Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80454 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80454 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“She was really beautiful,” I whisper, taking another picture when it’s handed to me, this one of my mom and dad together, my mom with a large, round belly that looks like a perfectly shaped basketball under her form-fitting dress.
“She was beautiful.”
I look up from my position on the floor and see a sadness in her eyes that makes my heart hurt. “We don’t have to do this,” I whisper, not wanting to cause her any more pain.
“Oh, honey.” She shakes her head, her hand coming down, running over my hair. “Even though this hurts, it feels good. Your mom was my best friend. She was someone who could walk into a room and everyone would stop to take notice that she was there. It wasn’t her beauty that did that, either. Her spirit called to you, made you want to be around her. I’m sad that you will never know what it was like to be in her presence, to have her shine her light on you. So if this is the only part of her you will be able to experience, then I’m so happy to be the one to share it with you.”
Wow, I think, loving Leia just a little more than I already did.
“Thank you.” I clear my throat as tears begin to clog it.
She smiles then hands me another picture, this one of my mom sitting on a bed with my dad next to her, one arm holding her close, the other wrapped around a tiny baby.
“You see what I mean? Your mom had just given birth, yet she looked absolutely perfect,” she says, and she is not wrong.
My mom’s hair was on top of her head in a tight bun, and her makeup was still perfectly in place. She looked like she had just gotten through with a day at the spa, not just given birth.
“They look like the perfect couple,” I say wistfully.
She laughs and her face lights up. “They were crazy about each other. Your mom told me she was going to marry him the first night they met.”
“Really?” I ask, looking at the picture again.
“Oh, yeah. We were both in our freshmen year of college and had just passed our first semester exams, so we decided to go out to dinner to celebrate. The moment we walked into the restaurant, your mom stopped dead in her tracks, causing me to plow into her. I looked around to see why she was stopping, but then I noticed a tableful of men. All of them were handsome. I told her she was staring, and she whispered that she couldn’t help it—her future was sitting right in front of her. At this point, I swore she was crazy. Honestly, who sees a man and says something like that? But then your dad’s head turned our way and his eyes locked on your mom, and without another word to the men at the table, he came over to us, stopped in front of your mom, took her hand, and led her to the bar.”
“No way.” I smile. My dad had balls.
She laughs hard and her eyes go soft. “Yes way. I stood there for a few minutes, wondering if I was seeing things, but I wasn’t. A few minutes later, your dad brought your mother back to me, introduced himself, and then went back to his table.”
“What happened next?”
“It’s like you say—the rest is history. Your dad made plans with your mom for the next night, and from that moment on, they were inseparable.”
“That quickly?” I ask, running my finger over another picture of my parents, this one of them laughing while looking at each other.
“That quickly. Sometimes, you just know, and your mom and dad both knew. It was almost as if, the moment they saw each other, their souls had recognized the other as their perfect match.”
“That really sounds crazy,” I murmur, but an image of Kai flashes through my head and how something deep in me knows him and went to him without a fight the moment I saw him. I think about how, every time I have been with him, it has been easy, about how he makes me feel. I shake off that thought, not wanting to feel the pain I feel every time I think about him now. Not right now, when I have the opportunity to learn about my parents.
“Sometimes, you just know,” she repeats. She smiles then pulls out another stack of pictures.
For the rest of the day, I sit on the floor while she sits on the couch, and she shares pictures and stories of my parents with me. By the time she leaves, I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. She unconsciously helped mend some of the pieces of my heart back together again.