Page 116 of Free to Believe
Jenna shakes hands with the university president, posing for a picture that I’m sure Holly will complain about later. My heart aches with how mature she looks with her hair curled down her back over the cords announcing to the world she’s graduating magna cum laude. Privately, she griped to me about not getting summa. I outright laughed in her face and asked her if she had fun in college. When she rolled her eyes and replied, “Duh?” I said that was just as important as getting the extra tenth of a point of a GPA.
Especially since her new boss didn’t care.
Ali made Jenna an offer to come on board at Amaryllis Events working directly for her. I can’t say I’m not disappointed to know my stepdaughter won’t be working for me in the salon, but she’ll be taking over marketing full time from my sister. With her innovative ideas, we’re sure to attract a new generation of brides, and—Jenna mentioned impishly the other night at dinner—international ones as well. She’s already called dibs on travel, much to everyone’s dismay. Then again, with everyone having families, it’s probably better we leave the traveling to someone who has the freedom to do so.
Jake began looking for teaching positions around Collyer pretty much the second he left that winter break. Even with all his experience, breaking into the Fairfield County school system is the holy grail of teaching assignments, so he expanded his search. We both were pleasantly surprised when he found a position at Rochambeau Middle School in Southbury, about thirty-five minutes away. The students seem to soak in the lessons he imparts through music.
I’m also certain every middle school girl—and a few of the boys—have a crush on my husband if the volume of mean mugs and envious stares I get when I go to school productions are any indication.
Jake and I married two years after the awful accident that almost took Jenna’s life. In a quiet ceremony at Dani’s home on Nantucket, I walked on Charlie’s arm along the beach behind the house where Jake and I first met to join my life to the man who made me believe not just once, but twice in the power of love. My something old was decoupaged photographs of Aunt Dee and my mother wrapped underneath the handle of my bouquet before Phil attached satin ribbon wrapped around the mix of hydrangea and amaryllis flowers. My something new was the lacy high-necked gown I designed, where I pinned a cameo Jason once gave me of my Aunt Dee. My something borrowed was Cassidy’s mother’s pearl earrings. My something blue was Corinna’s sapphire bracelet. All of my sisters, Dani, and Jenna stood up for me. Jake asked Brandon to be his best man, with Jason, Caleb, Keene, and Phil at his side. I’m not entirely sure who cried more during the ceremony, Jake’s mother and aunt or Phil and Cassidy. It really was a toss-up.
The beach was littered with people it seems like we’ve loved forever as well as people who’d more recently joined our circle of trust, like the principal of Jake’s school, our newer employees at Amaryllis Events, Charlie’s latest girlfriend. But the most important thing was, it was filled with love. Even Mugsy was there in spirit as we’d spread his ashes there that long-ago day. And for the rest of my life, I’ll never forget the look on Jake’s face when he repeated the vows we’d written together, including the words that have come to symbolize love to us both—respect, faith, and trust. After we were pronounced husband and wife, his whispered “I believe I’ll love you forever” is a moment I know I’ll never forget.
I drew it in my journal soon after our honeymoon was over.
Like I imagined so long ago, I spend my life living in that space between the ocean and the sky. Life isn’t perfect.
“Mommy, I saw Jenna!” I hear shrieked through the phone. I press the button to turn around the image so I can see Jake’s and my children, Jonah and Talia.
“Yes, sweetheart,” I tell my exuberant daughter, who’s sitting in Cassidy’s lap. “You did.”
“I’m gonna be like her when I get old.” Jonah rolls his eyes at his younger sister. I give him a disapproving look while Cassidy gently corrects my four-year-old gently. “I’m going to be like her when I get older.”
“That’s what I said, Aunt Cass,” Talia says, exasperatedly.
Cassidy looks at me behind her little pigtails and smiles.
One of the hardest days of our marriage was finding out I had endometriosis to such a degree that if I wanted to have children, I would not only have to undergo surgery, I would likely have to take fertility drugs. My heart was crushed at the idea of not being able to carry Jake’s child. For weeks, I operated in a blind depression until Jake reminded me that Jenna was alive because I put my air into her body. That made her as much mine as his. Even while I was contemplating that thought, he hit me with another. There were kids in the foster system around the nation who would sell their souls to be a part of our family. “Isn’t that what Dee would want you to do? Build your own family by looking for the right hearts? No matter who gave birth to them?”
We started looking soon thereafter.
Now, all our children light up our lives: Jenna’s almost twenty-two, Jonah is eight, Talia, four. Jonah and Talia’s birth father is in prison for murder; their mother died of an overdose. But I know more than anyone that environment and nurturing plays one hell of a role in the way a child will grow up.
When I met Jonah, he was in the process of trying to steal food from the back of a Stop and Shop near Jake’s school before he went back to his foster home. He thought I would turn him in. Instead, I bought him food from the bakery.
“You’re not like normal adults,” he said as he powered through the second donut.
“What do you mean?” I asked quietly, but I was all too afraid I knew. I lifted my hand to touch his hand. He jerked away. My heart cracked open into a million pieces.
Embarrassed, Jonah shrugged before turning his attention back to the sprinkles. “I don’t know.”
I offered him a ride home since he missed his bus, and I saw the squalor he and his sister were living in. I remember turning to him and whispering, “Jonah, this can’t be where you live.”
He shrugged before reaching for the handle. “This is all kids like me have, Miz Emily. Nobody wants someone who’s my age, and T—that’s my sister—she won’t let me go. We make do.”
“Jonah…” I started to say, but he was already out of my car.
“Thanks for the donuts, Miz Em. I’ll be sure to share some with T.” Slamming the door, I felt like someone had just slammed the door on a prison. Whether it was Jonah’s or mine, I wasn’t sure.
I drove to Jake’s school in tears. Jake took one look at me and flipped.
“What happened?”
“We have to go get them,” I babbled incoherently.
“Who, baby?” He rubbed his thumb over my cheek.
“Jonah. His sister. I can’t leave them there. Not like that. Not when…” And I proceeded to explain everything that happened, everything I saw and suspected.
