Guillermo sat down beside her. "I'm sorry about your mother. How old were you when she passed?"
June told him about her mother, then asked about his family back in Mexico.
"I live with my mother, my sister, and my grandfather. My father comes homes for holidays but lives here the rest of the year."
"Are you close to your sister?" June asked. She'd always wanted a sibling.
"Oh, yes. She tells me all about her boy problems and asks me for advice, even though she never takes it. She is always trying to fix me up with her friends, but I'm not interested in them. I study very hard and I work at my uncle''s store after school to help my parents with expenses. I don't have time to date. I think my sister would like you. Maybe someday you will meet her."
"That would be nice." She loved watching him talk. He was so cute with his dimples, and she loved the way his mouth curled. He seemed a little nervous when he spoke to her, and his cheeks flushed whenever he looked at her.
The conversation flowed easily between them over the next couple of hours. As they ate, they talked about school, and about their futures. Guillermo was a year ahead of June in high school and was going to be a junior, but he already knew he wanted to be a doctor.
"I'm sure you'll make an excellent doctor," she said, but he actually looked sad. "What's wrong?"
"It's just that my family expects me to work with my father, to take over the landscaping business someday. Nobody in my family has ever gone to college before."
"You can get scholarships for college...I mean, if your family can't afford it. Do you have good grades?"
"Yes, I work hard and get good grades."
"Well, you should think about it."
His face brightened and he nodded.
The conversation moved on to movies then, and more about books--he had never heard of E.F. Benson. When June asked him what he was currently reading, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a copy of Moby Dick. "I've just started it."
"Me too!" June said. "Well, I haven't actually started reading it yet, but it's next on my list." Right after she went to the store and bought a copy.
Guillermo said he'd just finished reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and they spent the rest of their time together discussing Huck and Finn and the impact the book had on them when they'd read it. They could both identify with Huck's feeling like a teenage misfit, and they laughed about some of his adventures and the situations he and Jim found themselves in.
Before they knew it, dusk settled in. Guillermo suggested he walk her back before it got too dark. At least, as close to the house as he could get without being seen. He and his father lived in a small cottage on the property, as had his grandfather at one time.
When they reached the point where they needed to part, June asked if he wanted to meet again. Guillermo hesitated, and her heart sank. She thought he felt something for her. Was she wrong? Was he just being polite?
"Okay, yes, I will come," he said at last.
"Good." She tried to act casual about it by quickly changing the subject. "In Spanish this year I learned that Guillermo means the same as William. Would it be okay if I called you Will?"
He nodded.
"Okay then, Will, see you on...Sunday?"
They agreed to meet at the same place, at the same time, and June would once again bring dinner. He watched as she made her way safely into the house and waved goodnight. She closed the door behind her and smiled the biggest smile of her life.
Chapter Thirty-One
2004
"So, that was just the beginning, I presume?" Grace said.
"That was our first date, if you could call it that," June said. "There were many more dates under the old oak tree that summer, and with every meeting I wondered if or when he was going to kiss me. I was starting to think that I was going to have to make the first move, and I was prepared to do it. But as it turned out, I didn't have to."
1976
June loved being with Will and wished that summer would last forever. She was falling heels over head in love with him, and she thought about him all the time. She thought he felt the same way, but they'd never talked about it. And they had never kissed, except in her dreams.
Will was scheduled to go home just before Labor Day weekend. Just before school started for both of them. They planned their last meeting, and as June lay in bed the night before, she wondered whether Will would finally kiss her on their last night together. She hoped beyond hope that he would, and thought she might even make the first move if he didn't. She had to know for sure how he felt, and she knew without a doubt that she would be able to tell from his kiss.
When she arrived at their spot, Will was already waiting for her. He brought her a beautiful red rose and a book of poems that he wanted to share with her. She was touched by his thoughtfulness, and lay with her head on his lap as he read her poetry and fed her some of the grapes she'd brought.
It was the most romantic evening of her life, but all she kept thinking about while he read was whether or not he was going to kiss her. She thought the rose and the poetry boded well for a kiss, but she couldn't be sure. She wanted the evening to last forever, and at the same time, she wanted to fast forward to the end. The part where, if there was going to be a kiss, the kiss would happen.
And then, as the sun began to fade and time was running out, it happened, and she wasn't even paying attention.
They both laughed after the kiss and she asked him if they could try again. This time she closed her eyes and waited in anticipation of his lips touching hers, and when they did, her stomach turned inside out.
She cursed time for running out as the darkness descended upon them because she knew that the kisses had to end, and that she would have to wait a very long time for another. While she was thinking about all of this, she didn't hear him say the words.
"What did you say?" she asked, breathless.
Will laughed. "I said I love you. God help me, I love you, silly girl."
June pinched herself and it hurt. She was awake, and he felt the same way she did. He loved her. Beautiful, smart, sensitive Will loved her!
"I love you, too."
2004
Grace rolled on the floor with laughter. "Well, considering that I'm sitting here, I'm guessing that there was a whole lot more than kissing ahead."
June flushed. "Oh yes, there were a lot more kisses, but not that year. He left the next day to go back home, and we had to wait an entire school year to see each other again.
"We wrote letters, and sent each other little gifts, but it was very difficult being apart. It wasn't like it is today with cell phones and email. We wrote actual letters to each other, and that was it."
"No phone calls?"
"Never. If my father learned of our relationship, it would've been over before it had properly begun. Luckily, I beat my father to the mailbox every day."
"Wow, that must've been hard."
"Oh, you don't know. But we made up for lost time when he returned the following summer."
Now it was Grace's turn to blush. "I'll bet you did. Is that the summer I came into being?"
"Yes. It was the best summer of my life. Your father and I spent as much time as we could together and every time we did, we fell more in love."
Grace felt almost detached, afloat, she was so happy. When she had dreamed of her mother, she had sometimes imagined her as rich, beautiful, and romantically in love with her father. Those dreams had been crushed when she received that birth certificate, which showed her mother as a young drifter. Now it turned out that the truth was even more amazing and wonderful than she ever could've imagined. She could feel the anger and pain that she had held onto for so long she was no longer aware of melting away. They weren't gone. They might not be gone for years. But she could now begin to see past them to something new.
"What happened when you learned you were pregnant with me?" Grace asked.
"I grew up quickly after that. My head was r
eeling from the news. The first thing I had to do was figure out how to tell your father. I knew that once I did, he'd know exactly what to do."
1977
One Sunday night, June was uncharacteristically late meeting Will. He pulled her down next to him and asked her what was wrong.
She didn't say anything for a long time. She had been searching for the right words all day, but they never came. She looked at him with tears in her eyes. She was afraid of what he would think, what he would feel, what he might do. There was no easy way to say it, so she just blurted it out.
"I'm pregnant."
Nothing. No reaction.
June held her breath.
She realized that she'd had a few days to digest the news, but he was hearing it for the first time. She watched him, letting the news settle.
"But...how? When?"
She cried and shook her head. "I have no idea." She'd gone on birth control pills before their first time. "I've never missed a pill." Looking for some comfort, she reached for his hands.
He pulled them away.
She thought she might be sick. She looked at him, willing him to say something, anything.
"Oh, my God," he said. "I've done it. I''ve done exactly what my father said I was going to do. When he finds out about this...when your father finds out about this...he''s going to kill me and send my father away."
June watched in horror through her tears and wished there was something she could say to comfort him. There was not.
"Are you going to keep it?" he asked.
Anger bubbled up inside her. "Am I going to keep it? This is our baby, Will. Yours and mine. We made it together. From love, I thought. But maybe I was wrong about that.""
"I...no, June, I do love you. I'm just scared. For you, for me, for my father. You're going to have a home here no matter what. I probably won't. I just thought it might be easier for everyone if...if we didn't keep it. We can have lots of babies later on, when we're married. I still want everything we've talked about, June. I want to spend the rest of my life with you."
The tears felt like hot wax as they inched slowly down her cheeks. She hadn't known what to expect when she sprung the news on him, but it wasn't this. "My father will be mad when he hears the news, but he'll get used to the idea." She tried to convince herself it was true.
Guillermo cupped her face in his hands and kissed away her tears. "I love you, June." He placed his hand on her belly. "I love our baby, too. Don''t ever forget that. No matter what happens. Promise?"
She nodded and folded herself into his arms. She breathed in the scent of him, memorizing him, and then she kissed him with everything she felt for him. His body responded to her kisses, and they made love as if for the first time, or maybe the last, and she knew she would remember this night for the rest of her life.
She assured him that they had plenty of time to figure things out since she wouldn't start showing for a couple months. They parted that night with a promise to see each other the following Sunday night. Their usual place, at the usual time.
2004
"It was the last time I saw him," June said. "He left sometime between that night and the following Sunday. He and his father just packed up and went. No note or anything."
Grace's lower lip trembled. "You never heard from him again?"
Pain creased June's forehead. "No."
She might've guessed that things didn't end well, given that she ended up in an orphanage. But this was a tragic love story if ever she'd heard one. Romeo and Juliet had nothing on them. She reached for a tissue from the box on the table and dabbed at the tears pooling in her eyes.
"I'm so sorry, Mom." The word slipped out before she had time to even consider it. "I mean...is it okay if I call you that?"
An easy smile covered June's face and she nodded. "It's more than okay. I've waited a lifetime to hear it."
Grace peered into June's startling blue eyes--the same eyes she'd seen in her dreams--and felt a powerful connection. She still couldn't believe she was sitting across from her mother. She had so many questions, starting with who had taken her from her mother, and why? There was an entire lifetime to catch up on, but there would be plenty of time for that. Right now she wanted to be present, and allow this moment to be what it was--a miracle. This was surely a miracle.
She squeezed her mother's hand. "I can't imagine how crushed you must''ve been when my father left like that."
"Oh, yes. And angry. I alternated between missing him with every fiber of my being and hating him for leaving me. At times I thought he never loved me at all."
"And the other times?"
June sighed. "I think deep down I always knew he did, but I still think that if he'd really wanted to, he could've gotten in touch with me.""
Grace nodded. She thought it seemed a bit cowardly of her father to have disappeared from her mother's life without any further contact. She deserved better.
"When did you tell your father about me?" Grace asked.
"A couple weeks after Will and his father left. My grandfather was going to talk to him, but my father hadn't been home much that week--he was making a film and he often slept in his office for days at a time--and he hadn't had an opportunity to tell him yet. And then one Saturday evening--"
"Wait, wait, wait. You mean your grandfather knew you were pregnant?"
"Yes, I was very close to Benjamin. When my mom died, my dad was unable to comfort me, so my grandfather became everything to me--mother and father, and best friend, too."
"Did he approve of Will?" Grace asked.
"He never judged. He knew I loved Will, and that I was happy. That was good enough for him. Benjamin had hired Will's grandfather when he built the house in the 1930s, and he always thought of the Torres men as family."
"He sounds like a good man."
"He was. I was lucky to have him. I told him I was pregnant even before I told Will because I was scared, and didn't know what to do. He said he would speak to Edward, tell him about the baby, but then my father came home unexpectedly, and......"
1977
That Saturday, Edward Crandall arrived home late in the afternoon. June was in the kitchen getting a snack when he stormed into the house, yelling about the hedges in the driveway being overgrown.
"What the hell have those goddamned Torres men been doing every day, because they sure as hell haven't been doing their jobs? You--" He pointed to Bernadette. "Go get Juan Torres and have him come to the house."
Bernie had been June's nanny since she was eight, and was now the head housekeeper. She stared at Edward, but said not a word. The staff had all been instructed by Benjamin not to say anything about the Torres men leaving.
"Are you deaf, woman? Go get him, now!"
June stepped bravely in front of the woman she had come to love like a mother, her legs suddenly shaking like a newborn colt. "They're gone, Father."
"What do you mean, gone?"
June opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say anything, her grandfather spoke. "I fired them. They were doing a lousy job so I canned them both."
Edward looked from his father to his daughter. "Somebody better tell me what is going on around here because Torres was the best damn gardener I've ever seen. Now spit it out."
June gave her grandfather a look that told him it was time for the truth to come out. The conspiratorial look between them did not go unnoticed by her father.
"Edward," Benjamin said, "let's take this into my study.""
Edward marched into the study, followed by June and Benjamin, who quietly closed the door. Edward looked from his daughter to his father. "One of you'd better tell me what is going on."
He turned his attention to his father, who opened his mouth to speak, but before any words were spoken, June blurted out, "I'm pregnant, Father."
Edward spun around to face his daughter. "You're what?"
"You heard me," June said more confidently than she felt.
"What has this got to do with the
Torres--" And then his face registered the truth. "You and...the Torres boy?"
June nodded.
Edward sat down on the arm of the sofa and was quiet for a very long time. "You're not planning to keep it, are you?"
She nodded again.
And then something unexpected happened. Edward began to weep. June was expecting him to yell and scream--had braced herself for it--but she did not expect this. She stood in place, not sure what to say.
Edward looked into June's eyes. "I expected so much more from you. I've given you every opportunity in life. And this is what you choose? To be an unwed, teenage mother? And where is the baby's father anyway?"
June shrugged. "I don't know, Father. He left. He and his father left."
Edward pushed out a heavy sigh and looked at her with tired, pleading eyes. "If this is in any way my fault, if I haven't been there enough for you, I'm truly sorry. But please, June, won't you at least consider giving the child up for adoption? You have your whole life ahead of you. You can have more children."
June stared down at her feet. "No, Father, my mind is made up. I'm going to keep my baby." She didn't need to see her father's disappointment to feel it, and it was like a dagger to her heart. She could've handled yelling and screaming, but this was far worse.
"I'm sorry I've disappointed you, Father."
Edward walked to the door of the study and left quietly. A few minutes later, they heard his Mercedes as it pulled out of the driveway.
June ran into her grandfather's open arms and he held her. "There, there, sweetheart. He'll come around. In the meantime, you have to take care of my great-grandchild.""
2004
"How long was Edward gone?" Grace asked, taking a last sip of tea and placing the cup on the table.
"A week."
"What happened when he came back?"
"He gave me a gift. A ruby and diamond necklace that had belonged to my mother. A Borgese family heirloom, handed down from mother to daughter when the eldest daughter became pregnant. I knew it was difficult for my father to part with. I took it as a sign of his renewed commitment to me.
The Many Lives of June Crandall Page 17