting with a car. I don’t know what methods they used to get the information on my travel plans, but it’s not beneath them to do such a thing. My mother dressed in an elegant dress, her hair long and flowing, her face familiar and yet hollow, despite the work she’s had done to imply that she’s much younger than her age. My father stands in a suit, his aftershave carried on the wind. I smelled them before I saw them.

Their driver opens the car door, and my father motions for me to get in. I move a step closer to them before placing my guitar case near my feet, shaking my head. They don’t even notice Sparrow, who has wrapped one of my hands between her own.

“What are you doing here?”

My father looks bored. I would think he didn’t care except for the bit of red coloring that’s now creeping up his neck. He’s irritated, but he can’t lose his cool in public. There could be a video taken, evidence obtained by anyone carrying a cell phone, which is ...everyone. We don’t normally have our standoffs in public, so I decide to use this to my advantage. There’s no way I’m getting into the car.

“I have a train to catch.”

“Yes, you do,” my mother says, her accent creeping through her words. They don’t like to speak French in public, and I’m tempted to speak French just to spite them. But they’re the reason I was in America and learned how to get rid of every trace of my French accent. It’s possibly more annoying to them than anything else. “You’re coming home with us. To Paris.”

I shake my head again. “Quit doing that,” says my father, his jaw clenched.

“I won’t be going back to Paris. Not without the woman I love.”

Their eyes briefly scan over Sparrow, and I feel a growl in the back of my throat.

“The woman you ...?” My mother takes in a breath. “Noémie is getting married! You can’t possibly be thinking of breaking up a wedding. Especially all these years later!”

I shake my head and roll my shoulders back. “She’s not the woman I love.”

Suddenly, it dawns on my mother that I’m speaking about the woman beside me. Her posture stiffens. They are controlling if nothing else.

“Another one to steal your songs, hmm?” My father raises a brow, smug with himself for trying to get a jab in while I’m already vulnerable. Too bad for him that he doesn’t realize how much my past doesn’t affect me the way it used to.

I wrap my arm around Sparrow’s waist. “She would never. Are we done here? If you stay much longer, you’re going to get soot on your clothes.” At my cue, a bus pulls up nearby, releasing some passengers, the smell of exhaust filling the air. My mother waves it away like she does all her problems.

“When are you going to come to your senses?” she asks.

“When are you going to stop following your thirty-three-year-old son around, trying to get him to do what you want?”

My mother leans back. I’d feel bad for her, except her narrowed eyes tell me she’s already plotting another way to strike. And this is how it goes. Back and forth, back and forth. They’ve built me to fight with them, and I’m suddenly ...tired. I’m not doing this anymore. I’m a grown man, and whether they like it or not, I can make my own way.

Sparrow hasn’t said anything, her presence enough to clear my mind. I lean down to pick up my guitar without letting go of her, finally ready to say goodbye to the people who can’t get out of their own way.

“If you would just do what you’re told, we wouldn’t be having this problem.” My father steps closer to me, his anger radiating through his own designer suit.

I nod. “You’re right. We wouldn’t be having this problem. We’d be having another problem.” I pull my shoulders back and grip my guitar case’s handle and Sparrow’s hand tighter.

“What problem is that?” my mother whispers.

I look at her with a bit of empathy. I don’t know what happened in their lives to make them this way. They don’t seem to realize they’ve created my desire to run. “Me. You don’t see me. You never have.”

She scoffs, her heels clicking on the concrete as they hurry toward me. I notice the hollowness around her eyes, the crease lines that should be more prominent but have been smoothed by years of surgeries and treatments. For a moment, I wish for her to hug me, to tell me that I’m worth their attention, just as I am.

Instead, she rolls back her shoulders and looks at me, a chill settling behind her eyes. “You didn’t want to be seen. Isn’t that the real problem?”

I lower my gaze. “No, Mom.” I never call her Mom. “The real problem is that you still think an image is the solution. And loving me means outsmarting me. Outperforming me. That my love is a game that you have to win.” I look at her, compassion filling my frame. “Except, I never wanted to play. The only thing I’ve ever want to play is music.”

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