Page 75 of Embracing the Change

“Dru, out with it.”

Her eyes had fallen to his shoulder, but they came up to his, and she blurted, “After Mom died, after we met her, at the church, I used to make up dreams, before I fell asleep, that Nora would come back and make you happy again.”

Jamie grunted, the invisible blow she landed was so solid.

“I know, creepy,” she said quickly. “It isn’t like I didn’t miss Mom.”

“Of course not, darlin’,” he forced out.

“I don’t want you to think?—”

“I don’t think anything but that you care about me. I used to wrack my brain to figure out what would make you happy too, after we lost your mom.”

“Did you come up with any ideas?”

He smiled through the sadness he’d never lose that he hadn’t bested that impossible feat. “No.”

She dropped her head to his shoulder again.

He rested his against it.

They sat together for a while and didn’t talk.

Dru broke their silence.

“How did she get the flowers there so fast?”

“I’ve no idea,” Jamie murmured.

“It was like magic.” She lifted her head again, so he did as well, and she looked to him. “I think that was why I fixated on her. It was all so…we were so…”

“Sad,” he supplied when she faltered. “Devastated. It was all so inconceivable.”

Her smile was small. “Yeah. All those. And then this woman in a pretty dress shows up and makes flowers appear out of thin air. So it seemed she had magic, and I guess, well…” She shrugged. “I guess we needed magic.”

Jamie could definitely see that, because at that time, they did need Nora’s magic.

“And now, she’s with you,” she whispered. “And it makes me happy. But it also makes me sad.”

And he could definitely see that too.

“I will never not love your mom and I will never stop missing her, even if Nora makes me happy.”

“She gets that. Nora, I mean.”

“Yes,” he confirmed.

“It wasn’t a question, Dad. She gets it. I like that about her.”

“She liked your mom, and we haven’t had time to talk things through, but Nora is not the kind of woman to replace another woman. She’s the kind of woman to embrace another woman. We’ll never lose your mom that way, darlin’, and you don’t have to try to make things easier on Nora by hiding that part of you. Nora wouldn’t have that, and I won’t either.”

She pulled her lips in and rubbed them together.

“Did you worry you had to do that?” he asked.

She let her lips go and said, “You loved Mom a lot, Dad.”

“I loved your mom with everything I had that I didn’t give to Judge and you.”

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