Prologue:

It was 2 AM when Elizabeth Hummel-Anderson got the call that her father had passed away. Her other father had died only a week ago, and she had spent the entire week making preparations for the funeral. The doctors had warned her that the second spouse was “nearing his time” as well, so though it was no surprise that Kurt had died, she still felt her heart sink the second she heard the news.

Tears fell silently down her face as the memories of her childhood flashed through her brain; swinging in the park, barbeques in the backyard, her fathers embarrassingly taunting every boy that she brought home. She was 67 now, with children and grandchildren of her own, but those vivid recollections made her feel like she was back in her childhood home again.

She went downstairs to get a glass of water and decided to call her two children. Her son, Michael, was thousands of miles away from the Ohioan suburb that she called home, and though it was still early in the morning in England, she did not hesitate to punch his number into the phone. When she broke him the news, she heard him quietly cough—something he always did when he was trying not to cry—and he asked her how to help with the funeral preparations, now that they would need to combine the two services.

Her daughter, Alice, had a more dramatic reaction. The 40 year-old mother of two broke down into bellowing sobs, which Elizabeth knew were bound to wake up Alice’s entire apartment complex. New York City may be loud at night, but her daughter’s loud gasps were more audible than any passing sirens could have been. Elizabeth told her about the plans that she and Michael had made for the funeral, making sure that the date worked for everyone. She repeated what the doctors had told her about life insurance policies and other strange burdens that the old woman felt too mournful to deal with.

“What about their house?” Alice asked, wondering what would happen to all of the things that her grandfathers had left behind.

“Well, we have to clean it out. They told us to take everything that we wanted, and to leave the rest there to be cleaned out before they start showing the place to potential buyers.”

It suddenly hit Elizabeth that the house that she had grown up in—the room that her fathers painted pink for her, the kitchen in which she would bake pancakes with her dads every Sunday, the TV room that still held memories of their pizza and movie nights—it would all be emptied out, passed on to the next family.

“I just- I don’t think I have it in me to take everything out of there,” Elizabeth admitted to her daughter.

“Let me do it! I can take Jack and Cecilia with me.” Alice begged, suddenly enthusiastic about the opportunity to sort through the piles of knick-knacks that her grandfathers had left behind.

After receiving her mother’s permission, she waited through five long, sleepless hours until it was finally time to wake her children up and bring them on the short drive from her NYC apartment to the small suburb outside of the city in which Kurt and Blaine had retired.


Chapter 1

“Slow down, we’ve got time left to be lazy

All the kids have bloomed from babies into flowers in our eyes”

When they arrived at the small, blue house, Jack and Cecilia were still complaining about having to give up their weekend for this. Of course they had been upset by the news of their great-grandparents’ deaths, but it still did not feel like their job to clean out the entire home.

They walked past the white picket fence and fresh green grass into the two-story building. Both children were startled by how untouched the house seemed; it felt like their great-grandparents had been here only minutes ago, all of their belongings still waiting to be used again. Though the house was clean, it was filled with many superfluous items that the couple had collected throughout the years; tangible memories that they were not quite willing to let go of.

They decided to split up: Jack and Cecilia would go into the attic and their mother would start clearing out the kitchen. The fourteen year-old girl led her stubborn younger brother up the stairs and she gasped when she saw the tiny attic stuffed with what must have been hundreds of boxes, each labeled with random dates or names that she didn’t recognize.

The first box that she picked up was labeled “Elizabeth’s graduation”, and she secretly hoped to find old pictures to see what her grandmother had looked like in her younger years. She opened the box to find a large photo album and began flipping through it. The first page contained a picture of Elizabeth, Kurt and Blaine, and a man who looked close to Elizabeth’s age. Cecilia decided the boy must have been her grandmother’s brother, John, who she had heard about a few times. In fact, she didn’t even remember if he was alive or not. Elizabeth’s long blonde hair was covered with a blue cap, and she must have taken off the graduation gown, as she was wearing a beautiful, strapless white dress. Kurt and Blaine stood next to her with huge smiles across their faces, hands grasped tightly around their fellow family members, as if to be holding the loved ones as close together as possible. She had seen pictures of her great-grandparents from when they were younger before, but she was still shocked at how handsome and put-together they both had looked. Kurt’s hair was puffed straight up at the top of his head, framing his boyish, pretty face. Blaine had slicked his curls back, as he usually did, and the wrinkles that Cecilia was so used to were nowhere to be found. Both men looked incredibly young to be at their own child’s college graduation. John’s brown hair was long enough to cover his entire forehead, and he looked at the camera with glowing eyes and a contagious smile. It was the first photo that Cecilia had seen of the four of them together, and she let out an audible sigh, smiling at how cute and perfect this little family seemed.

Even as she flipped through the rest of the photo album, the smiles never faded. She figured that Kurt must have taken the majority of the pictures that day, because there were a few silly pictures dispersed in between the ones of the graduates. She laughed as she went through random photos of Blaine making funny faces at his husband behind the camera. It was clear that the ceremony had been a little tedious, as implied by the photos of Blaine’s eye-rolls and sarcastically annoyed looks. She knew her great-grandparents had been in love-- they were always holding hands and smiling at each other-- but she had never seen this side of them before.

Under the photo album was the cap that had appeared in so many of the pictures as well as the folded gown. She almost pushed the box aside when she spotted a small, folded piece of paper peering out from underneath the blue garment. It seemed to have been ripped out of a notebook, and was covered in perfect penmanship. She recognized Kurt’s handwriting from the many birthday cards that she had received throughout the years.

“May 12th, 2044

Today was Elizabeth’s college graduation, and I could not be happier for our beautiful daughter. The ceremony was incredibly long, but it was worth sitting in the hot sun for two hours just to be able to see the look on Blaine’s face as our daughter walked across the stage to receive her diploma. He’d never admit it, but I swear a saw a tear dripping down his cheek.

We went out to eat at an Italian restaurant nearby, and Elizabeth opened the present that Blaine and I bought for her. Our other family members had sent generous checks as graduation presents, so we decided to get something a little more special. I remember we spent hours trying to think of something both sentiment and useful to give to our daughter, and I think we came up with the perfect gift.

We gave her a huge map of the world to hang up on the wall of her apartment, with a little star marking New York City, our home. She was a bit confused about the compass when she realized that it was broken, but Blaine explained it perfectly. “Lizzie, you’ve always been our little rule-breaker: you march to the beat of your own drum. While a compass and a map would be guidelines for most people’s travels, we know that you simply go by what’s in your heart, and that it(s) something that we admire about you. You have these insanely huge dreams and the greatest ambition of anyone I’ve ever known, and I know that’s something you get from your father. Let the broken compass symbolize all of the conventions that you refuse to conform to, but let the map remind you that even though you have the entire world as your stage, there is one place where you will always be greeted with open arms. We love you, honey”

His little spiel brought tears to everyone’s eyes, and I couldn’t help but to lean over and kiss him right then and there.

Elizabeth and John both went out tonight to a big party that is being hosted for all of the graduates and their friends, so Blaine and I took the opportunity to sit out on the porch and reminisce on the many school years that led up to this event.

With glasses of wine in hand, we watched the sun set over the beautiful city and talked until our throats were sore. When Elizabeth went off to college four years ago, we were both upset, but we knew she would be back for the summer and every break. Her college graduation marked the fact that she was an actual, independent adult, and it finally hit us that our little girl—the girl that we had spent nearly 3 years interviewing in the adoption agency to find—was no longer a child.

Though it was upsetting to see the end of such a beautiful childhood, Blaine and I were actually extremely content tonight. We talked about how amazing our children had turned out: John going into his third year of medical school, and Elizabeth setting off to work for an international non-profit human rights organization.

The tiny humans that had been placed into our arms by our adoption agent were now full-grown adults. All of the tantrums and sick days and bedtime stories and sports practices and family dinners had somehow formed John and Elizabeth into two mature grown-ups, and Blaine and I could not be prouder.”

Cecilia wondered if anyone else had ever read this journal entry before. It felt like her great-grandfather was sitting there, recanting the whole memory as if it was yesterday. She decided to put the paper aside with a few of her favorite pictures from the graduation album so she could keep them.