was long and blond, her face a flawless white, and she was slender and tall. Her eyes were familiar. Striking sapphire blue eyes greeted his, accompanied by a wide, pink smile.
Gabriel gave Grace a questioning look.
“I’ll let you two talk,” she said, and disappeared.
“I’m Gabriel.” He smiled politely and extended his hand.
She shook it, grinning happily in return. “I know.” Her voice
was soft and very sweet. It reminded Gabriel of a little bell.
“And you are?”
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“I wanted to meet you. Grace told me what you were like as a child, about your work as a professor. I like Dante too. He’s very funny.”
Gabriel nodded, not quite understanding.
The young woman looked up at him wistfully. “Will you tell
me about her?”
“Who?”
“Paulina?”
Gabriel stiffened, and his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why?”
“I never knew her.”
He rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “She went to
see her family in Minnesota, to try to reconcile with them.”
“I know. She’s happy.”
“Then why do you ask?”
“I want to know what she’s like.”
He took a moment to carefully construct what to say. “She’s at-
tractive and smart. She’s stubborn. She speaks several languages and she cooks well.” He chuckled. “But she’s not especially musical. She can’t carry a tune in a basket.”
The young woman giggled. “So I’ve heard.” She eyed Gabriel
curiously. “Did you love her?”
He looked away. “I think I love her now, in a way. We were
friends in the beginning, when I met her at Oxford.”
The young woman nodded and turned her head as if someone
was calling her from the hallway. She quickly shifted her gaze back to Gabriel.
“I’m glad I met you. It wasn’t possible before. But I’ll see you
again.” She smiled and turned toward the door.
Gabriel followed her. “I didn’t catch your name.”
She looked up at him expectantly. “Don’t you recognize me?”
“I don’t. I’m sorry. Although there’s something familiar about
your eyes…”
She laughed and Gabriel smiled in spite of himself, for her laugh-
ter was infectious. “Of course my eyes are familiar; they’re yours.”
Gabriel’s smile slid off his face.
“Don’t you know me?” She seemed puzzled.
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He shook his head.
“I’m Maia.”
His expression froze. Then, as the moments passed, it ranged
through several different emotions, like clouds floating across the sky on a summer’s day.
She pointed to the tattoo he wore on his left pectoral. “You didn’t have to do that.” She leaned forward, whispering conspiratorially. “I know that you loved me.
“I’m happy here. It’s filled with light and hope and love. And it’s so beautiful.”
She reached up and kissed him on the cheek, her touch lingering
for only a second, before she left him to walk to the hallway.
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Chapter 40
Tom stood at Julia’s front door the day after her graduation,
wearing a gray T-shirt with the word Harvard emblazoned
across the chest.
“Dad?” Julia’s tone was a question.
“I’m so proud of you,” he said gruffly, pulling her into a hug.
Father and daughter shared a quiet moment on the porch of Julia’s
building before they heard someone coming up the steps behind them.
“Uh, good morning. I brought breakfast.” Paul held a tray con-
taining three coffees and some doughnuts from Tim Horton’s. He
seemed somewhat embarrassed at having intruded on the Mitchells,
but he was greeted with a handshake from Tom and a hug from Julia.
The trio shared breakfast at Julia’s card table, then the two men
began planning how best to pack up all of her things and move them.
Luckily, Paul had persuaded Sarah, who was subletting to Julia, to allow her to move into the Cambridge apartment on June fifteenth.
“Um, Katherine Picton invited me to lunch today. But I don’t
have to go.” Julia spoke quickly. She didn’t want to leave Tom and Paul working while she went on a social call.
“You don’t have a lot of stuff, Jules.” Tom quickly appraised her
studio’s contents. “We’ll let you pack your clothes while we start on the books. I’m sure we’ll be close to finished by the time you have to see your professor.” He smiled and tousled her hair with his hand before disappearing into the washroom, leaving Paul and Julia alone.
“You don’t have to do this. Dad and I will be fine.”
Paul frowned. “When are you going to accept the fact that I’m
here because I want to be? I don’t leave, Julia, not when I have a reason to stay.”
Sylvain Reynard
Julia stiffened uncomfortably, and her eyes quickly fixated on
the half-finished coffee in front of her.
“If Professor Picton summoned you, it’s because she wants to talk
to you. You’d better go.” Paul squeezed Julia’s hand lightly. “Your old man and I can handle things around here.”
Julia exhaled slowly and smiled.
P
There were a few intimate things that Julia did not want her father or Paul to see so she hid them in her L. L. Bean knapsack. The items were not what one might expect a young woman to hide from her
father — a journal, diamond earrings, and a few items related to her counseling sessions.
Nicole had been pleased by Julia’s progress, and when they con-
cluded their final session, gave her the name and contact information of a counselor near Harvard. Nicole had not only helped Julia cope, she was passing her into another set of capable hands that would
help her take the next steps in her journey.
Julia wore a dress and modest sandals to Professor Picton’s house, thinking that an invitation to lunch warranted attractive garb. She carried her knapsack on one of her shoulders and clutched a tin of what she was told was a very fine loose Darjeeling tea, which she’d purchased as a hostess gift. She and her Darjeeling were received with typical Pictonian restraint and immediately ushered into the dining room where they enjoyed a very pleasant lunch of prawn salad, cold cucumber soup, and a fine Sauvignon blanc.
“How is your reading list coming along?” Katherine asked, eying
Julia over her soup.
“Slowly but surely. I’m reading the texts you’ve suggested, but
I’ve only started.”
“Professor Marinelli is looking forward to meeting you. It would
be good for you to introduce yourself to her when she arrives in
Cambridge.”
“I’ll do that. And thank you.”
“It would be beneficial for you to meet the other Dante specialists in the area, especially at Boston University.” Katherine smiled sagely.
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“Although I’m sure circumstances will arrange themselves so you end up being introduced to them eventually. But if they don’t, promise me that you will you drop by the Department of Romance Studies
at BU before September.”
“I will. Thank you. I don’t know what I would have done…”
Julia’s voice trailed off as she warred with her emotions.
Surprisingly, Katherine reached across the table and patted Julia’s hand. She touched her awkwardly, as a distinguished bachelo
r professor might pat the head of a crying child, but not without feeling.
“You’ve graduated with honors. Your thesis is solid and could
form the basis of what will hopefully be a fine dissertation. I look forward to watching your career with interest. And I think you will be very happy in Cambridge.”
“Thank you.”
When it was time for her to leave, Julia intended to shake Kath-
erine’s hand but was surprised when she was pulled into a restrained but warm hug.
“You’ve been a good student. Now go to Harvard and make me
proud. And drop me an email now and then to let me know how
you are.” Katherine pulled back and looked at Julia fixedly. “It’s quite possible I’ll be giving a lecture in Boston in the fall. I hope we’ll run into one another.”
Julia nodded her agreement.
As she walked to her small studio on Madison Avenue, she stared
in wonder at the gift Professor Picton had placed in her hands. It was a worn and rare early edition of Dante’s La Vita Nuova that had belonged to Dorothy L. Sayers, who had been a friend of Katherine’s dissertation director at Oxford. In it was Sayers’s marginalia, written in her own hand. Julia would treasure it always.
No matter what Gabriel had done, persuading Katherine Picton
to be her thesis advisor was a gift so great she would be forever in his debt.
Love is doing a kindness for someone else, not expecting to receive anything in return, she thought.
P
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Early the next morning, Julia, Tom, and Paul loaded everything
into the back of a U-Haul and drove eight hours to the Norris farm, which was located just outside of Burlington, Vermont. The Mitchells were warmly welcomed and were persuaded to stay a few extra days
so Ted Norris, Paul’s father, could take Tom fishing.
Julia silently doubted that any other inducement would have
delayed his rigorous schedule, but that was before either of them had tried Louise Norris’s cooking. Paul’s mother was an excellent cook who made everything, including doughnuts, from scratch. Tom’s
stomach was in love.
On June fifteenth, the night before the Mitchells and Paul were
supposed to leave for Cambridge, Paul couldn’t sleep. His father
had called him out of bed well after midnight because of a bovine
emergency. By the time the crisis was averted, he was far too agitated to go back to bed.
He had two women on his mind. Allison, his former girlfriend,
had been visiting when he arrived with Julia two days earlier. They were still friends, so the gesture was well meant, but Paul knew that part of her reason for being there was to size Julia up. He’d told Allison about Julia at Christmas, so she was more than aware of Julia’s presence in his life and his attachment to her. An attachment that he had to admit was unrequited, at least, at that time.
Still, Allison was friendly to Julia, and of course, Julia was her own shy but charming self. It was awkward for Paul as he watched
his past and his potential future make small talk while he fumbled for something to say.
When Allison called his cell phone before bed that evening and
said that Julia was lovely, he didn’t know how to respond. Of course he had feelings for Allison. They had a long and good history as
friends before they began dating. He loved her stil . But she’d broken things off with him. He’d moved on and met Julia. Why should he
feel guilty?
While Paul was contemplating his very complex (yet simulta-
neously non-existent) love life, Julia was wrestling with insomnia.
When she finally grew weary of tossing and turning she decided to
creep from the third floor garret she was occupying to the kitchen to get a glass of milk.
She found Paul sitting alone at the large, harvest table, eating a rather expansive dish of ice cream.
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“Hi.” He took in her appearance with a swift but appreciative look.
Julia walked over to him wearing an old Selinsgrove High School
T-shirt and a pair of running shorts that had St. Joe’s cheekily sewn onto the seat.
(To Paul’s eyes, she was Helen of Troy in leisurewear.)
“You can’t sleep, either?” She pulled out a chair to sit next to him.
“Dad had a problem with one of the cows. Heath Bar Crunch?”
He dished up a large spoonful of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and held it out to her.
It was her favorite flavor. She gently took the spoon out of his
hand.
“Mmmmm,” she groaned, eyes closed. She opened her eyes and
handed back the spoon, resisting the urge to lick it clean.
Paul put the spoon in the bowl and stood up. She blinked at
him and instinctively moved back in her chair.
“Julia,” he whispered, pulling her to her feet. He pushed her hair behind her shoulders, noting that she didn’t flinch when he did so.
Their upper bodies grazed one another. He looked into her eyes with an expression of heated intensity. “I don’t want to say good-bye.”
Her face crinkled up into a smile. “We won’t be saying good-bye.
We’ll email and talk on the phone. If you come to Boston, we’ll see each other.”
“I don’t think you understand.”
Julia freed her wrist from Paul’s hand, stepping back. “It’s because of Allison, isn’t it? I don’t want to create trouble for you. Dad and I can make the trip by ourselves.”
She waited patiently for his response, but instead of looking
relieved, he looked conflicted.
“This isn’t about Allison.”
“It isn’t?”
“Do you really have to ask me that?” He took another step toward
her. “Don’t you know?”
Leery of rejection, he raised his hands slowly and cupped her
face. Her fine features were engulfed by his large hands. He held
her tenderly, worried about such fragility underneath his grasp, and slowly began to stroke her face with his thumbs.
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Julia tore her eyes away from his. “Paul, I — ”
“Let me say this,” he interrupted forcefully. “Just once, let me
tell you how I feel.” He inhaled and waited until she met his gaze again before he spoke.
“I’m in love with you. I don’t want to be apart from you because I love you. The thought of having to leave you in Cambridge is tear-ing me up.”
Julia inhaled slowly and began to shake her head.
“Just hear me out. I know that you aren’t in love with me. I know
it’s too soon. But do you think that you could be — in time?”
She closed her eyes. Her mind raced ahead to envision a future
she hadn’t previously considered — a crossroads of possibilities. She thought of what it would be like to love Paul, to be held and kissed by him, to have him take her to his bed upstairs and make love to
her, gently and sweetly. For she knew above all things that Paul
would be sweet.
He would want marriage, of course, and children. But he would
be proud of her academic career and support her in it.
She found herself unrepulsed by these images, for they were good.
She could have a contented life with a decent man who had never
done her ill and who, she knew, would probably never so much as hurt her feelings as long as he lived. She could have a good life with him.
He lifted her chin and she opened her eyes.
“There won’t be drama and fights and exes like Professor Pain. I
will treat you respectfully, and I will never, ever leave you.
“Choose me,” he whispered, his eyes deep and intense. “Choose me and I will give you a happy life. You’ll never have to cry yourself to sleep again.”
Tears began to stream down her face. She knew that what he
was saying was true. But knowing the truth and wanting the truth
are two very different things.
“I’m not like him. I’m not an inferno that blazes and dies out.
I’m constant. I’ve held back because I knew that you only wanted
to be friends. But just once, I’d like to be able to show you what I feel without holding back.”
He took her silence as acquiescence and wrapped his arms around
her. He bent down so their lips could meet and poured all his passion 298
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and love for her into a single kiss. Paul’s mouth was warm and inviting.
What began as a gentle contact quickly became urgent with desire.
With a split-second decision, she opened to him, tentatively, and
his tongue quickly entered and met hers, his hands ending up in her hair. There was no domination, no pressing of boundaries, nothing
overwhelming or crass.
Paul kissed her for as long as he could without becoming ob-
scene, then slowly lessened the pressure of his lips on hers, pecking her briefly before moving his lips to her ear. “I love you, Julia. Say that you’ll be mine. You won’t regret it.”
Julia tightened her arms around him as the tears fell.
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Over breakfast the next morning, Louise Norris looked with
concern between her son and the young woman he loved.
Her husband, Ted, tried to keep the conversation moving by talk-
ing about the ill cow he’d tended to the night before. Tom tried to cram a homemade doughnut into his mouth without appearing like
a barbarian, and failed.
After breakfast, the kitchen emptied like a galleon full of rats
docking in a new port, leaving Paul and Julia sitting across from
one another, each fidgeting with their coffee mugs and avoiding
one another’s eyes.
Julia broke the silence. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me too.”
She chewed on her lip as her eyes darted to meet his, wondering
if he was angry or bitter. Or both.
But he wasn’t. His dark eyes were still kind, but he appeared
defeated. “I had to try, you know? I didn’t want to wait until you’d found someone else. But I won’t bring it up again.” He pursed his
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