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Layla gasps as though shocked by this admission. I look at her, feasting on the love in her eyes.
“Really?”
“Really,” I say firmly. “We were made for each other. Can you expect any less?”
“So that would make us sisters-in-law,” Elena says, her smile returning with a new note of playfulness in her tone.
I try not to let the hope rise too fiercely inside of me and let myself think about this somehow working. All the pain, all the regret, the guilt—can we really leave it behind?
“My daughter would be my sister-in-law,” Elena says, then laughs softly.
The soft laughter becomes louder until she’s gripping the table, her head thrown back. Layla glances at me with panic. Her eyebrow is arched as if silently asking me if her mom has lost it.
I shrug, waiting until Elena has stopped laughing.
“The world is a strange place,” she says, wiping a tear from her eye. “I want to tell you to stop, but when I look at you…”
She glances at our hands joined on the table, then at her daughter.
“I see the commitment. I see the love. When I look at the two of you, I get the same feeling as when I look at our wedding photos.”
“Does that mean…”
Layla cuts herself short as if concerned about pushing too hard, too fast.
“I’ll tell you what it means,” Elena says, looking at me now.
There’s a mother-bear ferocity in her expression, the same I’ve spotted in Layla’s expression many times. She’s ready to go to war for her daughter, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“If you ever hurt my daughter… if you decide one day that you got caught up in your emotions and this isn’t real after all—”
“Mom…”
“I have to say this.” Elena doesn’t take her eyes off me. “I’ll never be able to see you again. It will tear mine and Noah’s marriage apart because I’ll hate you. I’ll never be able to forgive you.”
I sit up straighter. “I’d expect nothing less, but you’ll never have to worry about that.”
“Swear,” Elena says.
“I swear, if the impossible happens—it won’t, but for the sake of argument—I’ll leave your life forever. You, Noah, and Layla will never see me again. I’ll disappear abroad, but…”
Leaning forward, my tone gets darker. It floods with the certainty that will never wane.
“I swear, that willneverhappen. The only thing stopping us was the guilt. Nothing is standing in our way if we don’t have to live with that anymore.”
Long moments pass. Layla anxiously moves her thumb over my knuckles, making a path one way and the other. I can feel the fear radiating from my woman. Then Elena smiles again, wider this time. It’s like she’s letting all the tension seep out of her.
“Okay, then I give you my blessing, but I meant what I said.”
“Mom.”
Layla springs to her feet, her voice shaking, her hands shaking, and I know her soul is shaking too. It’s the same trembling I feel deep within me, the place destiny and fate live, telling us it will all work out.
“You mean it. You’re not joking. You’re not going to take it back.”
“I’ve never seen you this happy or excited,” Elena replies. “So yes, aslongas you’re certain, I can’t be why your happiness ends.”
Layla rushes around the table. Elena stands, and the two women embrace tightly.
