Chapter Thirty-One

All things considered, life in Japan was pretty good.

Blake was training a new batch of soldiers, the weather was pretty decent, and in the three weeks since he’d arrived at the military base in Okinawa, he’d made two trips into Tokyo, once to scope out the temples he’d finally gotten his mother to admit she’d wanted to see, and now to meet up with her while she was on summer break.

Despite his suggestion, Constance Monroe had insisted she hadn’t needed to drop her backpack off at the Airbnb before hitting the sights. Then again, getting his mother to change her mind about anything often took a great deal of time and patience, both of which had seemed to be in short supply these days.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” His mother laid a gentle hand on his, the touch soothing much as it had when he was a little boy and she worked two jobs and still managed to be patient with him.

He looked up from his tea cup and traced a thumb over the delicate etching on its side. “Yeah, why?”

His mother’s shrewd eyes narrowed slightly. “You haven’t said much since I got here.”

“Sorry.” He dragged in a deep breath and regarded the woman to whom he owed all that he was. “Just a bit tired.”

“Seems to me I’m the one who should be tired after crossing a few time zones and sitting for more than ten hours.” She straightened in her seat when he didn’t offer a response. “Don’t get me wrong, Blake, because I’m glad to be here, but you’re the one who insisted on this trip.”

“I thought you’d said you’d always wanted to visit the Tokyo temples.”

“Not all thirteen thousand of them,” she said drily. “And certainly not all in one day.” She raised her teacup and sipped. “I would’ve been just as happy chilling—as you kids call it—after my exams last week.”

Of course she would have. She never complained and didn’t ask for much. It’s one of the many reasons her being here was so important to him. “You’ve worked hard, Mom. You’ve earned this time to visit temples or do whatever you want.”

“At the risk of sounding ungrateful, what I wanted most after that brutal quarter was to sleep.”

“Sleep?” He raised an eyebrow. “You can’t be serious.”

She lifted a corner of her mouth in a crooked smile. “Sleep. Not that I’m going to get much of it once I start my hospital residency, but I figured I should grab some while I can.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What? That I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself? That I’d make it to Japan one day? That I got through chemistry and physiology without your help, so I could most certainly find my way around Japan—or any country—just fine without you?” She tilted her head. “Would you have believed me?”

He raised an eyebrow. Would he have believed her? He’d vowed as a kid to do everything he could to protect his mom, to help her achieve her own dreams since she’d sacrificed so much to give him and his sister a shot at life. He’d been willing to do the same for Zandra. “Yes, I know you’re capable of taking care of yourself, Mom.”

She gave him a small smile then relaxed against the wooden chair. “You have something on your mind.” His mother stared. “Tell me about it.”

He tapped his fingers on the table and stared out the window. Maybe his mother was right. The more he thought about it, Zandra didn’t learn the train system until he’d had to practically duct tape his mouth and not tell her what to do when they’d left the goat farm for Stuttgart. If he hadn’t interfered all the other times, she’d probably have caught on much more quickly.

“I’ve been a total ass,” he muttered, slumping forward. “A complete and total ass.”

“Now I think you’re being a bit dramatic, Blake.”

He shook his head. “You don’t understand. I took that away from her.”

“Who?” The gently asked question made him sit up. He searched his mother’s eyes.

“Zandra,” he finally said, watching her closely.

True to form, she didn’t pry, didn’t ask complicated questions, but simply said, “Go on. Tell me what’s been happening.”

Some guys would never swallow their pride or bare their souls to anyone, let alone a parent, but his mother had never let him down. Ever. He trusted her to have his back as much as he trusted his battle buddies.

“It all started when I met Zandra in Germany. Back when she’d gotten her first assignment for that e-zine.” Blake let it all out, from the way he’d admired Zandra’s work ethic, her insistence on perfection from each shot she took, to the hours she spent editing the photos she’d taken, to even the time she’d spent posting things on social media.

He told his mother all of it, right down to Zandra’s resilience when someone had stolen her camera lens, to the way she’d tried and tried and tried to figure out the train schedule until she’d finally nailed it on her last day in Germany.

“So what happened that’s got you all upset?” she quietly asked when he’d finished.

He looked up from the tea that had grown cold long ago.

“Nothing. She just… It’s just…” What the hell was he even trying to say? That Zandra tended to tie him up in knots? That the time they’d spent together was more special than he’d thought possible? That the thought of not seeing her smile again, touching her, laughing with her ate at him so hard that he was having trouble sleeping?

If he were really fucking honest with himself, it was the realization that he’d willingly give up what he wanted for his life for someone who was his polar opposite.

He spiked a hand through his hair and sucked in a deep breath. He was thoroughly fucked.

“She’s special,” his mother finally supplied. “Am I right?”

He glanced up. “She is. And that’s where I fu—umm, screwed up.” He ducked his head and tapped his fingers on the wood table top. “She’d taken some amazing photos, stuff I don’t think I’d ever seen before. I mean, it’s like she’d touched the soul of whatever she was shooting, whether it was people dancing or a piece of chocolate.”

“I understand she’s really talented.”

“She is.” He continued drumming his fingers on the table. “But afterward, when we were back in Seattle, I found out about the recognition she’d earned from Flights and Sights, that they’d given her a bigger assignment, and I didn’t support her. I didn’t acknowledge her success, I didn’t even send her a text. I…” He looked away. Confessing this to his mother was beyond embarrassing and something he had to do. “I ignored her.”

“Why? That’s not like you.”

“Because I’m scared, Mom, scared of what’d happen if I turned my focus from what I want to do with my time and bent to someone else’s wants.” He sucked in another deep breath and tried like hell to stay grounded. “I mean, think about it. First chance I get, I’m headed to law school, which means staying put. Meanwhile, Zandra’s just starting her career, one that she’d been dreaming of for years. She wants to travel, to take pictures all over the world. How could I ask her to give that up? Ever?”

“Law school?” She sat up, a frown on her face. “You want to go to law school? How did I not know this?”

“Ummm…well…” He scrubbed a hand over his face. Now he’d gone and done it. He hadn’t planned on sharing anything with his mother until after her graduation day.

“Blake, tell me the truth. How long have you wanted to go to law school?”

He glanced up and caught the no-nonsense look on her face. No way could he lie to her now. “Since I was a kid.”

“Then why in the world did you insist on helping fund my college plans? You and your sister both swore you wanted military careers. Why didn’t you go after your dreams first? Because I’m assuming Lily doesn’t want to stay in the Army, either.”

“You’ll have to ask her.” He made a mental note to text his sister. She was probably still doing drills in Australia and wouldn’t get his message anytime soon. “Look, you’re our mom, and you gave up a lot for us.” He swallowed deeply but forced his voice to remain even. “You’d just started college when Dad died. You gave all that up and made sure there was a roof over our heads and food on the table. You helped put us through college, too. Now it’s your turn. You deserve a shot at making your dreams come true.”

“And you don’t?” Her shoulders slumped as her eyes searched his, and he had the uneasy feeling this convo wasn’t ending anytime soon. “Oh, Blake, ever since you were young, you’ve been taking care of everyone else instead of doing what you wanted. My God, you even learned how to cook so that you were better than I was by the time you were fourteen.”

What did she expect him to do? Let her do it all on her own? “You were busy, you held down two jobs, so I helped where I could.” He shrugged. “Besides, it was either that or starve.” He grinned, hoping the conversation could be diverted to safer topics. “So which Japanese temple would you like to see next?”

“You took care of your sister,” she said, clearly ignoring his attempt to steer the conversation. “You held a job when you were in high school, you didn’t play sports like the other kids, and through it all, you never complained.”

“I learned that from you.” He flashed her another grin. “So how about that next temple, huh?”

“And you’re still doing it.”

Damn it. He blew out a breath. Clearly, his mother was determined to finish this conversation. “You mean not complaining? Because I could start now.”

She shot him a hard stare. “You’re still playing the caretaker role for people instead of doing what you want to do with your time. Case in point: your trip to Germany.”

“I did it because it was the right thing to do,” he protested. “Zandra had never traveled overseas before.”

“Maybe so, but did you even think twice about the concert tickets to one of your favorite rock bands that you’d had to give up?” She eyed him. “And now I find out that not only do you want to go to law school, but instead of getting out of the Army and doing it, you re-enlisted so you could pay for me to go to medical school.”

He blinked. Jeez. He’d forgotten about the concert tickets, hadn’t thought twice about them since he’d given the pair to a homeless vet program to be raffled off. “First off, it was just a concert. Secondly, like I’d said, I’ll get my chance after you graduate.”

“Which I now realize conveniently falls around the time your Army contract ends,” she said drily. She blew out a breath and stared at him. “But you do know this overprotective mode you’re in is probably part of the reason you’re having trouble with Zandra.”

Well, that’d teach him to want to change topics again. “I already said I wouldn’t ask her to give up photography.”

“Who says you have to ask her to give anything up?”

Blake stared. “Well, I’m not giving up my plans.”

“Who says she’d ask you to do that?”

Maybe she wouldn’t, but he knew that successful relationships meant investing time in each other. How could they do that if hundreds of miles of air space separated them? Maybe an entire ocean or continent, too? He was dumb enough at one point to think it could work, but he knew better now.

“Honey,” she said, her voice gentle, “that’s not what’s at the root of all this. The question you have to ask yourself is whether or not your overprotective behavior is going to change anything.”

“What are you getting at?” He frowned. “Maybe I do take care of the people I care about, but I don’t expect anything back from them, nor do I expect it to change anything in my life.”

“Not even bring your father back?”

He stilled at the quietly asked question then swallowed. He and his mother had never talked about that night, and while he’d expected the topic to come up one day, he hadn’t thought it’d be in a tiny tea house in the heart of Tokyo. Yet somehow, every reason to hold back seemed to fall away as easily as the sun breaking through the clouds over the city. “I couldn’t help him, you know.”

“You were only four. Surely you’re not blaming yourself for his death, are you?”

A sharp pain struck him in the chest, and he breathed deeply, tried to ease it. “I could see them,” he said quietly, his mind’s eye taking him back to that fateful night when his life was forever changed. “Those two guys in the convenience store. I was in my booster seat, and I could see Dad trying to protect the gas station attendant. Then the gun went off.”

He’d alternated between screams and cries until his mother held him an hour or so later. He remembered regularly putting his toys away after that in an effort to stop his mother’s tears, and although they eventually stopped falling, he’d learned to keep his room clean and did laundry as soon as he could move a stepladder close enough to the washer, and also learned how to cook…

Holy shit. He blinked. That’s really when it had all started for him. He stared across the small table as scene after scene continued to play from some deep recess in his brain. “You’re right,” he finally said. “I’ve been doing it practically my whole life and never realized it.”

She leaned forward. “Blake, when your father died, I was almost sure my life was over. But then I realized something.”

“That you had kids who needed you, so that’s when you rallied.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I realized I had myself to live for.”

He raised an eyebrow. Not the answer he expected, especially since his mother had been pretty selfless, sacrificing much to give him and Lily the best she could. That his grandfather had been around for a few years was a bonus.

“Make no mistake, I loved your father. To this day, he was the most amazing man I’ve ever met, a man I respected and cherished and who I knew felt the same way about me. But I also know that I decide the course of my existence, no matter who is a part of it. Now you have to do the same.” She smiled encouragingly. “Because no matter how protective you are of the people around you, your dad’s not coming back.”

He blinked at the deep stab of emotion in his chest, unable to deny it any longer. That he’d spent most of his adult life trying to bring him back was a huge bitch slap right now. “You’re right,” he said through the lump in his throat. He was powerless to change things, but he could affect the future—his future.

And maybe Zandra’s, too?

“Your life isn’t in the past,” his mother continued. “That’s where you’ve been living, but it isn’t really living. Living is now. Living is doing what’s right for you, for what you want, not just what other people want, because your life matters, too. You know, some would argue that my life didn’t work out. I would argue otherwise. I raised two kids then took a chance on reaching for my dreams thanks to those kids. It took a long time, but look at me now.”

She sat back and toyed with her teacup. “If you’re brave enough to see where things go with Zandra, no matter what happens, I think you’ll discover that your life will work out, maybe even better than you expected.”

He blew out a breath and stared out the window at the throng of people. Maybe his mom was right. She usually was. Maybe choosing to be with Zandra didn’t have to mean giving up his own dreams. Maybe there was a way they could make a long-distance relationship work.

He reached into the front pocket of his jeans and felt the unmistakable glass heart. At first, he was sure it was the dumbest impulse buy he’d ever made, but now hope bloomed like the last of the cherry blossoms on the tree across the street.

All he had to do was figure out a way to convince Zandra to take a chance on them.