Chapter 21 #2
They were quiet for several moments, the only sound their breathing, and then Annie said softly, “It puts the rest of life into perspective, doesn’t it?
I mean… why was I ever bored, or irritated, or restless?
If I could have just one more rainy afternoon sitting with my mom with a cup of lukewarm coffee, chatting about nothing…
” Her voice broke and she drew a quick, ragged breath as Jenna squeezed her eyes shut, aching for her friend.
“Or anything trivial or seemingly meaningless,” Annie continued.
“I frittered away so many moments without realizing I was doing it.”
“Oh, Annie, we all do,” Jenna protested gently. How much time had she wasted, being worried or weary or fearful or cynical or anything but incredulously joyous that life was such an amazing gift? “You and Barb had a great time together,” she told her. “I don’t think you frittered away anything.”
“It feels like I did,” Annie replied, weeping now, openly on the phone. “So much of life just feels like a slog, something to be got through… but every moment is precious.” Her voice suddenly turned fierce. “ Every moment. Don’t waste a single one, Jenna.”
The words felt both personal and prescient, and in line with what everyone else and the universe itself had been telling her lately.
She thought of Jack, feeling like he’d missed out on twenty years of his mother’s life.
And she’d missed out on she didn’t even know how much, by living so defensively, every decision to protect her heart with the hardened shell of cynicism, believing it was better not to expect anything than to be disappointed.
She didn’t want to live that way anymore.
She wanted to make an active choice not to.
“I’ll try not to,” she told Annie shakily. “And you, too.”
“I’m trying.” Annie drew a ragged breath. “I will try. Mike is coming over later.” She let out a shaky laugh. “I know it’s kind of ridiculous, but I do love that man.”
Jenna smiled. “It’s not ridiculous at all.”
“Come on,” Annie scoffed. “You know it is. The two of us so giant and wild-haired… We probably scare children away when we’re together. We’re like something out of a fairy tale.”
“You look wonderful together,” Jenna stated firmly. “I can’t wait for the wedding.”
Annie guffawed. “Well, we’ll see. I think Laurie and Joshua might be heading down the aisle before we do.”
“That would be wonderful, too.” For the first time in a long while, Jenna didn’t feel that painful little pang of envy of her friends’ romantic lives. She thought of Jack, and she felt only hope. When she saw him again, she’d say something. Or maybe he would…
“I should go,” Annie said on a sigh. “There’s all this admin stuff. The to-do list of death.”
“If there’s anything I can do,” Jenna told her, wishing the words didn’t sound so trite. “Anything, Annie. Middle of the night, crack of dawn, whatever. I’m there.”
“Go give that man of yours a hug,” Annie replied. “That’s what you can do. And look forward and never back and live your life, Jenna. That’s all any of us can do. Live our lives… to the full.”
After Annie had said goodbye, Jenna stood in the store a few moments more. That had been a heck of a command, she thought with sorrowful wryness. It was hard to ignore Annie’s words when she had so much heartache and experience behind them.
Resolutely Jenna picked up her phone and swiped to call. Jack answered after the second ring.
“Jenna? Hey.”
“I was wondering what you were doing for Christmas.” In her nervousness, it came out abruptly, a little aggressively. Oops.
“I haven’t thought about it too much, to be honest,” Jack replied after what felt like a slightly startled pause, no doubt caused by her tone.
Jenna took a deep breath. Closed her eyes. And jumped. “Wouldyouliketospenditwithme?” she blurted, speaking so quickly it sounded like one long word.
“Sorry, what was that?”
Jenna took another breath and did her best to speak more slowly. “Would you…” she began carefully, “like to spend it… Christmas… with me?”
The answering silence felt endless. A cold wave of mortification and dread swept through her.
Why had she decided to do this again? She’d just told Laurie that she and Jack were not in a spending-a-major-holiday-together stage yet, and then, made reckless by grief and Annie’s urging, she’d taken the stupid plunge.
“I’ll have my mother with me,” Jack said after a moment, in something of a warning. Jenna couldn’t tell if this was his polite way of refusing, or maybe he was trying to make her rescind her invitation. Either way, it felt like a negative, far too close to a no.
“I’ll have my mom with me, too,” Jenna reminded him shakily. “So it could be a with-mothers thing. If you wanted.” Which, she realized belatedly, sounded a little weird.
More silence. Jenna squeezed her eyes shut.
She really shouldn’t have done this. Hadn’t she learned anything in ten years of stubborn, cynical loneliness?
Forget Henrietta, Annie, Laurie, whoever else had told her to live life, like that was so easy to do.
Living life hurt . It didn’t always work out. Right now, it felt pretty awful.
And so she opened her mouth to retract her offer, stumble through something painfully awkward about how they didn’t have to spend the day together, it would probably be better if they didn’t, all things considered, what with their mothers and so on, and then Jack spoke before she could stammer through a single syllable.
“Jenna.” His voice was the low rumble that she loved. “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”
“You… do?” Her voice came out in a squeak.
“Yes.” He chuckled, the sound soft. “I do. As long as you do.”
“I do,” she confirmed, and then she let out a laugh of pure relief.
She felt as if she was floating as she closed up the store and walked back into the kitchen where her mother was standing at the stove, stirring something that smelled delicious. She glanced back at Jenna, smiling uncertainly.
“You look happy.”
“I am happy,” Jenna admitted. For once, she didn’t feel dragged down by dread or regret. Impulsively, thinking of how Annie could no longer hug her own mother, Jenna went around the table to give her mom a quick hug. “You know what?” she said. “Let’s decorate for Christmas.”
“The store…?”
“No, the store’s already decorated to the nines!” Jenna exclaimed with a laugh. “I meant the house. I haven’t bought a Christmas tree in years. Let’s buy a Christmas tree, get the old decorations down from the loft.”
Her mother smiled shyly, seeming pleased. “All right, then.”
Less than an hour later, after dinner, they were heading to the garden center halfway between Starr’s Fall and Torrington that sold Christmas trees and loading one up on top of Jenna’s car.
Then back to the house, where Jenna braved the rickety ladder and cobwebs of the loft to dust off two boxes of decorations she hadn’t taken out since before her parents had moved to Florida.
Her mother made some hot chocolate, and Jenna put on Christmas carols and lit the fire. After they’d decorated the tree, they broke out a bottle of wine and sat on the sofa, curled up by the fire and chatting about nothing in particular… until her mom mentioned Jack.
“So, is it serious?” she asked.
To stall, Jenna took a sip of wine. “It feels serious to me,” she said at last. “And I think it might be for him, too. But… it’s early days.”
“That sounds promising,” her mother told her with a smile.
“It feels promising,” Jenna returned with a smile of her own.
The sound of the kitchen door opening had them both staring at each other, wide-eyed, before Zach called out, “Hey, anybody home?”
Jenna relaxed back into the sofa. “We’re in here,” she called, just as her brother sauntered into the room.
“Hey, who started the party without me?” he demanded as he clocked their glasses of wine and the half-empty bottle.
“We did,” their mother returned teasingly, “but you’re welcome to join us.”
Zach bent down to kiss her cheek and for a second, Jenna envied how uncomplicated his relationship with their parents seemed…
But then he didn’t know about what their marriage had really been like.
It wasn’t Jenna’s job to tell him, but she knew Zach would most likely be furious and hurt when he realized what their dad had gotten up to.
Jenna was still trying to figure out whether she could have any kind of relationship with him, not that she’d had much of one to begin with, but at least things were better—a lot better—with her mom.
That was certainly something to be thankful for.
Actually, she decided as Zach helped himself to a glass of wine and joined them on the sofa, she had a lot to be thankful for.
And that was what she was going to focus on from now on, starting with her relationship with Jack.
At Christmas, Jenna decided, she would tell him how she felt.
She might even use the L-word. Why not? A sudden, heady sense of recklessness seized her.
Annie was right, she decided. Life was not just for the living, but the grabbing, the savoring and reveling.
She’d spent far too much time hiding in the shadows.
On Christmas Day, she was coming out in full strength… and telling Jack how she really felt.
* * *
“Nice to see you, Jack.”
Jack shook his friend Will Bryant’s hand firmly as he smiled. “Good to see you, too.”