Chapter 9: Saturday in the Park
I chose Regent's Park.
Wide enough that the girls could run without boundaries.
Public enough that nothing felt staged.
Quiet enough on a Saturday morning that we wouldn't be surrounded by noise.
Margaret brought them at ten.
I was already there, sitting on a bench near the rose garden with two coffees — one for me, one for Julian, who arrived three minutes later in a coat I didn't recognize and no security detail.
He stopped when he saw the girls.
They were twenty yards away, chasing each other around a large oak tree.
Lily was fastest.
Rose was loudest.
June was methodical, cutting angles, trying to intercept rather than pursue.
Julian stood very still.
"The one cutting them off," he said quietly.
"That's June?"
"Yes."
He watched her for a moment.
"She's going to be terrifying."
"She already is."
He sat down beside me.
I handed him the coffee.
He took it without looking away from the girls.
We sat like that for a while.
Just watching.
Then Lily spotted us.
She stopped running, looked directly at Julian with the frank assessment of a four-year-old who has no social filter, and walked over.
She stopped in front of him.
"Are you the man from the airport?" she asked.
Julian looked at her.
His jaw moved once.
"Yes," he said.
"Mommy said you were someone she used to know."
"That's right."
Lily considered this.
"Do you know her well?"
"I did.
A long time ago."
"Are you going to know her again?"
Julian glanced at me.
I kept my expression neutral.
"I hope so," he said.
Lily nodded, apparently satisfied, and turned and ran back toward her sisters.
Julian watched her go.
His hand around the coffee cup had gone white at the knuckles.
"She has your directness," he said.
"She has your jawline."
He looked at me then.
Really looked at me, the way he hadn't allowed himself to on the plane, or in the café, or across the table at The Langham.
"I missed four years," he said.
"Yes."
"I can't get those back."
"No."
"But I'd like—" He stopped.
Looked back at the girls.
Rose had fallen over and was laughing at herself.
June was helping her up with the serious efficiency of someone who finds chaos mildly irritating.
"I'd like to not miss any more."
"Then don't," I said simply.
He nodded slowly.
We finished our coffees.
After a while, Margaret brought the girls over properly.
Julian crouched down to their level and shook each small hand with a gravity that made Lily giggle and Rose immediately try to teach him a handshake she had invented that morning.
June shook his hand, looked at him carefully, and said: "You have the same hair as us."
Julian's voice, when he answered her, was not entirely steady.
"I do," he said.
"I noticed that too."
By noon, Rose had climbed onto the bench beside him and was explaining, at length and with great authority, everything she knew about ducks.
Julian listened to every word.
I sat on the other end of the bench and let it happen.
This was not forgiveness.
Not yet.
Forgiveness was a longer road, and I knew its terrain well enough not to rush it.
May you like
But it was a beginning.
And a beginning, after four years of nothing, was not a small thing.
