Together At Last, Together Forever

(OOC: Corrine Amee Falkland-Moreau has been living in America. In the States, she was called Amy, because her Uncle has always called her by he middle name. Her husband also calls her by her middle name, because Corrine means 'maiden', but Amee means 'my love.')

On one little street, in one little town in France, there was one little boy in a foster care home. Well, there were a few boys in this home, but this child was different. He knew that his parents were still alive. Somewhere inside he knew that they loved him. He had been taken away from them when he was two, and he remembered just little things about them. Everything that he remembered was good, and he wanted it back in his life. His name was Julius, and he was 14 years old. It had been 12 years since he’d seen them.
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Corrine’s heart died the day her little boy had been taken away. He had been her pride and her joy. She loved being a mother, but her mother had been the cause of this pain. Looking at her husband was painful. He constantly reminded her of her little boy. She was just as painful to him. The only solution she could come up with was to go to school in America.

Her uncle Dom and cousin Natsumi were a great encouragement to her. They sacrificed to make sure that she could come back to her husband on holidays. Julian, or Jules as she called him, was a great man. That is why she’d married him. Even though it hurt so much to be with him, Jules was faithful. He loved her more than he loved his own life, but he’d also loved their son. The marriage grew stronger even through the distance that separated them.

Over the last 12 years, a lot had happened. Not a day went by that Jules and Corrine didn’t think of their little boy, but the pain had eased enough that they could live together once again. They never thought of having another child, because they didn’t want the same thing to happen.

Julian owned a small theater. For years he’d been a struggling dancer. Now that he was famous, he just wanted to help other struggling artists. Corrine loved being at this theater. She spent all of her time caring for the hodge-podge of people that would come through their doors, and touch their lives. In a way it was how she could still be a mother. A lot of these musicians were teenagers that had run away from home. They found a home and love here at this little theater. Every time Corrine helped someone, she thought of her son. He must be about the age of some of these teens.
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A concert was going on nearby. Julius loved music. He especially loved dance. Over the last few years Julius had been doing every thing he could to find out where his parents were. Some people said that his father was a dancer, and that his mother lived in the United States now. He’d found out some interesting things by the last person he talked to. Julius had been directed to a woman’s house. She was a classical musician, played the viola. Anyway, she was the one who’d signed his adoption paper, and he wanted to meet her. Maybe she was his mother.

He had walked up to the door of a gigantic house, and he rang the doorbell. A butler came, and eventually he met the lady of the house. Her name was Genevieve Moreau, and she was quite famous. Julius had heard of her, and he’d even been to a concert of hers once. He wasn’t a big fan of her music though. Anyway, she wanted to see him and talk to him in person.

She told him that she was his grandmother, and that she’d made a terrible mistake by giving him up for adoption. Corrine, his mother, wouldn’t forgive her for taking her only son. He wanted to know their names, and what they were doing. Did they ever think of him? She didn’t know. Anyway, she directed him to this little theater that was just down the street from his house. Then he was given tickets to a show that was playing. In this show his father was supposed to be the lead dancer, and his mother was going to sing. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to go and meet them.
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The night came when the performance was to happen. Corrine sat backstage complaining about singing. She really didn’t want to sing this song. The pain had just started to go away. The song that Jules wanted her to sing was a song he’d written for his family. It was written right after the birth of Julius, and she’d sung it to her baby every night before he went to bed.

Corrine didn’t sing anymore. Her mother had made her have voice lessons, because everyone in this family had to be musically inclined. She hated everything about her mother, so over the years Amee’s love for music had died. How could Jules ask her to sing this? He knew how she felt about singing. Her voice was beautiful, but there wasn’t any feeling behind the words anymore. Every once in a while, she would go to a karaoke bar and just have fun making up a bad voice to sing with.

Amee complained to her husband, “Remind me why I’m doing this again, Jules. You know that I hate this. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to go out there. This song is special Jules, and now you want me to sing it in front of everybody? I can’t do it Jules, I can’t do it.”

Jules walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her. He kissed the top of her head. “My love, my little Amee, I love you. I want to do this song in honor of our healing being complete. We went through a lot, and now we are back together. My theater is open, and life is going well. This song is special to us. I wrote it for our family. I wrote it for you, for us. The dance was also written for you. Please Am….do this for me.”

“Why is it that your arms always calm my nerves? How come you can talk me into anything? OK…I’ll try Jules for you. I know how important it is for you. Just know that I might not be able to get through it though. I still miss him. I still miss Julius.” Corrine said as a tear rolled down her face. She looked into her husband’s eyes and smiled weakly. “I’ll try.” She said again, as she buried her head in her husband’s chest and hugged him back.
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He had decided to come, a young boy of 14. The whole concert he watched with awe and wonder. Julius especially loved the song that one woman sang. The man, her husband, danced with grace and poise as she sang. Both of them looked as if their hearts had been wrenched from their bodies. In the middle of the song the woman started to cry. The tears rolled down her face and dripped from her chin, but she sang the whole song without wavering at all. Her voice was the prettiest voice he’d ever heard. It was his song, the only thing that he remembered about his mother. This had to be her, and the man must be his father.

After the concert, he continued to sit in his seat. He couldn’t move. After 12 years of searching and roaming from home to home, he finally found his parents. Now what should he do? He didn’t even know if they loved him, or if they wanted him. Julius felt the sadness in their song, but he didn’t know what it meant. Did they still love him? Did they want him back? He wanted to have a stable home, and he loved their music. For now he could do nothing except sit in his seat and think.
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Corrine came back into the theater to make sure that it was fairly clean and to turn off the lights. She wasn’t going to do any cleaning that night because she was very tired, but she wanted to know how much work she’d have in the morning. It had been an hour since the curtain had gone down.

She noticed a boy sitting to the left side on the stage, all the way at the end of the row. He was close to the middle of the section. This boy looked to be about the age that her son would be. He was the only person left in the auditorium. His head was bowed slightly as he looked up at the stage. Elbows were firmly placed on his knees as he held his head with his hands.

Amee was curious, so she walked up the side aisle to where he was sitting. She went to the row in front of him. Who was this boy? He looked so much like she imagined her little boy to be. In fact, it was eerie how well he fit her picture of him. Could this be her son? She said, “Hello, I’m Corrine. What is your name? Have you been sitting here long?”

He was ripped out of his trance. Julius had been thinking of this woman, and now she was standing in front of him. “Hi….My name is Julius. I’ve been thinking about the song you sang. It touched my heart. My mom used to sing it to me when I was little, I think. I can’t remember her very well because I was taken from her when I was 2. I’ve been in foster homes ever since.”

Corrine looked at him, and a tear rolled down her face. She couldn’t help it. When she heard that he knew her song, she was sure this was her boy, her Julius. Quietly she looked at him and said, “Julius? I think I’m the woman that you were taken from. I used to sing that song to you as a lullaby. It is a song my husband wrote, your father wrote for you. We are the only people that now that song, and until tonight it was never sung in public.”

The young boy was glad to hear this woman say that she was his mother. He had hoped that his instincts had been right. Julius wanted to stand up and hug her, but he wasn’t sure that she’d want him back. He thought that it would be awkward. “Do you love me? I talked with a lady named Genevieve, and she told me that she took me away from you. Why did you let her take me? Why haven’t you looked for me? How come I didn’t find you sooner?”

Corrine looked down to her son, who was now crying harder than she was. “Son, my Julius, of course I love you. I’ve never stopped loving you. I was in high school and my mom got the government involved. There was nothing I could do to stop her form taking you away. She is an evil woman. I did try to look for you, and have never given up trying to find you. I’m glad that you found me, and I’m glad that we are a family again.” Corrine ruffled his hair, and tried to comfort him. She was happy that they were back together again.

Julian came in to see why his wife hadn’t come to the door yet. He was tired and wanted to go home. As he walked into the auditorium the picture grew clearer. Corrine had a big heart, and there was a troubled teen still sitting in the theater. He walked over to them to see if there was anything he could do. Then Corrine explained to him that this was their son. He was so happy, and he also started to cry out of joy. It had been a long 12 years without him, and now through his song, the family was together again. Never again would they be separated.