He did, finding a large room bathed in sunlight and filled with waltzy music and about twenty-five nearly ninety-year-olds, some sitting, some dancing, some sleeping.
And there, in the middle of it all, was Pepper Broussard, lighting up the world like she was obviously born to do.
In the same dance clothes and bare feet, she led a circle of elderly women—and two gallant gentlemen—through a slow, gentle ballroom sequence. A step, a turn, a careful sway. She was counting out loud, her voice musical and patient, adjusting someone’s hand position, encouraging a woman in orthopedic shoes to “feel the music, Sheila, not the floor.”
The residents were beaming. Some moved with surprising grace, as though they still had muscle memory from decades of dances at weddings and anniversaries and New Year’s Eves. Some were clumsy and laughing about it. One tiny woman in a floral dress was dancing with a pillow because there weren’t enough partners, and she was having the time of her life.
And there, in a padded recliner near the speaker, was Atlas, surrounded by no fewer than four elderly women who appeared to be taking turns holding him.
Sound asleep, he wore a crocheted cap in blue and white that Jonah knew had not come out of his diaper bag, his elephant tucked under his arm. A blanket Jonah had never seen was draped over his legs, and one of the women was gently rocking the recliner with her foot, following the beat of the music.
For what felt like an eternity, Jonah stood in the doorway and took in the sight of something that was holy and wholesome and…good.
He watched Pepper guide a woman who had to be ninety-five through a turn that made the woman’s face light up like she was eighteen again. He watched his son sleep in the arms of great-grandmothers who might not have held a baby in years and were savoring every second.
He watched the room full of people who’d lived entire lives—marriages, children, wars, losses, joys and sorrows too numerous to count—swaying together in the late afternoon light because a sassy girl with ballet slippers and a broken heart had brought them music on a Saturday.
Something shifted in him. Not the lightning bolt of falling in love—he was too exhausted and too raw for that. But the slow, undeniable recognition that settled into his bones and told him that this woman was extraordinary. She was special in a way that Jonah could only dream about, and everything about her humbled him.
And made him want to wrap her lithe body in his arms and keep her there as long as he could.
The song ended. Pepper took a graceful spin, stopping right in his line of sight. Her face brightened with a blinding smile.
“Atlas! Daddy’s home!” she announced, and every head in the room turned toward him, a cheer going up like he’d just caught a pass and scored.
The four elderly women around Atlas closed ranks and started arguing over who got him next.
Instantly, Pepper swooped in, gently extracting the sleeping baby from the group effort. “Sorry, ladies. You’re outranked.”
“What about the hat?” one woman asked from a wheelchair, pointing at the crocheted creation on Atlas’s head. “I made that in forty-two minutes. A personal best!”
“The hat stays,” Pepper assured her. “Margaret, you outdid yourself.”
Pepper carried Atlas to Jonah and handed him over without waking him. He was deep in the boneless sleep of a baby who’d been held and rocked and sung to by an entire community of great-grandmothers, and he was utterly, completely at peace.
“He was a hit,” Pepper said softly. “Diane wants to adopt him. Yes, Margaret crocheted the hat in record time, but Ibelieve ninety percent of it was done for her great-grandson, who never came to visit. A woman named Gloria claims to have taught him to clap, so be prepared to share the credit when he does. Oh, and he really likes to dance with me.”
Jonah couldn’t speak for a moment. He held Atlas against his chest and looked at Pepper and felt every defense he’d been building dissolve like sugar in warm water.
“You got it, didn’t you?” she said, reading his face. “The internship.”
Oh, yeah. That. “I got it,” he confirmed. “I start in two weeks.”
Her eyes lit up. “Jonah. That’s incredible.”
“It’s incredible and it’s impossible.” He paused, snuggling Atlas closer. “Monday, Wednesday, Friday, five to close. Most Saturdays. I need someone for Atlas. Not daycare, not family favors. Someone consistent. Someone he trusts.” He looked at his son, sleeping in the knit hat, then back at Pepper. “Someone like you.”
She tilted her head, and the look in her topaz-laced eyes told him she’d already known this was coming. Maybe since the first day in Broussard’s office, when she’d held a screaming baby and made him stop crying with nothing but a sway and a murmur.
“Are you offering me a job, Lawson?”
“I’m offering you a very underpaid job with terrible hours and a boss who will spit up on you.”
“Sounds dreamy and a huge improvement over filing in my dad’s office.”
“Your dad…will probably kill me.”
She didn’t argue the point, but lifted a shoulder in the definition of laissez-faire. “He won’t like it, but Dad doesn’t get a vote on my career choices. He got a vote on my dance training, my college, and approximately seven hundred boyfriends he scared away. But this one’s mine.”
