Page 9 of With This Wish

As soon as I put him down on the floor, he opens the lowest dresser-drawers and starts rifling through his clothes, pulling out a green waffle-knit shirt, green sweatpants, and a pair of green socks. For whatever reason, JJ is obsessed with the color green right now, and his wardrobe reflects that. With some help from me, we get him out of his pajamas and into his new clothes. As I’m pulling the shirt down over his head, I’m once again struck by his looks. It’s fitting that I named him Jacob since he’s basically a miniature copy of his father. Jacob has the same auburn curls, the same blue eyes, and the same Cupid’s bow lips that Jake had. It doesn’t help me miss his dad any less, but it does make me feel good that besides his first name, he has something else from his father. If only he could have more than that.

“Mommy hungee.” I smile down at JJ and reach my hand out, smiling when he slips his tiny hand in mine before we walk, or toddle in his case, out of our shared bedroom and into the kitchen. As soon as JJ sees my brother, he rushes over to where Carter is standing near the stove and hugs his legs. “Caju,” he exclaims. The sight warms my heart and helps fill in some of the cracks that formed after Jake left.

Carter stops stirring the eggs he’s cooking, shuts off the stove, and reaches down to pick JJ up, blowing a raspberry on his cheek before setting him on his hip. “Hey there, little J. What do you say to some cheesy eggs and toast for breakfast.” JJ claps my brother’s cheeks and squishes them together. “I’ll take that as a yes,” Carter mumbles before carrying JJ over to his high chair and placing him inside. “What about you, Mai? You want some eggs and toast?”

I walk into the kitchen and start plating up my son’s food and grab his sippy cup of milk from the refrigerator. “Um, sure.” I put JJ’s plate down on the table in front of him and ruffle his curls. Usually my meals mostly consist of my son’s leftovers, but since I’ll be volunteering at the lighting ceremony later, I should probably give myself more fuel than that. While Carter dishes up food for the two of us, I pour us each a mug of coffee, adding a splash of our favorite vanilla bean creamer and delivering it to the table. “So, did you want to come volunteer with me? It will be fun.”

Carter looks at me deadpan from across the table as he digs into his eggs. “I don’t think so,” he mutters around his food before sipping his coffee. “I’m grateful you got it going and that it’s maybe keeping people from getting totally shi—” He cuts himself off before he blurts out a swear word in front of JJ. “Totally plastered, and I’ll still come and bring JJ after I pick him up from Sue’s vacation rental, but that’s about as into it as I can get right now.”

“Fair enough,” I say. My lips blow on my coffee before I take a gulp of the bold, slightly sweetened flavor. “I still think you should come. There will be a lot of single ladies there.”

Carter snorts, almost choking on his eggs. “Yeah,” he says, after coughing into his shoulder. “And most of them are at least fifty. Anyone close to my age will probably already know me and have taken a hard pass.”

“Carter,” I scold. I wish my brother believed he was a great a catch, as he is. Between losing our parents and him not having had the best luck with dating in the past, his confidence isn’t quite where it could be. “Any woman would be lucky to have you, and you’ll never know if you don’t get out there.”

Carter shoots me a wry look. “I’ll get out there when you do,” he tells me with a smirk.

I grumble at him before taking a bite of my eggs. “Touché.” I haven’t been on a date since Jake left, not that that was even a date. It was a strange, wonderful, marvelous night that I’ll never forget. And it’s not that I’m not interested in being with someone again, it’s just that between work and JJ, I don’t have a lot of time. Guys haven’t exactly been breaking down the door to ask me out either, not that I’m interested anyway. Starlight Lake is small enough that pretty much everyone knows I’m a single mom, and it seems that might be too much for most of the single guys in town to handle.

JJ banging the cup on top of the table is basically how he signals he’s done with breakfast, so I grab his plate before he can make an even bigger mess by throwing his leftovers around the room. “Okay, messy magoo. Let’s go get you cleaned up,” I say, picking him up out of his high chair. I grab my toast and stuff it in my mouth to eat later while he brushes his teeth. Once we’re in the bathroom, I set up JJ with the tiniest toothbrush ever made and get him going with that while I finish chewing my breakfast and pick out some clothes for the day. It snowed last night, so I dress accordingly. The fleece-lined leggings hug my thighs a little tighter than they used to, but bodies change over time and that’s especially true after one pushes a watermelon-sized baby out of their lemon-sized vagina. Jake being a big guy made me feel safe and protected when he was near, but during the most painful parts of my labor, I wished he had been a lot smaller because JJ was not a tiny baby.

Walking back to the bathroom, I pull my sweater over my head and peek my eyes out just in time to see JJ splashing water all over the counters and mirror. I quickly turn off the tap and pull him off his small step stool. “I think that’s enough water fun for today,” I tell him, grabbing a clean towel and wiping him down before mopping up the rest of the bathroom. “Now, do you think you can stay out of trouble long enough for Mommy to do her hair, or it is a pigtails kind of morning?” My son doesn’t answer my question, and when I see the very concentrated look on his face, I know why.

A rumble sounds in his pants and he breathes out like he just ran a marathon. “Mommy,” he says, but I pick him up and kiss his cheek before he can finish his sentence.

“I know. More poo-poo, right?” When he nods, I smile and lead him back into the bedroom for yet another diaper change. Who knew that such a small person could make so much waste? It’s pigtails for me, I guess. If I even have time for that.

Hodgepodge’s hours aren’t long, but there’s a lot to do before the store opens and I was hoping to finish the baby booties I had been crocheting. Crocheting is a hobby I took up while I was pregnant, something to take my mind off my loneliness, but it’s turned out to be kind of a cool thing. Now I make baby booties and matching stuffed animals, selling them in the shop and online for anyone who’s interested. They’ve sold a fair amount, and eventually I would love to expand to making blankets and tiny sweaters, but I haven’t made enough to where I can hire a replacement at the shop and do that full time.

Once JJ is all clean, I pack up his diaper bag with everything he’ll need when he’s with Sue this afternoon. Aunt Sue has been a sanity saver, coming in to visit and babysitting JJ a few times a year so Carter and I can go out and grab a meal, go hiking, or watch a movie that isn’t animated. She’s back in town this week to visit her family and is watching JJ for a few hours so I can do some things at the store without him underfoot and volunteer with MADD again this year. Carter will bring JJ to the lighting festival later and we’ll countdown to the lights and make a wish at the fountain. It will be JJ’s first year tossing a coin in. Last year I was too worried he would eat the penny, so I made a wish for the two of us to have another year of health and happiness. This year, however, I think I’m going to try and get some of that town magic to bring Jake back to us somehow. I’m also hoping I can get Carter to make a wish for himself, but while he has attended the last two years for my sake, I have a feeling getting him to participate beyond that will be difficult.

“You two ready to go?” Carter asks from the open doorway.

“Caju up,” JJ says to my brother. Carter dutifully picks him up and starts tickling his socked feet.

“I think this little guy needs shoes,” he says, heading into the family room.

“Grab his snowsuit too, please,” I shout. In a rush, I whip my hair into a couple of pigtails as quickly as I can and grab the packed diaper bag.

When I make it over to the door, JJ and Carter are ready to go, and after throwing on the rest of my clothes and shoes, so am I. With one last gulp of my now ice-cold coffee, I grab my son’s hand and the three of us make our way down the back stairs of the building. The air is chilly, but not unbearable because the sun is out. I hope it’s not too cold later. It won’t keep people from attending the festival, but I don’t like keeping JJ out in that weather too long. At the very least, we’ll make sure he sees the lights. I know he probably doesn’t even really grasp the significance beyond, “Hey, pretty lights,” but sharing the tradition with him makes me feel closer to my parents.

As we walk, I look down at JJ and smile. The year I met Jake I wished to have a sense of family back, and I got it. My wish came true. Definitely not in the way I was expecting, but in a way that was surprisingly wonderful. Carter came back from the abyss of his grief, Sue visits more often, and I have JJ. It’s just a shame that the one other person who would make that feeling complete seems forever out of reach, no matter how hard or how often my heart wishes that weren’t the case.

Chapter Eight

Jake

The mountains look exactly the same as the last time I made a drive through this pass. Snow is settled on the branches of the evergreen trees and on the hard ground covering the peaks and valleys that pass by my car window, only the last time I saw them, I was heading in the other direction. The morning I left Starlight Lake and Maya was one of the worst mornings of my life. It started off extremely well. I woke up in bed with Maya’s beautiful body wrapped around mine, her blonde waves cascading over my shoulder as she slumbered, and my heart was full of happiness. My eyes took in every detail of her face as I listened to the soft whooshing sound of her breathing. It took every bit of willpower I had to get out of that bed, get dressed, and write her a note that could never express all my feelings, but told her the one I was feeling most in that moment. “I wish I could keep you,” is what I wrote and what I wanted more than anything, or almost anything since I acted like a coward and stuck to my plans instead. Turn around, go back, don’t leave! my heart shouted the whole drive into Denver that morning, but I ignored it and kept going, moving on as best I could. As best I could turned out to be not at all, since I’ve been living like “a depressed monk,” as Billie describes it. It’s not inaccurate, but maybe not the words I would use for myself.

“Are we there yet?” Billie asks from the seat next to me. Her fingers twist her dark-chocolate hair as she glances out the window, looking bored beyond belief even though the scenery is some of the loveliest I’ve ever seen.

Holding back a sigh, I answer her question. “About ten minutes, though aren’t you supposed to be the one telling me that? The driver drives and the passenger navigates. Those are the universal rules of road trips.” Clearly, it’s been too long since my friend did anything that didn’t involve going from one club to another in her little red car.

“Um, no, they are not,” Billie protests, kicking her feet up on the dash. “You’ve been there before and know where to go. I get to sit here, relax, and choose the music. That’s my role as passenger princess.”

A snort escapes my nose and I shake my head. “Yeah, I don’t think I will be referring to you as that, but I see your point.” I turn the dial down on the radio, frowning at her choice of satellite station. “If you’re going to be the DJ, could you at least pick some decent music? You know I’m not into club music and techno.”

“That’s because your taste in music sucks,” she says emphatically. Despite her words, she dutifully switches over to the classical station. “I can’t believe you listen to this. It’s so boring.” Her voice is whiny, but she’s known about my love of classical music since we were little, so she’s just being a brat.

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