We make it out to the car. “Very nice automobile you have here, son,” I tell Jackson. “It looks like you’ve done well foryourself.”
“I’ve worked hard,sir.”
“Good for you,” I tell him. “Emma, I know I just met both of you, but I think your grandmother might be onto something here. How long have you two known each other? A year orso?”
“A week,” Emma says, appearing embarrassed as she places her hands over her cheeks to hide the pink warmth glowing across herface.
“Well, love isn’t measured by time, sweetheart. There’s nothing to be ashamed of because if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be, and there’s not much you can do to change that. Life is too short and precious not to take a chance onlove.”
“Charlie, do you need to stop anywhere before we arrive at the hospital?” Jackson asksme.
“Actually, do you mind if we stop at a pastry shop first? I’m quite hungry,” I tellhim.
“Absolutely,” Jacksonsays.
He kindly pulls into a small parking lot in front of an old-fashioned bakery. “I’ll just be amoment.”
The shop is somewhat empty, and I’m able to check out within a matter of minutes. “Did you find what you needed?” Jackson asks as I slip back into hiscar.
“I did. Thank you very much,” Ioffer.
It doesn’t take long before we pull into another parking lot—it looks like the doctor’s parking area. Jackson opens my door first and runs around to open Emma’s door too, though she’s already opened it by the time he gets there. “I told you that you don’t have to keep doing that,” she says quietly along with a soft love tap to hisarm.
“I want to,” hesays.
She rolls her eyes at him and laughs. “You’re a goof, but a chivalrousone.”
She is hergrandmother.
Emma appears more nervous than I am as we take the elevator up to the eighth floor. I feel like the world is moving toward me in slow motion as we walk down the hall. I’ve been waiting so long for this day that I’m scared I may wake up from this dream again, and as usual, it won’t be real. We turn the corner, and in an instant, it feels as if time stood still. It doesn’t matter how many years have passed. It doesn’t matter that she has white hair and that there are lines on her face. She is still the most beautiful woman I have everseen.
“Amelia, my darling. You look as beautiful today as the last time I saw you,” I say as I walk toward her. The surprised glimmer in her eyes tells me that Emma wanted to keep my arrival a secret, which makes me happy. I’ve wondered what the look on Amelia’s face might be if we were to run into each other unexpectedly. This was the look Iimagined.
“Charlie?” she says, recognizing me immediately. Her eyes are open wide, and tears trickle down hercheeks.
I take her hands in mine and immediately feel the undying connection between us. I remember the sensation running through my body as if it were only yesterday that I laid eyes on her for the firsttime.
I haven’t cried since that day when they took me away from her, but the tears are flowing freely from my eyes now. I’m not ashamed to cry because I’ve been holding it in, waiting for this day for seventy-fouryears.
