A warm smile flashed on her lips as Ernest copied her in taking off his shoes; it was a beach after all and the sand was too perfectly cool to pass up the opportunity to sink her toes in. She wondered how often he did the same thing, living in Cuba as more than a tourist but not quite a local.
“Well, I approve of Boston, even if I think you’re kissing my ass a little,” she chuckled. His answer to her rather random question was an unexpected one. She had thought he’d pick one place, one time, a favoured memory or some special place but he’d picked four of them. She chuckled and took the rum back, taking another sip. “Should I ask why not China or will the answer inevitably be a sad one?” she muttered quietly, knowing a small amount about China in this era of recent history.
But where would she go? She had no real ties, as such, but she did have a family. At least once. “I’d go back to my sixth birthday. I got chocolate cake, and it was just my mom and my dad and me, nothing big or anything, but we just watched old Disney movies and it felt like family. Dude, you have no idea how lucky you are to have a huge family, it’s everything. All I had was us three and my grandma and I’d give anything to wander back into that life and hug them.” She wasn’t maudlin, she didn’t cry because she’d cried it all out years ago. It was just her truth, a plain and simple fact that she just wanted that feeling once more.