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Toward the very back of the folder were more photographs taken from this iconic trip to Prague. Her mother was featured in many of them, her hand around a big beer and her eyes dancing. In one of them, a darker one at a Prague dive bar, Aria first recognized the man directly beside Bethany in the photograph.
“Oh my gosh.” Aria’s mouth fell open.
“What?” Cole hurried around her to look at the photograph, then shook his head. “What do you see?”
At the old wooden table in a long-forgotten bar sat Bethany Quinn, beautiful, blond, terribly bright, and happy, alongside a man with a scraggly beard, thick-rimmed glasses, and a wool sweater. In the photograph, he gazed at Bethany adoringly as though she had all the secrets of the world.
“I know that man.”
“Who is he? He looks like he’s crazy in love with your mom.”
Aria’s throat tightened.It couldn’t be, could it?
“He’s a professor here at Savannah College of Art and Design,” Aria continued. “Professor Judah Heskew.”
“Was he a professor back when your mom was going here?” Cole asked.
Aria checked the list of graduating seniors again to find that Judah Heskew had graduated alongside her mother in 1995. Aria remembered that Judah had said he’d been a student here, that it had been his pleasure to return to his alma mater as a professor. But she never could have imagined that he’d known her mother.
And then, the realization hit her like a bag of bricks.
Professor Judah Heskew had always known Aria was Bethany Quinn’s daughter.
But why hadn’t he said he’d known Aria’s mother back in the day? Why had he kept it a secret?
Aria sat on a dusty stool, her head swimming with intrigue.
Suddenly, the woman from the front desk popped her head in to say it was now five o’clock, and they needed to exit the premises. Aria gaped at her, genuinely shocked that so much time had passed. Quickly, she took photographs of her mother and Professor Heskew and the list of graduating seniors from 1995. Then, she and Cole burst from the records office and into the exhilarating light of another late afternoon in Savannah.
For a long time, Aria remained wordless, her thoughts humming. Almost without thought, she led Cole to a bar she’d once frequented, sat at the bar counter, and ordered herself a pint. Her mind was heavy with the image of her own mother with a beer in Prague, her eyes dancing at something Professor Heskew had said. Cole ordered himself a beer, as well, and remained quiet, scanning the decorations around the bar. Unlike other bars in the area, this one had no televisions and upheld the old city's history. Newspapers were hung in frames, protected by glass, and long candles were lit, melting into mountains of wax.
Suddenly, Cole placed his hand on Aria’s shoulder. The touch was so powerful that Aria nearly leaped from her skin.
“Aria? Are you all right?” Cole’s voice was very quiet and sincere.
Aria sipped her beer. “I just can’t figure any of it out.” She realized, as she said it, that she meant two things at once: her mother’s secrecy and her relationship with Cole.What did any of it mean?
“You know that professor well?”
Aria nodded. “He took me under his wing when I first got here. I was a bit older than the other students, and I never really felt like I fit in, you know? I found myself chatting with him at an architecture function. I liked his jokes, and he liked mine. Around that time, I showed him my initial sketches, and he went crazy for them. He told me I had some kind of ‘singular vision’ or whatever.” Aria bit her lip. “Now, I’m wondering if that was all a ruse just to get to my mom. I mean, all the other students thought I was a hack, anyway.”
“There’s no way you got into this school as a hack,” Cole pointed out.
Aria shrugged. “My self-esteem around architecture is already pretty low. But I never imagined this. Professor Heskew even wrote me a few times over the past few months, asking if I’d consider returning to school.”
“There’s no way he would do that just for a woman he maybe had a crush on back in 1995,” Cole insisted. “He genuinely believes in you.”
But Aria wasn’t so sure. Wordless, she sipped the rest of her beer, then paid for both of their drinks and hurried into the evening air. Cole kept up with her, following her into the next bar down the road, one that was a bit rowdier than the candlelit one.
“Aria, we should really eat something,” Cole said, his eyes shimmering with worry. “I don’t mind having a few drinks, but there’s no reason we should go crazy.”
Aria refused to look him in the eye. She ordered herself a beer and sat at the counter, surveying the other bar revelers, some of whom she half-recognized from her years at the university.
And then, out of nowhere, Julia walked through the front door. She was one of the students Aria had heard talking badly about her architecture work last August before she’d officially dropped out.
“Aria Baldwin? Is that really you?” Her smile was enormous, almost genuine. She hurried over and hugged Aria, who remained stiff and unyielding. “We thought you dropped off the face of the earth!”
Aria sipped her beer, unsure what to do with this information. “I guess I didn’t.”
