Page 20 of Laying His Claim
“I think you did,” he replied gently. “I think it was hard on you. You sometimes talked about how difficult it had been going through your teen years without a mom to guide you.”
She nodded and reached into the envelope again. A heavily embossed letter fell out, with the logo of a large national insurance company printed on the envelope. Hesitantly, she opened it and unfolded the piece of paper within. “Dear Sir,” it began. “We regret to inform you…”
She read through to the end, becoming more and more angry as she went. Her father, it seemed, had been very ill. From the date on the letter, she deduced that he’d been sick with whatever it was that had eventually killed him.
With cold, officious politeness, the letter informed him that his claim for future medical coverage had been denied due to…
“A preexisting condition?” Jalissa wondered out aloud.
“You told me he’d died when you were about eighteen.”
“From what?”
He thought about it for a while. “I think you said it was organ failure.”
“Organ failure?”
There was a sheaf of documents and invoices with dates covering the last few years of her father’s life, and the amounts were staggering. She could only imagine the financial devastation he’d had to endure. But why?
Gently, Justin took the documents from her hands and replaced them in the envelope. “Why don’t we look at happier things? Leave this for another time? When you’re more able to work it through.”
Her curiosity was overwhelming, but he was right. This was so hard, trying to decipher the secrets hidden in piles of old documents. She continued going through the box, finding knick-knacks and mementos. Carefully wrapped Limoges figurines belonging to her mother, her modest wedding ring and other jewelry.
She smiled wryly when she discovered that her mother had kept all her report cards; and laughed outright when she read the comments of her teachers, which said the same thing over and over:Jalissa is a bright student who would do much better if she stopped playing around in class,or,Jalissa would go so far if she developed more respect for authority.
“Kaiya told me I was a little hellion in school.”
“And now you have proof!”
He was smiling as he looked at her, and in his deep gray eyes she saw amused admiration. She wished she could hug him—but that was a dangerous desire.
At the bottom of the box was a large black photo album. It weighed five pounds and took both hands to wriggle it free from the debris. It was expensive, leather-bound, and embossed in gold lettering were the words: Our Family.
She placed it flat on the floor of the storage container and knelt over it, almost afraid to open it.
Justin seemed to understand her hesitancy. “It’s okay,” he soothed. “I’m here for you.”
Slowly, she turned the pages, taking in the round, smiling face of the little girl she had been but didn’t recognize, and the man and woman who seemed so proud of her, so loving, but who were now strangers to her and her memory.
Her heart constricted. Having parents you couldn’t even remember was as bad as not having parents at all. She was an orphan of the mind.
Feeling the breath catch in her chest, she returned to the album. Halfway in, the smiling woman in the photos began to grow thin, and later began to wear something on her head that was obviously a wig, as the color and texture was nothing like what it should be.
There were photos of Jalissa’s 10thbirthday party; a small affair, it seemed, with a much younger Jalissa standing at the table about to cut the cake with a woman in a wheelchair—a pale, jaundiced shadow of a woman.
Those were the last photos of her.
Jalissa choked down a sob, putting her hands to her lips to force her grief to stay inside. She felt Justin’s arm around her shoulder. “We can stop now,” he suggested. “There’s always tomorrow.”
“No.” she was surprised at how mulish she was being, but the pull on her heart was irresistible. She kept on turning the pages. The photos that followed were of her and her dad, who had been a large, healthy-looking, barrel-chested man—until Jalissa was about fifteen or so. Then the process began again. Loss of weight, skin slowly growing pale, gray this time, and then, nothing. He was gone, too.
She let the photo album slip from her nerveless fingers, overwhelmed by grief. Why did it hurt so much? Who were these people that she should cry for them? And most importantly, who was she, the girl in the pictures who looked so happy?
When Justin took her into his arms, she went willingly. He slid his hand around to the back of her head and pressed her face against his broad chest. The muscular expanse was like a rock, but the arms that held her were gentle. She cried it out, for some reason not feeling embarrassed to show him how she felt at this moment. Her instincts told her that she was safe.
Jalissa wondered how many times she’d sunk into his arms like this. Had her past self often needed comforting like this? She suspected not. Had there ever been a moment when she was in a crisis, when he’d had to dry her tears? Or was she the kind of woman who never let them see you sweat, never let them see you cry?
And if that were the case, then the vague sense of familiarity, that déjà vu she was feeling would be for something else. If he hadn’t held her with compassion, he’d held her with desire, with lust.
