Chapter 25: 25. Summer Plans

"Hello Lexi!" Marianne called from the kitchen as I arrived home. "Perfect timing love, I'll have dinner ready in five minutes!"

I smiled as I dropped my purse on the sofa on my way through the living-room, then went into the kitchen to give my girlfriend a hug and kiss.

"Hi Marianne," I said after a long embrace and passionate kiss. "How was your day?"

She turned her attention back to the food she had on the stove as she replied, "It was so-so, I spent most of my time grading exams. I'll be very happy when that's over and done with for the summer."

"Could you open a bottle of wine please?" she added. "Then join me at the table."

"Of course," I smiled.

A few minutes later we were sitting at our little dining table, enjoying a nice glass of Bordeaux along with the fine dinner Marianne prepared.

My girlfriend watched me for a few moments then asked, "You must like the food, if that smile on your face is any indication."

I grinned, "It's delicious. And I was just wondering once again what I did to deserve all this? Because my life is a little bit of heaven."

Marianne grinned as well, "How was work? Was that heaven as well?"

"Ah," I grimaced. "You got me there. Work was work, but at least I'm doing something meaningful. And it gives Eva plenty of opportunity to help folks in her own way."

To be honest neither of us had anything to complain about. We both had careers we wanted in the fields we chose, and we both worked close enough to home we could walk rather than commute. She taught first-year students at the nearby university while working on her own research projects through the museum, and I maintained and repaired equipment at the college hospital.

And even though I didn't work directly with any of the hospital's patients, working there meant Eva had plenty of opportunity to help folks by absorbing their negative emotions. She'd take some of their fear or anxiety or pain, so they'd feel better and she never had to worry about going hungry.

"Speaking of Eva," my girlfriend responded after a moment, "I've been looking at options for our travels this summer. Perhaps we could discuss that?"

Our demon appeared and sat perched on the back of the sofa facing the two of us, she asked "What did you have in mind Marianne?"

That was the only real complaint or disappointment any of us had.

We'd given up the search for Eva's lover once we figured out she was probably killed in the big eruption of Vesuvius, but we were still trying to find her daughter. And in all this time we'd found nothing. We didn't even have any leads or clues. Every summer we'd spend two months travelling and searching, and I promised Eva we'd never give up hope.

Marianne replied, "Between our first two summers we've visited most of the islands in the Aegean. And the past two years we've explored all the most-likely parts of the Greek mainland. Lately I've been wondering, what if she went east? We could start in Cyprus, then check some potential locations in Turkey?"

She added, "Maybe we could even head up to Istanbul? At one time that whole area was part of the Byzantine Empire, it's possible your daughter followed them back to their capital."

Eva sighed, "It's possible? East then north, or east then south. We have the entire middle-east there, we could even head down into Egypt."

She looked and sounded sad as she continued, "There's so much world out there, and it's going to take so long to search it all."

"We'll find her Eva," I told her. "Don't lose hope. We're not going to give up."

"Thank you Lexi," she replied sadly. "I know you're right. And once we resume our search I'm sure my mood will improve."

A moment later Eva looked to my girlfriend and added, "And thank you Marianne. I'll spend some time looking at the maps later, and see if anything stands out as somewhere I think my daughter might have been curious to visit."

"I have the maps all open on my computer," Marianne responded. "It's all set up for whenever you want to look."

After a gulp of wine I suggested, "If you want to swap places after dinner Eva that's fine with me. Maybe me and Marianne can relax and talk while you're looking at the maps."

Eva gave me another sad smile, "Thank you Lexi. There's no rush, I'll look at the computer later tonight while you're asleep. In fact I think I'll get some rest for now. You two enjoy the rest of your evening."

She vanished before either of us could respond, and I felt her presence fade as she went dormant within me.

"Poor Eva," Marianne sighed. "I hope we find something soon. I hate to see her like that."

I sighed, "Me too. She really deserves some good news, after everything she's been through."

There wasn't much more conversation through the rest of dinner, then I did the dishes since Marianne cooked. Afterwards I joined her on the sofa in the living-room, and she ended up showing me all the maps and things she'd been looking at earlier.

"Eva was right," I said as I suppressed another sigh. "It's a big world. In four years we've only visited a bunch of islands and a few select parts of the Greek mainland. It's going to take us another decade just to cover the rest of the eastern Mediterranean."

My girlfriend wrapped an arm around me and pulled me into a hug. She gave me a kiss and whispered, "I know Lexi, but remember what she told us. Her kind are effectively immortal, she has all the time in the world. You and I do not, so we must make the most of our lives together."

After another kiss she added, "I think you and Eva have a good balance. Ten months you get to live a normal human life, and two months you travel and search for her missing child."

I kissed her back and teased, "It doesn't hurt that half the places she wants to search are relevant to your ancient studies, right?"

Marianne smiled, "No it doesn't hurt Lexi, but that's not the reason I do this with you two every summer. I love you both. Not the same way of course, but Eva is family. I want to help her, and I want to be with you."

Hearing that put a smile on my face again, and for a little while the unhappy feelings were forgotten.

Unfortunately it wasn't long before my worries returned.

"Thanks Marianne." I gave her a kiss then continued, "I'm grateful you're doing this with me and Eva. And I still don't think I'd survive it without you, even if I have got better about travelling over the years."

She smiled, "At least you don't have to worry about being homeless. Wherever we go, however far away we travel, we always have this place to come back to."

"Yeah," I smiled back at her. "Thanks again to you and Eva."

Even after four years it was hard to believe at times. My nineteen year old closeted trans girl self sure wouldn't have believed it if I told her that at age twenty-three she'd be a cute blonde college graduate living in a flat in Bloomsbury with her hot French girlfriend.

You are reading story Missed Connections at novel35.com

Thinking about that dragged my mind back to some other aspects of my past. My attempt at coming out to my dad and the argument that turned into. Dad shipping me over here to spend a month with my cousin. Ian's burglary idea and my subsequent death. Even though everything turned out almost perfect and I ended up in with a wonderful happy life, I still had mixed feelings about the events that brought me here.

After a few minutes I dug my phone out of my purse, then while I cuddled with Marianne I started searching up news on my cousin.

It only took a few moments to find something, and I commented "Looks like my cousin Ian got out of jail last year, his social media's active again. I hope he stays out of trouble this time."

"And I hope you're not planning on contacting him Lexi," my girlfriend responded. "I agree with Eva, your cousin is trouble."

"I know," I grinned. "And don't worry, I'm not going to contact him. I don't want to see him, I just wanted to see how he's doing."

I spent a few minutes looking through Ian's recent posts, but there wasn't any real news. He hadn't said anything about working, but he hadn't mentioned being unemployed either so I had no idea what he was up to. I hoped he'd turn things around and get himself sorted out, but I wasn't going to put myself or Marianne at risk by reaching out to the guy.

Next I checked on my dad. Things were pretty rough for him after my death a couple years ago. He seemed to be doing alright after that, last year when I looked him up things seemed to be going ok for him. I knew he was probably lonely, but after the way he reacted when I tried coming out, I...

I lost my train of thought as I stared at the news on my phone, and my mind started racing.

"Marianne? Eva?" I asked. "I think I need to make different plans, at least for the start of the summer."

My girlfriend sounded worried as she asked, "Why Lexi, what's wrong?"

"It's my dad," I replied quietly. I held out my phone so she could see the screen, "He's in hospital. It's stage four cancer."

Marianne sighed, "Oh Lexi, I'm sorry."

Eva appeared nearby and moved to sit next to me. She asked, "That's bad, right?"

"Very bad," I nodded. "I don't see a lot of details on his post, but he says he went into the hospital on the nineteenth and from the sound of it he doesn't think he's going home again."

My girlfriend held me a little closer while Eva asked, "What do you want to do?"

I sighed, "I think I need to see him. I need to go back to Canada, hopefully I can visit him before it's too late."

"Are you going to tell him who you are?" Marianne asked. "Do you think he'll believe you?"

"I don't know yet," I replied as I slowly shook my head. "But I want to see him again, I have to try."

Eva nodded, "Of course Lexi. I'll leave the arrangements up to the two of you, but as always make sure to travel first class. This takes priority, we'll spend as much time this summer visiting your father as we need to."

"Are you sure Eva?" I asked as I looked at her. "We've got so much work to do, so much ground to cover looking for your daughter."

She gave me a sad look, "Lexi I won't come between you and your father. If you wish to see him then we'll spend as much time as you want with him. I've waited three millennia to find my child, she can wait another month. Or even another year."

Yet again I wished I could hug her. I settled for giving her a grateful look as I said "Thank you Eva. I mean it."

"So we should start planning our trip right away yes?" Marianne asked. "You know where we need to go, and we know time is of the essence?"

I nodded, "Right. Plane tickets shouldn't be a problem, I'm sure there'll be plenty of options from London to Toronto. It's more a question of how soon we can get there."

My girlfriend replied, "My obligations with the university will be over on Wednesday, and we can skip or postpone our visit with my mother. I'll contact her and let her know. She'll understand of course."

"I can't get away any earlier," I said with a frown. "I've already got July and August booked off, but I'm working up until the end of next week."

"Could you not request additional time off Lexi?" Eva asked me. "Surely they would understand, if you explained your father's situation."

I grimaced, "Except nobody knows he's my dad, remember? On paper I don't have any parents, and my dad doesn't have any living kids."

"Anyways," I added, "We're only talking about next week. My last day is two days after Marianne's, it's not worth making a fuss at work."

By that point my girlfriend was looking up flights to Toronto, and I double-checked the location of the hospital dad mentioned on his post. It was in the east end of the city, so I started looking for accommodations out in that part of town.

The three of us continued to talk as we looked at options and made plans.

"How long do you think we should book for?" Marianne asked at one point. "We need to pick a return date, even if we decide to change it later on."

I shrugged, "I think the minimum for the plane tickets is one week? Realistically we could allow for a day to get settled into the hotel, visit the hospital on day two, and if things go badly we'd be good to leave on day three."

"Nonsense Lexi," my girlfriend stated. "If we're going all the way to Canada, I want to see your homeland. I want to see where you grew up, I want to see some sights there."

That made me smile, "It's a huge country. We could spend the whole summer there and we wouldn't see a tenth of it. But if you want to book for two weeks, that'd be enough to visit dad and do some touring around southern Ontario."

"Make it a month," Eva suggested. "We can always cut it short if we change our minds later, but like Marianne said, if we're going that far then we may as well make the most of it."

In the end it only took us half an hour or so to make the arrangements. We had a pair of first-class tickets from Heathrow to Toronto, and we had a luxury rental car booked so we could pick it up right there at the airport. And finally we had an executive suite at a nice hotel lined up that wasn't too far from the hospital.

We'd be flying out on July eighth and tentatively returning on August fifth, but we could bump that up or delay it if necessary. The car rental was open-ended and the hotel room was only booked for the first week, since we figured if we were doing some touring we'd probably stay in different places anyways.

With all that out of the way I slumped back on the sofa and sighed, "The next week and a half is going to be stressful, waiting to get over there. Actually it's probably going to be even more stressful when we get there. I honestly don't know how dad's going to react, but I have to do this. I have to see him again, while I've still got a chance."

"I know Lexi," Marianne replied as she pulled me into another hug. "I'll be there for you though. So will Eva."

I smiled, "Thank you. Both of you."