nobody like you too - Paul Lahote

one

"I'm like an old soul, you know? Just give me a book and a record player, and I'm there."

America Tillia-Swan turned around from her seat in the passenger portion of the car. Her tinted brown hair blew from the cracked window, strands blowing out of the opened fissure. Her eyes shifted until they looked at her daughter.

"Darling, you sound like one of those 'im not like other girls' girls."

Wilhelmina shrugged as her father, Anthony, giggled at his wife's corny joke. If there was anything Wilhelmina wanted in life, it was a love like her parents. After Anthony moved all the way across the country to attend university in New York, he saw the boisterous woman on his second day. She'd bumped into him as her newly received coffee spilled all over his cream shirt.
"When she looked up into my eyes, I knew in that moment that I had to give her my life," Her dad would always say.
"I was just surprised that someone like him would find me attractive." That was always her mother's rebuttal.

She never understood how the woman she'd always admired could ever say that. America was what Wilhelmina defined as, "everyone's type." She had cheekbones that could cut an apple, and eyes that were the same color as brown in the constant sunlight.

But as much as the youngest Swan wanted a love like her parents, she doubted that she'd ever get it.

That was until she was uplifted to the Pacific, only a couple hours from Victoria, a place she dreamed of living one day.

They were moving back to her father's hometown of Forks, Washington. Tony Swan was a lawyer, through and through. All he loved to do was debate, and make love to his wife. That's what Wilhelmina grew up hearing, of course.

He passed the bar at a ripe age of 22, one of the youngest. Many wondered how that were even possible. ("Lots of college courses taken in high school," He'd explained.) In the beginning of his career, many didn't trust their lives in the hands of someone so young. And when his psychology-designing double-major of a girlfriend announced that she was pregnant before her graduation, he felt he needed to do whatever it took to make things work.

So he built himself up. He made sure to rarely lose cases. And when he did, boy was it an aggravating sight to see. They moved to San Francisco, and he worked from his home on top of a restaurant in Chinatown. It was something straight out of a film that Wilhelmina would love to see.

Eventually Tillia v Swan's Law Project had its own building, and the top floor would still be their place of residence. So Wilhelmina saw nothing but legal contracts and fabrics growing up in San Francisco. It was the perfect atmosphere for her.

But now Tony Swan felt a need, or some "middle aged crisis opportunity," to go back to his home state. So what he did was set up shop in Port Angeles, Washington; and persuaded his only child at dinner one night.

"This is our home, right? This is all you know. And I know how hard it is for you. I get how you're finally comfortable. You've made friends, you have a life going for you. But, sweetie, think about how many people I can help?"

Wilhelmina remembered cursing at her father, her first time ever doing so, when she found out the actual population of the town they were moving to.
How many people could he possibly be helping? But when they stopped at one of his new offices in Seattle, Wilhelmina began to see possibility.