Page 148 of Until I Find You

I do so and in return, receive a shiny silver key. This feels like a dream.

I get out of the car, close to shaking. I didn’t expect this whatsoever. Sure, thought it would make sense to get us a condo down here for business purposes, but a whole house? Built for me?

Jack gets Alanna out of her car seat and follows me up the front steps. I put the key in the lock and stop to catch my breath.

“Is everything all right?” he asks, touching my shoulder. “Are you upset?”

“No, no, I’m overwhelmed. I…” I stop. “I knew you’d always take care of me, but I’m waiting for you to forget, and you never ever have.”

Jack steps in close to me. “Baby girl, you taught me about the man I am supposed to be by letting me love you and take care of you. I’m never going to forget.”

I place my hand on Alanna’s back, look into the sleeping face of our little girl, then the face of the man I love. “Thank you for making me the woman I am supposed to be too.”

His face is tense, though he’s still smiling. “Open the door before I start crying, huh?”

I turn the key in the lock and push the door open. Dark wooden floors, light green walls, plants everywhere.

“There are doors out to the beach from the kitchen.” Jack nods toward a black door at the end of the foyer. “Through there.”

I shake my head. “This is ridiculous.”

I pad through the front hall to the kitchen door and open it.

Immediately, I’m face to face with my mother.

“Mom?”

She smiles, wearing her Hawaii best with flowers in her light blonde curls. “Hi, honey.”

Once the shock wears off that my mom is here, I realize my dad is standing next to her. And Edwin and Sonia are here too. And Mari and Geoff and…

“Juana?”

Juana smiles at me, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. Juana has become a part of my life and been a part of Alanna’s from the beginning. Alanna has four grandmother figures, all with different names. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

To see her here now, though, is incomprehensible.

I open my mouth, but my eyes keep darting from person to person, unsure who to greet first. “What are you all doing here?”

No one speaks.

“What’s…going on?”

Jack comes up behind me. “Come outside with me.”

I lift my wide, confused eyes to him.

“Here, I’ll take Lala,” my mom steps up beside Jack and takes our child.

Jack takes me by the hand and leads me through a set of sliding glass doors onto a back deck with stairs on either side that leads down to the beach.

I’m at a loss. The world has never looked more beautiful than this moment right now. The beach extends so far until the blue ocean laps it up.

Jack tucks his arm around me as we stare out at the ocean, the sand, the sky.

Ours.

“I can picture so much out here on the beach,” Jack says. “So much of our life together. Our family and friends. Our children.”

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