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“I’m not,” Ayesha reassured her. “At least, I don’t think. I’m just a ball of nerves. This day came kind of fast.”
Tayler told Val she could take a makeup break and pulled up a chair. “You’re nervous about getting married to your husband?”
Ayesha laughed, but the laugh was cut short when her stomach turned. “No, it’s not that. Joel and I made pre-wedding gifts for each other, and,” she glanced at the decorative clock on the wall, “this is about when he might be opening his.”
“You’re scared he won’t like it?”
“I don’t know what I’m scared of.”
Tayler looked around. “Where’s his? Do you think it would help if we opened his?”
The toiling in her stomach eased. “That’s a good idea.”
“Everyone?” Tayler clapped her hands to gather the room’s attention. “We’re getting ready to open Joel’s pre-wedding gift from Ayesha. Gather round. Wren, can you bring that white gift bag on your way over?”
Larke’s sister brought the bag, and everyone found a seat with a viewing angle that would allow them to see Joel’s gifts.
“You and Joel make me sick, by the way,” Xara said. “Pre-wedding gifts? Can y’all be any cuter?”
Ayesha reached inside, pulled out the first gift, and studied it, head cocked to the side. It was a jar filled with sand.
“There’s a note,” Mo said. “Can I read it?”
“Skim it first,” Ayesha warned.
Mo unfolded the note, skimmed it, and then her eyes watered. “Eesh,” she began in a deep, theatrical voice. “I know, at first glance, you’ll wonder what the hell I was thinking getting you a jar of sand, but this is sand from the beach in Malibu. After we went for our walk, something told me to go back and collect sand from the path we took. I know now it’s because I wanted something tangible to remember the night my heart first started to belong to you.”
A chorus ofawwswent around the room.
Ayesha hugged the jar to her chest, starting to get emotional herself, but eager requests made her set the jar aside and pull out the next gift—a dried flower encased in glass.
“I want to read this one,” Ari said.
They passed her the note.
Ari cleared her throat and added bass to her voice. “I remember coming down that escalator and seeing Josiah’s small feet, Theo’s tinier feet, and feeling like I was…” Ari paused, choking up a little. “Like I was coming home to my family. Then I saw your face, and I knew it, Ayesha. I knew you were my future, but we were still dealing with some things, so I never gave you the flower I received, upon special request, from the White House Rose Garden, just for you. In my mind, I saw myself hugging the boys, kissing you, and placing this rose in your hand. Still, I knew I would one day give it to you, and I look forward to many more days where I look into your eyes and see home.”
Moreawwsrose.
Someone passed around a box of tissues.
The third gift, a packet of fern seeds, didn’t come with a note, but it didn’t have to. She immediately picked up on that one and barely held it together as she explained how Theo’s urine had killed two ferns at the Maui house.
Next came a petite Mason jar of bone broth, a package of their favorite coffee, a stuffed iguana that was a perfect replica of Carlton, and an envelope withFragile, Do Not Bendprinted on the side.
She raised the flap and pulled out a photo of her and Joel in Australia at brunch the morning after Gage and Tayler’s wedding. She was staring at his phone after he’d handed it to her to look at pictures of the boys with his parents. However, while she stared at the phone, he stared at the side of her face as though he never wanted to look away.
“Gage took that,” Tayler said.
Ayesha wiped her eyes before tears fell onto the photo. On the back, in Joel’s handwriting, were three words:
“Our first date.”
Sniffling, she peered inside the bag.
There were three additional gifts, two envelopes, and a jewelry box, but one envelope explicitly said to open it last. So, she reached for the other.
Inside was a DNA test.
