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“I know you look it,” she said. “But, Wesley, I get it. Noelle was like a daughter to me. I know she had her mother and father. Her siblings. But she was part of our family too.”
“Let me ask you—how do you feel about this?”
She got up and shut the door. “I’m happy for you.”
“That isn’t what I asked,” he said. “You want me to get out there and yet I’m asking what your thoughts are. You’re battling the grief like me. We just approached it differently.”
“We did,” she said. “I did what I do. I put my head down and fought for justice. And now that I’ve got it, I wonder what I caused myself in the process.”
He frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“I didn’t allow myself to grieve when you were. I told you that I worried I put you through too much, but I was selfish because it stopped me from having to face what you were going through. A loss that not only cuts your chest open but puts a clamp on your heart and squeezes it.”
“That’s a good description. You don’t like that I’m dating Jasmine?” he asked.
“I love it. I’m glad I can honestly say that. I know I’ve been pushing you and then once you took that step I worried I did it for me again. I told myself to sit back and watch.”
He laughed. “When have you ever just sat back and observed anything that didn’t have to do with work?”
“Good point,” she said. “But I am now. What I see are pieces of my son returning to me. I see a woman that I like and respect when I talk to her. She’s young but mature in so many ways. She’s more cultured than us both.”
“She is, but I don’t think she sees it that way. In her eyes, it wasn’t a great way to be brought up. She learned a ton but lost all the experiences that I had growing up. No proms. No music concerts. Hell, she told me when she started college that there were so many times that a band or actor’s name was mentioned and she had no clue who they were talking about. Classmates made her feel bad about it.”
“Which is wrong,” she said.
He’d said that to Jasmine too. He could see where it happened though. She was an American. No accent. Nothing at all to lead anyone to think she’d led the life she had. Assumptions were made and feelings of inadequacies were felt.
She was such a fun bright person that it bothered him to know there were times her glow was dimmed.
“There are a lot of things wrong in life. She’s strong and she adapted.”
“I can see that. The strength for sure. You need someone like that.”
“I think I do.”
“Noelle wasn’t always,” she said.
“No,” he said. “I loved her. I hate thinking this, but it’s true. She couldn’t have stood on her feet like Jasmine has.”
“She got stronger being with you.”
“I know. She was always spoiled by her parents and wanted things her way. I did the same to her because I loved her and wanted her happy. But then we butted heads too.”
“And you feel bad saying those things, don’t you?”
“I do. I’m not sure how we got on this topic either.”
He didn’t want to think ill of his late wife. The woman he loved so much and had planned on having a family with. But he wasn’t so naive that he didn’t know they both had their faults too.
“You need to see that Noelle wasn’t a God,” she said. “That she had flaws like you and I. That you can find someone else that is human and have just as strong of a bond with them too.”
“We are getting pretty deep here,” he said.
“I know,” she said, standing up. “I think I’m saying it for you and me together. It doesn’t mean we loved her any less and that you wouldn’t still be happily married had she not died.”
“I believe that one hundred percent,” he said. “But we can’t change what happened either. It’s taken me two years to get to where I am. I’m not moving fast. I’m going at the speed that I’m at and if someone doesn’t like it, I just can’t be who I’m not.”
His mother frowned. “Is Jasmine pushing to go faster?”
