Page 75 of Loving London

I lean in toward the windshield to get a better view as I turn off the car. “This is it.”

“It’s like a fairy-tale cottage. It’s amazing.” London is still as she looks around the property.

I nod, hardly able to believe we’re here.

It’s a classic English cottage with stone siding, a tiled roof, and green vines and foliage growing up the walls. The property is surrounded by a stone fence, also adorned in greenery.

“After all this time, it looks exactly the same. We had a picture in our house of my dad standing in front of this place when he was younger. Someone lives here. It’s well taken care of,” I tell London.

We exit the car and walk up to the white wooden door. I knock.

I knock again.

“No one’s here,” I say on a sigh, stating the obvious.

“Well, that sucks,” London says, also stating the obvious.

I scan the house, not sure of what I’m looking for.I just came all this way…

A birdhouse hanging from a metal hook with a ceramic red bird atop it catches my attention. Squinting, I study it. For some reason, it seems similar.

“I think I remember…” I say as I grab the bird and pull up.

Sure enough, it lifts off the house, and beneath it is a key.

“How’d you know that was there?” London asks.

“I’m not sure exactly. I recall bits and pieces of a story my dad told me. I can’t remember the details exactly. But something told me to pick up that bird.”

“So, should we go in?” London looks at me, and a slow smile forms on her lips, lighting up her eyes.

I shrug with a laugh. “Might as well.”

“I mean, we have the key. It’s not breaking and entering if you have a key.”

I put the key in the lock and turn. “Exactly.”

Once inside, there’s no question that my grandparents still own the cottage. The evidence is staring back at me through every framed photograph that decorates the walls and surfaces.

“Is this you?” London grabs a frame from an end table with a picture of a five-year-old version of myself smiling.

“Yeah, it is.” I take the photo from her and stare at the little boy smiling back.

He’s showing the person behind the camera a Star Wars Lego ship that he built. He’s so proud and happy. I remember getting that ship for Christmas.

An ache for the little boy resonates from deep within my chest. If he only knew what two years’ time would bring…

I mourn his smile, the one he’s so freely giving now, the one that will soon all but disappear because he won’t have anything worth smiling about. I want to reach inside the frame and warn him of everything to come, to urge him to lock every happy moment of the next two years in his mind so that he’ll have those memories later.

But I can’t because I’ve already lived it.

“You were so cute.” London wraps her arm around my back, leans her head against my arm, and stares at the photo in my hands. “So happy and so loved.”

I was loved, I think to myself as I look at the photo again.

I place the framed photo back where it was.

“I know you were adopted, but it’s crazy how much you look like him,” London says as she stares at a picture of my parents hanging on the wall.

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