Page 82 of Together Is Where We Belong

I smiled at their interaction.

I knocked on the doorframe and waited for Dad to acknowledge my presence before entering. He had his reading glasses on as he stared at the computer screen.

He pushed his chair away from his desk at the sound of my knock and waved me in.

“I swear this old man isn’t meant to use computers,” he said with a laugh as he took his readers off.

I sat in the leather chair across from him and laughed.

“Anythin’ I can help you with?”

“Nah, I’ll get your sister to help me in the morning. What did you want to talk to me about, son?” he asked, giving me his full attention.

I didn’t know how to broach this without giving him some sense of false hope, but I couldn’t get the idea out of my head now that the seed had been planted. I had an unexplainable need to give this to Luke, and to myself if I was truly honest, and I had to see it through no matter how long it took.

“Do you remember years ago when I had blueprints drawn up?”

“I do,” he said as he gave me a questioning stare.

“I know I told you to get rid of them, but is there any chance you happened to keep them?” I asked. I hoped he’d been like Mom had been and didn’t listen to me.

Without saying a word, he got up from his chair, his knees popped as he stood, and he walked over to the closet to my left.

He rummaged through the closet, and my heart pounded in my chest at the thought of him keeping those plans.

“Ah ha,” he said as he grabbed a white tube and blew off the dust that had collected on the top, and closed the closet behind him.

“Come here,” he said as he opened the tube and took out the blueprints. He spread them across the white table he had against the wall behind me.

On unsteady legs, I walked over to where he stood. I stared down at those plans as so many emotions coursed through me.

Carolina and I had talked about our dream house we’d build on one of the many nights we’d spent in the bed of my truck staring up at the stars.

I blinked rapidly as the memory of one of our many discussions came to mind.

Her head rested on my chest, my arm wrapped around her shoulder, as we stared into the sky as stars shone brightly above.

“What’s one thing you have to have in your dream house?” I asked her as I ran my thumb up and down her arm.

“I need a porch. One that wraps around the entire house,” she said, her voice so full of excitement mixed with hope. I wanted to give her everything. I’d give her the world if she'd let me.

“Why a porch that big?” I asked with a laugh.

“Because I want to see the sunrise in the morning and set in the evening. I want to be able to walk around the house and see the perfect view from all directions. But, Leo, where’d we even build this house?” she asked as she sat up and propped her head on my chest. Her chocolate eyes stared at me, and I almost didn’t answer because I was so lost in her.

“You’ll see,” I said with a wink. I didn’t want to tell her that I already had the property. She’d find out soon enough.

She laid her head back down on my chest, the tip of her finger tracing an imaginable line on my shirt.

I blinked out of the memory. One I tried so hard over the years to bury.

The blueprints before me held every detail so intricately. I’d worked so hard with the builder to get these plans just right. I wanted both of our dreams to shine brightly. Just after she’d left, I received these blueprints and demanded my dad destroy them. I never got the chance to show her because she shattered our dreams before they even had the chance to bloom. Even though she might never live in this house, the one we designed together, her not even knowing at the time, I wanted to make this mine and Luke’s reality.

“Why’d you keep them?” I asked as I stared down at them. Instead of envisioning the memories of Carolina and me, all I could see was Luke running through the front door, his footsteps echoing through the one-story rancher, his laughter filling the walls, us cooking in the massive kitchen, flour on the two of us as we had a food fight before we finished baking the cookies; Luke playing on the playset I had in mind to build for him.

“Somethin’ told me you’d need them one day,” he explained.

“How’d you know?” I never gave him any indication that I’d ever go through with building this house. If anything, based on how I forbid everyone to even mention her name, he should’ve just tossed them.