Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
It was Christmas Eve on Oahu, and Jasmine was up far past her so-called bedtime, painting up a storm in the studio at the end of the hall.
Now at seventy-nine years old, she ignored minor creaks in her knees and aches in her back, all in pursuit of finding the truth that lurked within the painting she wanted to finish by January.
When inspiration struck, she couldn’t ignore it.
At one thirty that morning, Jasmine crept from the studio and padded downstairs, wrapping her old robe over her shoulders and tying it into place.
There was a single light on in Alyssa’s room, but Jasmine didn’t want to disturb her.
She’d learned recently that Alyssa had taken to writing poems late at night, and Jasmine never wanted to obstruct the creative process.
Alyssa had even shared some of the poems with Jasmine.
They weren’t bad. One of them had made Jasmine cry.
In the massive and tiled kitchen of the large house they’d moved into mid-October, Jasmine opened the fridge and retrieved a pitcher of filtered water, which she poured into a large glass.
She took her water to the window, where she drank and watched the massive white moon resting like a ghost in the darkness.
Sometimes Jasmine couldn’t believe how marvelous the view the house had, not how many bedrooms they filled, nor how nutritious and tasty the food they ate was.
She couldn’t believe that the beach was so great that Chase could surf right out in front of the house.
He’d begun conducting his lessons right out on the water, where Jasmine could keep tabs on him from her easel.
She was grateful that he’d decided to move in with her and the other girls for now, just until he figured out what he wanted his life to look like.
Jasmine knew that sleep wouldn’t find her quickly, not tonight. She made herself a mug of tea and sat on one of the extra-soft sofas in the living room. The lights on the Christmas tree glowed and filled her heart with song.
Something about the Christmas tree reminded her of the one she’d first decorated in the cabin for Larry, how massive and sticky it had been, how rickety.
She’d been so proud of it, hopeful that Larry would finally be pleased with something she did for him.
But he’d hated it. He’d thrown it out into the snow and told her to decorate another one.
But they hadn’t had enough money to buy a new one, so she’d instead decorated the bookshelf with odds and ends, little Christmas ornaments she’d made from felt and paper and paint.
She hadn’t realized how pathetic her life was.
She’d been frightened, but she hadn’t fully known that she needed to escape. Not yet.
Suddenly, there was a creak on the staircase.
Jasmine flinched to find Jenny, creeping down the steps, tying her own silk robe, which Jasmine had bought for her birthday.
When Jenny realized that Jasmine was sitting by the Christmas tree, she laughed and melted onto the sofa beside her.
“I thought I heard something! But I couldn’t sleep either. ”
Eventually, Jenny made them two mugs of eggnog and burrowed onto the sofa beside Jasmine, her head on her mother’s shoulder.
Now that Jenny knew Jasmine’s original name—Henrietta Johannes—Jasmine felt as though all the complications and boundaries between them were no more.
How she loved her daughter. How she ached with the memory of how she hadn’t been able to protect her from Walton.
“Mom,” Jenny breathed, “what a year we had, huh?”
Jasmine laughed and shook her head. “I don’t know what to say.”
Jenny eyed Jasmine nervously, as though she had something up her sleeve. Jasmine waited, not sure if she wanted to know what it was.
“Kendra called me earlier today,” Jenny said, speaking of course of Jasmine’s newest “manager,” the woman responsible for all this exorbitant wealth. “She said that Larry Calvin Johannes reached out to her. Do you want to know what he sent?”
Jasmine felt her insides melting.
“I think you’re going to want to see this,” Jenny said gently.
Jasmine couldn’t speak as Jenny opened her phone and pulled up the photos that Larry had sent—photos that yanked Jasmine back through time.
In the photos, Jasmine was Henrietta, a young bride.
She wore a lace wedding dress and low-slung heels, and an ornate veil covered her hair and face.
Her eyes behind the veil were enormous, as though she could peer all the way to the future.
She held a bouquet, one that her cousin had made for her from flowers she’d stolen from a neighbor’s garden.
Seeing herself like this, so young and alive and about to make an enormous mistake, Jasmine could do nothing but weep.
She felt endless compassion for the young woman in the photograph.
But she also felt something else: curiosity.
Why had Larry sent these photos to Kendar? What was he trying to say?
Most importantly, Larry hadn’t sent any of the photos of herself and Larry on that fateful day of their marriage.
It was as though he wanted to let her remember herself as herself alone, as though he recognized that he’d made many mistakes in their marriage and afterward and wanted to atone for them.
But Jasmine knew it was impossible to say if that was so.
“I wasn’t much older than Alyssa,” Jasmine said finally, shaking her head. “I had no idea what was coming next.”
“Nobody does.” Jenny darkened her phone and held her mother’s hand.
They gazed at the Christmas tree and listened to the Pacific waves churn outside.
In a few hours, Alyssa, Chase, and Jade would wake up, and they’d unwrap the presents that glinted before them.
Jasmine would make cinnamon rolls—not the cheap kind they’d always had, but a kind with whole ingredients, handmade because she finally had the time.
For the first time in ages, Jasmine wondered what was going on at the convenience store.
Sometimes she missed her lonely hours at the counter, watching other people’s vacations, other people’s little dramas, and other people’s hopes.
But these days, she was living for herself and for her family.
It was the greatest gift she’d ever known.