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“So. You’ve been trying to fight your soulmate. Fight the curse.” Granny gives me a granny glare to match the stink eye. “You know you can’t fight that. If the universe has decided it’s Daniel, it’s going to be Daniel.”
“But how do I know? It’s all going too fast. What if we wake up one day and decide we hate each other? How do I even know he’s my soulmate? The earrings haven’t done anything like the other jewellery did.” Mayyyyyybe that’s not so true. “And- and even if we’re soulmates now, what’s to say that down the road, we won’t be? People change. People fall out of love. People become un-soulmate-ish. I think that abiding, lifetime love is a myth.”
“Bollocks.”
My jaw comes unhinged and drops an inch. “Did you just say bollocks?”
Granny cackles. “That’s right, because that’s a straight up load of nonsense. You think that your grandma and I knew it was love at first sight?”
“I… I guess so.”
“That’s right, we sure as shit did. You think it was easy for us, all those years, staying together, raising a family, running a business?”
“Uh- no.”
“Yes! It usually was. We had more money and success than we knew what to do with an we’d always gotten along, right from the first. I knew he was it for me. He was my soulmate. I worked hard, worked these buns right off for years to make my marriage the number one priority in my life, and your grandpa was a good man. The best man I ever knew. He made that easy. A real pleasure. It was never hard being married to him or loving him. Just because we didn’t struggle, hardly ever fought, and knew it was love at first sight, didn’t mean that we didn’t have our ups and downs, but he was always very, very easy for me to love. He always felt right, even when things were going left. Or wrong. Or whatnot. You think I never made a mistake before?”
“Yes, of course. Everyone’s human.”
“Ha!” Granny swats her knee. “Your old granny here never makes mistakes. I’m as perfect as they come.”
I grunt, which isn’t a laugh, but it’s not really not a laugh. I know that Granny is trying to cheer me up and I legit keep walking into her traps and it’s kind of funny, actually. “I know you and grandpa were madly in love, but I also know that after he died, you allowed yourself a certain amount of freedom.”
“Just because I want to use it before I lose it doesn’t mean I never loved your grandpa or that I don’t miss him every single minute of every single day. When I’m called to the- whatever comes after this I’m going to go with high hopes that he’s out there somewhere, waiting for me. I’ve bloody missed him these past years. Not marrying him would have been the biggest mistake of my life. Sure, I was scared. Having a family was scary. There was lots of stuff to distract us, to drive us off our path, to pull us apart, but we never let that happen. We could have, but we didn’t. And just because we weren’t like other couples didn’t mean diddly poo to me. I was happy to be who we were, and I’m still happy being who I am today, even if all you kids think I’m meddlesome.
“The truth is, I wanted you to be happy. I saw what my two bonehead sons did to your mom and aunt. I wanted you to have a happy ever after that they never got. All I could do was lighten their load, stick together as women- that sacred sisterhood of mothers- and help raise you all to turn out better than my own boys did. Your fathers set a poor example of dads, of men, of human beings in general. I know it put you all right off ever having your own deep relationships- relationships where you give all of yourself, because you’re afraid of being hurt. I wanted to fix what I could, and the only way I could do that was with the curse. I think if you have a shot at being happy, don’t worry about being afraid. Don’t worry about the messy bits. That’s all normal. If it feels right, that doesn’t mean that it’s too fast or that it’s actually wrong. I know you called me because you wanted to hear the straight truth, because you trust me, because you needed good advice, and because you needed a laugh and maybe a cry on your old granny’s shoulders. Well, I’m happy to tell you straight and let you know what’s what. Besides. I know you’re far from done with Daniel. And I know you’re about to be welcomed into that sacred sisterhood I was talking about. You becoming a mother, Leandra, is about the finest thing I’ve heard since Luna told us she was expecting again.”
