Page 32 of Ardently Yours

That’s what I’m asking from you for Christmas. For you to believe, just for today.

Love, Arden

December 25, 1996

Dear Arden,

I’ve never had a Christmas anything like this one. I wish you’d been here to see Bronnie’s face in person. (Mine too, probably, because I squealed out loud more than once.)

Santa and his elves spoiled us rotten. I’ve been practically giddy all day. It took us hours to open everything. I’ll have to send these photos in batches. There are too many for one email. Bronnie’s favorite gift was the tricycle. Mine were the earrings. But all of it was amazing.

If you see Santa and his elves, tell them we said, “Thank you.”

Love, Charlotte

Bad Case of Loving You

Arden

Ten Months of Emails Later

October 15, 1997

I tug my ball cap lower and adjust my sunglasses. The beard I’ve let grow for three days itches and rasps under my fingertips.

Reese grins as he opens my door. “You look fine.”

“Five-and-a-half-hour drive one way to watch her for fifteen minutes. Then five and a half hours back.”If everything goes well.

He laughs. “The things you do for love.”

I snort, pretending his words don’t feel like Truth. Legs encased in denim and my feet stuffed into work boots intended to make me look like I belong here, I step onto the asphalt of Blackwater Hospital’s parking lot.

Reese scans the lot. “She’ll be all right. Little kids get tubes in their ears all the time.”

“When we get in there—”

“Don’t draw attention. I know the drill. I already cased it out. You’ll be out of sight as long as you stay around the corner.”

I reach for the gift bag with the balloon attached to it and the bouquet of Stargazer lilies. No one stops us as we make our way inside. No one even seems to look our way beyond the seventy-something, iron-haired Black woman at the front desk.

Her hospital ID indicates her name is Alba Johnson. Alba gives me a slow up and down and a wink when I make my request and pass her Bronnie’s gifts and the bouquet for Charlotte.

Then Reese and I head for the surgical waiting room. The building is so small they don’t have separate inpatient and outpatient waiting rooms. Instead, they have one large room, shaped like an L, dividing the two. I’m counting on Charlotte staying on the outpatient side.

When we reach the double doors, I lift my chin and Reese enters first.

He’s back within twenty seconds. “She and her mother are in the back left corner. As long as you don’t draw attention and stay behind the dividing wall, she won’t notice you.”

I nod, but before I can step forward, he shakes his head. “You could say ‘hello’ and sit with her.”

“If someone takes a photo of us together like this, it could turn into a nightmare for her. I’m not exposing her to the press so I can sit beside her.”

Reese frowns. “Maybe it wouldn’t bother her.”

“She’s already told me how she feels about it.”

He watches me, seemingly weighing his words. “She could change her mind if you ask. She’s a different person than Ariana was.”

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