Page 145 of My Wife
“You don’t know how to ice skate?”
“Or swim or ride a bike.”
“Seriously?”
Her shoulder lifts toward her ear. “Never really had the chance … but I also didn’t give myself one. Your childhood was the kind I only saw in movies. The kind I longed for.”
“It wasn’t all peaches and cream, Sugar. The three of us Ellis siblings sure could fight.”
“While some of the families I lived with while in the foster care system were amazing, there was always a point when I’d have to move on. They didn’t want to keep me.” Liquid brims in her eyes. “So I retreated. It wasn’t so much that I was shy, more like I couldn’t keep bearing the rejection so I made myself small, quiet, barely there.”
“I cannot imagine you anything but smiley and outgoing. An aggressive force of positivity and optimism.”
“When I was in high school, I didn’t speak for five months straight. That’s why I was placed with Grandma Dolly. They thought I’d sign.”
“What happened when you turned eighteen, were you on your own? By then, you lived with Dolly, right?”
“She called me Mouse at first, drawing me out of my hidey hole crumb by crumb. You know, she made me the first birthday cake I ever had. Put sixteen candles in it and everything.” Sadness fills Jessica’s eyes where there’s usually a smile.
“That’s why you like to bake cakes so much, huh?”
“I never told her the wish I made when I blew out the candles. But she signed that it must’ve been a good one because from then on, I never stopped smiling.”
“What did you wish for?” I dare ask.
“For me to see all the good in things instead of the bad.”
“And an aggressively optimistic woman was born.”
She snorts a laugh. “I guess you could say that. I also figured since I missed out on sixteen birthday cakes, it wouldn’t hurt if I added an extra wish.”
“Which was?” I ask.
“This.” Her gaze drifts from the dog, drifts to KJ, and lands on me.
A family.
“But then you left Cobbiton.”
“I was already in the habit of not staying in one place long enough to get comfortable. I always kept one foot near the door to make a quick exit. In a new place, in the beginning, no one knew I’d been abandoned. Until they did. Inevitably, someone would sniff it out. It was humiliating.”
“Did they confront you? Doesn’t seem like anyone’s business.” My jaw tightens at the idea of bullies making Jessica feel bad.
“A few times, but mostly it was just that I knew that they knew. They’d treat me different in subtle ways, but it became like a pebble in my shoe.”
“So you’d walk away.”
“By leaving Cobbiton and living somewhere else, no one needed to know about my serial failures … and I wouldn’t be reminded. I could start fresh. It’s what I’d always done. New school, new friends. I’d forget about the past a little more each time.”
“Those weren’t your failures.”
“But I thought once I was free from that system, I’d be a success. Being an adult is harder than I thought.”
I brush the softest part of my thumb along Jessica’s jawline. “What if instead of running away from your problems, you run at them?”
“In full hockey gear?”
I chuckle. “In that case, we definitely have to teach you to skate.”
