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“So a boy you don’t know…”
“He’s hardly a boy, Dad,” I interrupt.
“Excuse me.” He clears his throat. “So amanyou don’t really know has offered to take you to Italy and you’re unsure of whether or not you should go?” he asks it like a question.
“Well it wouldn’t be like you’re thinking. I would simply go with him but I wouldn’t necessarily be there with him. If that makes sense.”
“I really should be better at speaking female at this point but, honey, I really have no idea what that means.” He chuckles.
“He’s going there for business. I would be tagging along and get to do my own thing while we’re there. He will be working and I will be doing, well whatever I want to do. And before you say it again, no, I don’t know him well. But I do know him well enough to know I’d be safe with him.”
“How long would you be gone?” he asks, catching me a bit off guard. I expected him to slam his fist down on the table and forbid me from going anywhere, not that that’s my dad’s style.
He’s always been the rational, laid back one. It was my mom that was the unpredictable spit fire. Wonder where I get it from…
“I’m not really sure. I didn’t really ask any details,” I answer. “I shot him down pretty quickly and up until now haven’t really entertained the idea as a real possibility.”
“Then what’s changed?”
“I’m not sure,” I admit.
“Maybe getting away wouldn’t be such a bad thing.” My dad gives me a soft smile. “You’ve been through a lot, Elara. Maybe some time away will be exactly what you need.”
“What I need is to get a job and start living my life as an adult.”
“You don’t need to start living your life, Elara, you’re already living it. And if you’re not careful it will pass you right on by. Trust me, I know. Opportunities like this don’t come around every day. If you like this man and you trust him, then I say go for it.”
“Seriously?” I look at my father like he’s sprouted five more heads.
“Seriously.” He drops his napkin on the table and stands. “Stay here for a second,” he says moments before disappearing from the dining room.
I’m still trying to process his words when he reappears holding a huge photo album. Crossing around the table, he takes a seat next to me, sliding my plate out of the way as he opens the album between us.
“What’s this?” I ask, leaning over to look at the multiple pictures that line the page in front of me.
“This is the trip your mother and I took to Italy three months after we met.” He smiles, running his finger across a picture of him and my mother standing on a hill, backed by the bluest water I think I’ve ever seen.
“Wait, I thought you went to Italy on your honeymoon.”
“We did. We also went when we first started dating,” he says, his gaze locked on a very young looking version of my mother.
She looks so happy. So beautiful. So free.
“She thought I was crazy when I asked her too.”
“But you guys were a couple. This is completely different. I hardly know Kane.”
“Dating worked a little different back then. In reality, your mother and I didn’t really know each other all that well either. Your grandfather was very strict and even though your mother was eighteen when we met, the first few weeks of our relationship was spent under his watchful eye. I think maybe that’s why I came up with the idea to get away in the first place. My grandparents still had property there so I only had to rustle up enough money for two plane tickets and for us to eat for a few days.” He smiles, losing himself to the memory.
“Your mother thought I had lost my marbles. She flat out refused to go with me. But, after a couple of days I was able to convince her.”
“How’d you do that?”
“I told her I loved her.”
“And she just couldn’t resist.” I smile, loving listening to my dad talk about my mom, a woman he loved more than anything on the face of this earth.
“No one can resist the Menten charm, peanut.” He winks, turning his gaze back down to the photo album. “I know the circumstances are different but those two weeks in Italy were some of the best your mother had. This isn’t about anything but you. Honey, if you’re given the opportunity to do something like this, you have to take it. Otherwise you’ll end up regretting all the things you never did. Wouldn’t you rather know?”
