Page 45 of Find Me in California

“So, what, if I tell you I’m moving her, you’ll stay? You won’t break up with me?”

“I never said we were breaking up.”

She tightly folded her arms. “It sure feels that way.”

He moved to embrace her. “Jules—”

She lifted a hand. She didn’t want to hear his excuses or feel his goodbye.

“She could live another fifteen to twenty years,” he said.

“The doctors said eight to ten.” That was four years ago. Julia was determined to spend as much quality time with Mama Rose as she could. One day, her grandmother would forget who she was, and she feared that day would come soon.

“They don’t know that for sure. It could be longer. Is this how you want to spend your life? Spending every minute watching over her? At some point, you’ll have no choice but to watch over her twenty-four seven. How are you going to support yourself?”

Her hand sliced through the air between them. That was the wrong thing to say to her, and he knew it. After everything Mama Rose had sacrificed for her, she’d give up her life for her grandmother if it meant Mama Rose could die peacefully in her home.

He swallowed audibly. “This isn’t how I imagined us. You deserve more.Ideserve more.”

She flinched, his words echoing her mother’s when she’d left Julia with Mama Rose.

She stepped aside for him to pass. “Goodbye, Nolan.”

His face fell. He held her gaze until she looked away, hurt, and unnerved. He’d forced her hand, and she made her decision. She didn’t choose him.

“Julia.” He spoke her name with resignation.

Then he was gone.

The next morning, she came downstairs to find Mama Rose seated at the table, her hands folded around a steaming cup of tea. She was lucid but had no memory of the previous night when Julia asked her about it. She then told Mama Rose that Nolan had moved out. After six years together, they’d broken up.

Mama Rose didn’t ask, but Julia suspected she knew it was because of her. Ever so quietly, she told Julia that it was time for her to move out too. And Mama Rose knew exactly the facility she wanted Julia to place her in.

The whir of the laptop’s fan brings Julia back to her room. She stares at her mother’s name in the search bar. An option, Lenore told her, encouraging her to reach out. Lea is Ruby Rose’s daughter, and in a perfect world, Lea would step up to her responsibilities and take on some of Julia’s burden.

But Lea abandoned Julia and Mama Rose. And Julia doesn’t want to invite that kind of heartache into her life again.

She’ll have to find another option if she’s to keep her promise to Mama Rose.

CHAPTER 21

MAGNOLIABLU

August 17, 1972

It’s been a month since my last entry. Liza has been keeping me busy. I’ve finished designing and overseeing the build-out of a secluded garden nook Liza can escape to for outdoor naps and reading. She’s been occupied with her charities and hosting backyard parties. I don’t know what she’d do without Adam and Sally. They make things happen in her absence.

When she’s home, she spends a lot of time with them, Adam especially. He’s been joining us for breakfast more frequently, and he and Liza often share dinner in the kitchen in Matty’s absence. I suspect Liza’s lonely for his company because Matty is working endless hours on his current film project. When he’s not on set, his team sends him from one social engagement to another. But his face often greets me in the grocery store checkout line. He’s on almost every magazine cover. And it’s his face I see when my eyes close at night.

I’d been so preoccupied with my latest fantasy—living together in the garden studio, but the studio is on the beach, and it belongs to us—that he startled me this afternoon. I was cutting back the vine overtaking the shed and didn’t expect anyone to be outside. Adam hadtold me Matty was sleeping and that Liza would be out all day. But I heard someone swearing. Then I heard whispers and what sounded like someone sneaking down the gravel path. Superfans have tried to break into the yard before to get a peek at Matty. There have also been a series of robberies in the neighborhood.

Thinking a thief had found a way onto the property, I put down the clippers, grabbed the shovel, and tiptoed toward the garden nook. I could hear the intruder pace. He grumbled incomprehensibly, and after several deep breaths, I worked up the nerve to confront him. I leaped from behind the tree and swung the shovel. The Holloways would not be robbed on my watch.

Matty shouted and I shrieked. The booklet in his hand flew in a wild arc. He leaned back in the nick of time, narrowly avoiding the shovel head.

“What the fuck?” he bellowed.

I dropped the shovel and profusely apologized for my stupidity. I told him that I’d thought he was a thief and that I should have looked to see who it was before I had attacked.

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