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The smell of oranges always reminded Roy of the hospital, and it's what he had expected in the groves, but the orange blossoms weren't bright and acidic like the oranges, but smelled almost like soap. It was cloying, even from the edge of the field where he sat in his car, looking out at the trees that seemed to go on forever.
He'd driven with the top down on the roadster. It had been a gift to him from some studio head who could drop a dime on a new car. The breeze through the trees had more warmth and substance than driving top speed down the highway.
"Roy!"
He turned away from the grove and to the house where a young woman was running down the front steps of the main house. Her long, dark curls bounced with every new step, then flowed behind her as she ran for the car.
"Alexandria?"
Roy was fully aware of the passage of time, but he still had an image in his head of a little girl with her head wrapped in gauze when he thought of Alexandria. Even when she sent him a letter with perfect penmanship, and not the gibberish he'd seen in the first note he'd ever received from her, he couldn't conceptualize a whole, grown person.
"You've made it," she said as she nearly slammed into the side of the car in her enthusiasm. Her fingers curled over the door, like she wanted to pull it open.
"I said I'd come," Roy replied with a grin. "Thank you for inviting me."
"Of course. You have no idea how happy I was to receive your letter." Alexandria released the car and took a step back. "Sorry. My mother loves to tell me how regularly careless I am. I'm sure you had a long drive."
It wasn't that far, all things considered. He hadn't seen Alexandria since she left the hospital. Until he went back to work, he exchanged a few letters with her mother, but once he got busy he lost track of time. He could go months without thinking he should at least send a new correspondence. Then, it felt like too long. It would be weird to reach out again.
Then, he received the letter from Alexandria herself.
It had never been that far.
Roy reached into the footwell of the empty passenger seat and grasped his cane. It was still a bit of an ordeal getting in and out of the car with it, but he figured it would become natural, someday.
Alexandria's eyes went wide. "You've hurt yourself again."
"No. Yes. Well..." Roy chuckled as he stood up properly. He closed the door of the car and let himself rest against it. "Life of a stuntman. My back was never quite right after... but I kept going on and as I got older..."
"Your body is tired," she said.
He nodded. "My body is tired. I was hard on it. Now, I've got to be easy."
She accepted the answer with a nod, but the concern in her expression took longer to dissipate. "Then come sit on the porch. I'll get you a drink."
It took Roy longer to get up the stairs than it did for Alexandria. He waved her to go on ahead. His last injury had been a broken leg. The doctor told him that if he injured it again, he may never walk again. He'd heard that one before, but this time, he wasn't ready to risk it. There was too much at stake now.
The large front porch sported a swinging bench, two rocking chairs, and a table with two regular chairs. With the promise of a drink, Roy sat down at the table, facing in the direction of the front door.
Alexandria came back outside with a pitcher in one hand and two glasses filled with ice wedged between her arm and her chest. "I told my mother I didn't need a tray."
"Let me help you," Roy said, standing only long enough for her to shake her head.
"I got it." She set the pitcher down and then placed a glass in front of each chair before sitting down. "It's lemonade. Except lemonade you make on an orange grove."
He had noticed the liquid looked a little orange. "So, it's orange juice."
"With lemons." Alexandria poured them each a glass. She watched him as he took a drink. The lemonade was definitely more orange than lemon, and sweeter than either juice he'd ever had before.
"It's good," he said. He set the glass down and looked out to the groves again. "I don't think I knew when I was coming here that your family owned the land. I thought—"
"We didn't, but then seven years ago, a man came and he bought the grove. And then he took one look at my mother and fell madly in love. She dismissed him thirty times and then she said yes. So, we moved out of the bunkhouses and into the big house and then nothing changed, except now I have a baby brother. We still work in the orange groves, just the same." Alexandria laughed. She spoke quickly, and with her soft accent, Roy just barely caught every word. She motioned to him. "You're married."
He glanced down at his left hand, which he'd used to pick up the glass. "I am."
"Is she a beautiful actress?"
"She is."
Alexandria grinned. "I knew it. You have children?"
"Yes. Two sons. Maxwell and Alexander."
Her eyes lit up. "You named your son... after Alexander the Great."
Roy laughed. "In a roundabout way, I suppose I did. It's the one thing I told my wife when I was courting her, if we ever had a daughter, I knew what to name her. For a bunch of reasons, we're not having more children, so she said I needed to use the name now if I meant it."
"Well, thank you." Alexandria looked down at her own hands, seeming almost shy for the first time since she'd opened the door. "I... I remember everything, Roy. When we were in the hospital. So many things are fuzzy before then, but I remember all of it. The good. The bad. It's meant so much to me, all my life. To see that it meant that much to you too, it—it feels good."
"I wish you remembered only the good," he said, shaking his head. He knew they were going to talk about it. She wouldn't have reached out if she didn't remember him and remembering meant they were going to talk about it. He swallowed hard. "The person I was then, the place I was in—I'm sorry you remember it all."
"No. Please don't apologize to me. I know you were unwell then, and I know you lied, but I don't think about those things when I think about that time. I remember the beautiful story we made. I remember feeling safe and like there was a world where I could do anything." Alexandria shrugged with one shoulder. It felt like a very young gesture. "I wouldn't take any of it back for anything. It made my life better."
"And if I'd actually been able to go through with it?" The words got stuck in Roy's throat as he said them. He thought about it constantly. The guilt and shame of asking a child to get him pills to kill himself with. He thought about it so much, holding his own children. Children that wouldn't exist if he'd managed to die then.
She shrugged again. "It would have made my life worse, then. But you didn't die and here we are. You have a wonderful family and I'm going to college in the fall."
"College?" The dip in Roy's emotions spiked back up. "Congratulations."
"Thank you. I wanted to do writing, and I've been writing. I wrote hundreds of thousands of words in notebooks since I was five about the Black Bandit and his daughter."
Roy blinked. "You wrote the story."
"I continued the story. I wanted more, so I made more. I learned how to write that way. And when I wrote my essays to get into college, it was good. I wrote about you, actually, for my essay. This story from when I was five, about a man who wanted to die and he told a little girl a beautiful story until she hit her head, and... he learned how to forgive himself, I hope."
"He did," Roy said. "Slowly, over time. And sometimes he still feels very guilty. But this is helping."
"Then I'm glad I brought you here." Alexandria smiled. She threw her arms in the air and laughed."Success!"
Roy took another drink of the lemonade and smiled, too. "Success."