I couldn’t have wished for a better life, and it all started with my dad’s ex-best friend. The man who missed out on getting the one and only thing from me he only ever wanted. So gross.
“Okay. One more.”
Walking along the coast I can hardly complain. I love this route and have done it a number of times already, which is why I know there are no more homes here and we’ll be forced to turn around and head back to the Jeep soon.
Except we aren’t.
“What’s that?” I ask, noticing there’s a kind of secret entrance along all the stones, which Jack immediately takes. “Jack. Be careful! Whoever lives back there might have a dog.”
“Let’s take a look.”
“Jack!” I protest, moving faster to keep up with him. “They clearly want their privacy and don’t want anything to do with…”
Before I can say ‘us’ I round the corner of a rock and see the one person I can’t believe. I freeze, not believing my eyes. Surely they’re playing tricks on me.
For Halloween this year I went as Dorthy fromThe Wizard of Oz. Our small terrier, who looks a lot like Toto, could have gone as Toto, but instead is the Cowardly Lion, because she’s afraid of her own shadow.
Jack is the Tin Man because he says he no longer has a heart because he gave mine to him.
Our little Jaxon is the Scare Crow, rounding out our quartet.
But standing on the steps to the house I didn’t know existed, probably because it looks like construction was just finished is…Glinda the Good Witch. A.K.A….my mom.
“Mom?”
She extends her arms and I can’t help but run to her, cruising right past Jack so quickly I almost knock the candy out of the jack-o’-lantern as I do.
Wrapping my arms around my mom the tears start to flow.
“I missed you so much,” she says.
“I missed you,” I confess in-between sniffles. “What are you doing here? I mean, it’s amazing that you’re here, but I thought….”
She just smiles, looks me up from head to toe, and then looks into the distance ten yards as Jack walks Jaxon the rest of the way to mom.
He hands him over to his grandma, this whole moment so surreal.
“Let’s just say a guy named Javier reached out to me one day at the gym. The rest was history…including your stepdad.”
“You divorced?”
“I couldn’t get outta there quick enough after what went down with you. I was distraught for many reasons. Your death of course,” she stops to laugh and then sniff, “and of course the fact that I shacked up with someone like Jenson. I had my reasons but the means didn’t justify the ends. And once I quickly came to my senses I was out of there.”
“But you’re here now?” I ask, still shocked at the developments.
“I blew the lid on Jenson and all his backstabbing ways. He threw your husband under the bus once, so it was time to get some revenge. Fortunately, I was able to get my hands on a chunk of the money first, get it moved down to Mauritius, and then start construction on this home, which is where I’ll be as long as you’re here…as long as you’ll have me in your lives.”
“Mom,” I say, shaking my head. “Always. We want you always.”
I wrap her up in a bear hug, as much as I can, being careful not to get in the way of her holding my baby boy, and a few seconds later I feel one of Jack’s arms around me.
Pulling back from my mom I look at the man who made it all possible and then our child.
“Your grandma,” I say to Jaxon, who mumbles something incoherent, but it doesn’t matter. There’s a smile on his face, and that’s what life’s all about.
And that starts and ends with one thing and one thing only. Family. Together. Forever.
Turning to Jack I hug him hard. “Thank you for this. I love you.”