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Daniel still oversaw the team of attorneys assigned to Nexcom, but he wasn’t as hands-on, even returning to Parker, Mitchell, & Ward’s headquarters full time. It made it easier to avoid Cole. But I missed him. I missed him so much it hurt.
“Tell me,” she said, staring into the bottom of her flute as if wondering where the contents had gone before pouring up the last of the bottle, “does he wake up looking like a GQ model? Or does it take a village?”
“Sadly, he rolls out of bed like that. You should see his father,” I said, turning the magazine facedown on the table, hoping it’d ease the pain.
“Oh, I have,” she said, then winced as if caught red-handed. “We met a couple times. Only briefly, really.”
“It’s okay, ’Fia. I don’t expect you not to be friends with Cole.” I sort of did, because of the whole if-I-can’t-have-him-no-one-can thing, but I wasn’t so far gone that I’d actually verbalize it. I had to deal with that irrationality on my own.
She’d never so blatantly mentioned Cole before. Not since we’d ended things. They remained friendly, I knew, but she was sensitive to my missing him, to me needing time to get my shit in order. I loved her for it.
“I think I’m ready to leave him, ’Fia.”
She didn’t waste words on asking me who. “For Cole?”
“No,” I said. “For me.”
“Now, that’s something I can drink to.” She tipped her glass to me.
We raided Daniel’s wine cupboard behind the stairs, deciding work could wait for tomorrow.
“Oh this is good,” Sofia said, twisting the flute in her hands, nodding appreciatively at the pink bubbly. “Why do you keep looking at that…” Her words petered off as she scooted to the edge of her seat, nearly tipping over as she stretched her neck in the direction of Franklin’s present. Sofia narrowed her eyes on the shoddy wrapping job. “Don’t tell me what it is,” she said, fingering the duct tape.
“It’s a Christmas gift from Franklin,” I told her anyway.
“That’s a gift?”she asked incredulously, then chased it with,“Christmas?”
“Yeah, I’ve been waiting to open it.”
“Waiting for what, next Christmas?” She snort-belched a laugh, and I relieved her of her glass.
“That’s enough for you,” I said. “Whatever it is, it belonged to my mother. And I don’t know. I guess I wanted to build up some emotional strength first, if that makes sense. Trying to work some things out on my own, let some things go, so by the time I get around to dealing with this, I’d be capable.” I shrugged, knowing I hadn’t articulated that well, or perhaps it was so silly a concept it couldn’t be explained.
“I get it,” she said. “As a mother, my main goal is to prepare my kids to face the world. I want them sure of who they are, and what they have to offer. I want their foundation unshakable, so that no matter what anyone says to them out there…” She pointed to the window. “No matter what circumstances they may face, they can never be broken in here.” She tapped her head. “There’s nothing wrong with preparing for the fight, Jasper. Although,” she tacked on, “some fights can’t be faced until you have all the facts.”
I filled my cheeks with air, and then released it, setting the gift on my lap. “You’re right.” Building strength would only comeafterfacing down my fears, not before. Thinking otherwise was just another form of denial.
“Do you need to be alone?” She made to stand.
“No,” I said, taking in my big sister/best friend. The woman I’d hid so much from in the past. “No more keeping who I am from you.”
“Well, you’re gonna need a saw to get through all that tape, sweetie.”
We laughed, and then I found the sharpest knife in the kitchen and got to work.
“It’s a photo album,” she said, coming to sit next to me.
“I’ve never seen this before,” I admitted, caressing the black suede covering before forging ahead.
“Or a photo scrapbook may be more like it,” she amended. Each sheet of cardstock contained a photo, with a trinket and handwritten note glued or stapled next to it. “Is that baby Jasper?”
“Yeah,” I whispered. I couldn’t have been more than a few hours old. I lay asleep, swaddled in my mother’s arms, a blue cap over my head as we slept in her hospital bed.
“What does the note say?” Sofia asked, inching closer until our legs touched, excited to take this journey with me.
I read my mother’s perfect script out loud, fingering my hospital ID bracelet. “‘This is it, baby boy. The beginning of you and me. A bond no one can ever come between.’”
Next, I pointed to a photo of me kicking at the schoolyard grass. “This was my fifth birthday,” I said with surety. I wore the new shirt my mother had saved to buy me. It was a red Thomas the Train shirt. “I remember because my dad had promised to pick me up for ice cream, but he never showed. I waited there alone for over an hour before the principal called my mom. She must have taken that as she approached from the parking lot.”
