Gladys stepped in front of Country and hugged Marlowe. As she patted her on the back, she whispered, “Sure am proud of you, Hun.”
“Thank you so much, Gladys. It means so much that you’re here.”
“Always knew you were going places.” Gladys looked behind her and smiled. “Guess I wasn’t the only one.”
A warm smile crossed Marlowe’s face when Ford stepped out of the group and started towards us. “Ford! You came too?”
“Absolutely.” He walked over and gave her a hug. “You did good, kid. Always knew you would.”
Marlowe hugged him back, then looked up at him and said, “I can’t thank you enough. I wouldn’t have made it here if it hadn’t been for you.”
“You graduating today was all the thanks I needed.” He looked around at all the people who came to join Marlowe on her special day, then smiled. “Looks like you all have some celebrating to do.”
“We’re all headed over to the clubhouse, and it’s gonna be one hell of a party. I hope you’ll come join us.”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
Ford stepped aside, giving Marlowe room to speak to the others. After she’d thanked each and every one of them for coming, we headed over to the clubhouse. When we arrived, there was a huge spread of food and drinks waiting for us in the family room. Marlowe was so busy checking out all the decorations that she didn’t even notice the big surprise I had waiting for her in the corner. I stepped up behind her as I whispered, “There’s someone here who came a long way to see you.”
“Who?” She whipped around, and the minute she spotted Maria, tears filled her eyes. “You didn’t tell me she was coming!”
“Well, I wanted it to be a surprise. They flew in last night so that they could be at your graduation. She saw you get your diploma, but with so many people at the graduation, she decided to wait until we got here to let you know they’d come.”
“Well, I can’t think of a better surprise.”
Marlowe rushed over and gave her mother a hug. A few weeks after learning about Maria, Marlowe wrote to her. She was nervous about it, thinking Maria wouldn’t reply, but she did. The two corresponded back and forth for weeks, and eventually Marlowe mustered the courage to call her. Days after, they had their first visit, and it went even better than expected. They’d promised to meet again soon but juggling their busy schedules had turned out to be more difficult than either of them had expected. I knew how much it would mean to Marlowe to have Maria there for her graduation, so I flew her and her family in and did my best to keep it a secret from Marlowe. While it wasn’t easy, it was clear from her expression my efforts had paid off. I gave them a few moments to speak alone, then went over to join them.
As I walked up, Maria said, “Like I told you before, I never wanted to let you go. I simply didn’t have a choice, but I never stopped thinking about you. I’d always hoped and prayed that you would have a good life and you’d be happy. Seeing you now, I know all those prayers have been answered.”
“Thank you, Maria. That means more to me than you could possibly know.” Marlowe looked over to Maria’s husband Diego as she said, “Thank you for bringing her and the kids. It’s so good to have them all here.”
“I had little to do with it.” Diego looked over to me as he said, “Rafe set the whole thing up. I just got us to the airport. He took care of the rest.”
“Of course, he did.” Marlowe slipped her arms around me as she smiled. “Thank you. This is the best graduation present ever.”
They all sat and visited a while, but after a couple hours passed, Maria’s two young girls started to become restless, and she and Diego decided to take them back to the hotel—but only after promising to come by the house in the morning. They would be there for several days to visit, but I could see Marlowe was a little disappointed that they were leaving. Hoping to lighten her mood, I leaned over to her and said, “You’ve got another surprise coming.”
“What?” she gasped. “You’ve already done too much.”
I motioned over to Menace, letting him know it was time for his big reveal. When he came over, he reached into his pocket and brought out a set of keys. As he handed them to Marlowe, he said, “These are for you.”
“What are these for?”
“Your new office.” As Marlowe took them in her hand, Menace told her, “We got you a new desk and your own laptop. You’re all set for Monday.”
“Seriously?”
“Hell, yeah.” Marlowe would be helping Menace out with the nightly receipts and the inventory. While she wouldn’t ever know how we’d used the bar to launder the club’s money, her help would be invaluable to Menace. “I’m looking forward to the extra shuteye. Hell, I sure could use it.”