Page 58 of Save the Drama for your Mama
“Hey, how are you holding up?” Melody asked, glancing over at me.
“I’m great!” I said with a big grin. “I’m choosing to see this as a blessing. I had an amazing dad in Craig who knew I wasn’t his, but still raised me as his own. It’s one of the most kind, loving, and admirable things a person could do. And now I get to meet my biological dad too. It’s like I get two dads. How cool is that?”
Melody laughed. “You surprise me with your positivity. I think most people would freak out over news like this.”
I shrugged. “You can look at life negatively or positively. I’d rather be happy. Sure there are still some big questions, but I’m going to make the most of this and get to know James with an open mind and heart. I see this as an exciting new chapter!” I drummed on the steering wheel. “I learned a few things about James already.” I gestured to the glove compartment.
Melody leaned over, opened the glove compartment, and pulled out the stack of love letters we’d found in the attic, the ones James had written to my mom.
Surprise crossed her face. “You read them?”
“Every single one, some twice,” I admitted, unable to meet her gaze since I was taking the exit to get off the highway.
“Well? Don’t keep me in suspense,” Melody asked. “What did you find out?”
“They were crazy in love. There was no doubt about that,” I said. “But her parents disapproved of James from the start.”
“Why?”
“Because he was middle class, didn’t have a college degree, and worked at a shoe repair shop.”
“That’s sad—especially since they were so much in love,” she said. “Do you know what happened after that?”
“When my mom turned twenty-two, her parents tried to get her to marry the son of their friends, a surgeon named—”
“Craig Galloway,” she said. “But Sandra was in love with James.”
“And get this—my grandparents had the nerve to offer James money to break up with my mom, but he refused.”
Melody shook her head. “This sounds like a soap opera or a story from another era.”
“You’re not kidding,” I said. “James and my mom decided nothing was going to keep them apart. They were going to elope and force her parents to just accept it afterwards.”
“The boating accident changed everything,” Melody finished, then sighed. “What a story.”
I nodded. “Yeah . . .”
“We still don’t know what happened to James after that,” she said. “How he went from dead to alive. As crazy as it sounds, I can’t help thinking that he lived off the grid or maybe was in the FBI witness protection program. Because I can’t imagine anything keeping James from Sandra. There’s that unexplained gap.”
“I guess we’re about to find out,” I said.
My nerves bundled tighter than a bedspring coil when the ocean came into view, but it was from excitement. James’s gallery was located across the street from the San Clemente Pier. As I parked and turned off the ignition, I watched the beachgoers, wondering what I was going to say to James when we met.
Hey, Dad! Long time, never seen!
Melody unbuckled her seatbelt and turned to me, her eyes searching mine. “Ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be—let’s do this,” I said, unfastening my seatbelt and getting out of the car.
We walked down the small hill from the parking lot, crossed the railroad tracks, then turned left on Avenida Victoria toward the shops across from the pier.
That was when I saw the sign and the storefront.
James Blade Gallery.
I stopped in my tracks, admiring it.
“No, no, no—you’re not chickening out now.” Melody grabbed my hand and tried to pull me to the front door of the gallery.
