Page 78 of Everything We Left Behind

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 seehimas 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.

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