Page 120 of Pieces of Ash
Thanksgiving is coming, and Noelle, Gus, and Jock will be spending it here with us. Sometimes I remember that spring evening when Gus and I set the table for dinner while Jock, Noelle, and Julian played cornhole on the lawn nearby. I remember wishing that we five could be a family. I can still feel that longing in my heart some days…and then I remind myself that dreams can come true. Gus isn’t the only man with a Prince Charming. I have one too.
When Julian drove me to New Paltz to visit the grave of Father Joseph two weeks after the shootout at the farmhouse, he said he wanted to talk to me on the ride home. I stressed out about that, wondering what was on his mind, wondering if our relationship was coming to an end. Realistically speaking, we’donly been together for a few weeks, and under duress. Now that Mosier and Anders were dead, and Damon had been extradited to Bucharest to answer for the Raumann family’s crimes in Eastern Europe, I didn’t need Julian’s protection anymore. My mother’s jewelry fetched a decent price at auction, leaving me solvent. Maybe he wanted to tell me that it was time for us to go our separate ways.
But that wasn’t what happened.
As we drove up the New York State Thruway toward home, he took a deep breath, and said, “You have your whole life ahead of you now, Ashley.”
I gulped and nodded, bracing myself for his rejection—for him to set me free, even though the only freedom I craved included the space and permission to love him.
“I just…I just wanted to say that if you choose to go…if you’re ready to move on, I won’t stop you.”
“You won’t?”
“No. I don’t have the right to keep you with me if you want to be free.”
I turned to him, staring at his handsome profile. “You don’t love me?”
He took a deep breath, his voice lowering with emotion. “I love you with everything I am. That’s why I’d never stand in your way. You don’t owe me anything, baby. It’syourlife. Whatever comes next, it’syourchoice.”
“What if I want to stay with you? What if I want to live my life with you?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed, a giveaway that he was nervous. When he spoke, his voice was raspy, like he was desperately trying to stay calm and reserved. “That would be your choice too.”
It was glorious on one hand, to make a major life decision for myself…but maddening on the other because I didn’t wantto stay unless he wanted me with him. I didn’t want to impose myself on him. For the first time in my life, I was free. I needed to be somewhere that I waswanted.
“Julian,” I said. “What doyouwant?”
He jerked the steering wheel, the tires shrieking as he skidded onto the side of the highway. After putting the car in park, he turned to look at me.
“What do youthinkI want?” he demanded, his voice thick with emotion. “But I was fired from my job. I failed at it. I rent a house in the middle of nowhere. I blow glass for a pretty pitiful living. I’m not good enough for you, Ashley. I’m not?—”
“Stop. Please stop telling me why I shouldn’t want you. It hurts.”
“I’m just trying to say that…you can do better than me.”
“No,” I said softly, “I can’t.”
And finally—finally—I saw it in his face, at the way he was looking at me like something so beloved, he’d give it up rather than trap it.He loves me, and I am wanted.
“I love it that you make beautiful things,” I told him, turning his words around. “I love the house that we share. I don’t need you to support me—I just need you to love me. I need you to let me love you.”
“Are you sure?” he asked me, his hands clenching and unclenching the wheel.
“All I want,” I said, reaching over to take his hands in mine, “is the life we have together. I don’t know how it’ll look a month from now, or a year from now, or five years from now. I don’t even know who I’llbefive years from now. But right here, right now, all I want…is you.”
He unbuckled his seat belt and mine and pulled me into his arms. “Thank God, thank God, thank God,” he whispered over and over again until his lips found mine, and we made out on theside of the highway. Finally, Bruno started barking, telling us he was impatient to go home.
Home.
Gus and Jock have rented this house to us on a five-year lease with an annual fee that covers the taxes and nothing else. It’s ours, Jock told us, for as long as we want to live here together.It’s our home, mine and Julian’s,I think as the timer on the kitchen buzzes.
I place Tig’s journal on the table beside my chair and head inside to take my pies out of the oven.
Blessed Virgin sent me my diploma in June. Two months ago, in September, I enrolled at the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, where I attend college-level classes three days a week.
One of my favorite things to do is experiment at home. Today’s bounty includes a pumpkin spice pie with a lattice top and an apple–raisin pie with an oatmeal crust. Sometimes I even make baked goods for Jock and Gus to sell at the gallery. Between Julian’s ornaments and my muffins, we’re going to take over the place. Noelle, with her sharp business acumen, approves.
“Is that pumpkin pie I smell?”
