Chapter 49
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
POLLY
Love: a single word, a wispy thing, a word no bigger or longer than an edge. That's what it is: an edge; a razor. It draws up through the center of your life, cutting everything in two. Before and after. The rest of the world falls away on either side.
Lauren Oliver, Delirium
O n the way home from the birthday party, Jace and I asked the kids if they wanted to go on an adventure hike in the mountains the next day. Ryla was all for it, no surprise there, and Max agreed with only a few conditions: he didn’t have to try any new foods and if there were a lot of bees, we could go home.
The next morning, we spent an hour driving to the hiking trail Jace knew well, singing funny songs and taking time to stop and appreciate the beautiful mountain views along the way. Once we’d arrived, Max started to balk. Then, Jace produced two bug jackets, one for Max, and one for Jace. I knew that Jace had never worn, nor needed, a bug jacket. He’d only brought it along to make Max feel less alone.
My two children were glued to Jace’s side during the first half of the hike, which meant I followed behind them, marveling at how lucky I was to have found a man that fit so seamlessly into our family. As we walked, Jace told us stories about how he’d come hiking here with his friend who was now a park ranger and how eventually he’d come to hike here by himself when he got older. We spread out a blanket at a picnic area for lunch, eating from a basket that Jace’s mom had sent home with him this week.
It was there that I placed my hand in Jace’s, and we told the kids we were dating.
Ryla had no less than one hundred questions whereas Max only asked a few. I stressed that it was to be kept private, just between the four of us, as Grandfather Alberton couldn’t know. It was a risk, especially with Miss Ryla, but as she’d never liked her grandfather, I actually felt decently safe that she’d relish the opportunity to keep a secret from him. Max, my sweet boy, smiled and nodded when Jace explained that this didn’t change anything between them, and they could both talk to him about anything. Ryla’s last question, bless her heart, was if she could have a baby sister. After side-stepping that last question, the rest of lunch went on without any catastrophes. All in all, I dare say it’d been a pretty perfect morning.
It was after lunch that things started to go a little . . . less perfectly.
When Jace and I were packing up after lunch, Max and Ryla went to throw stones in a stream. Not five minutes later, Ryla ran back screaming bloody murder from a mosquito bite on her leg and proceeded to spend the next five minutes limping around, howling at us to cut off her leg. Jace finally convinced Ryla to let him carry her on his shoulders, or at least until her leg stopped “burning with mosquito death fire.”
Ten minutes into the hike back, Max had to go to the bathroom. Max was uninterested when Jace told him he’d teach him to pee against a tree. Ryla, on the other hand, was very interested and aggrieved when I wouldn’t let her try. Our debate on that did seem to cure her from the pain of her mortal mosquito wound, however. We spent the next twenty minutes hightailing it back to the trailhead, where the only flushable toilets were located.
When Max and I returned from the bathroom (in all honesty, I didn’t want to pop a squat either. I’d seen too much poison ivy in my practice) we found Ryla and Jace at a picnic table, huddled over a map.
“Momma!” Ryla shouted when she spotted us. My heart stirred; my throat tight with emotion. Having grown up in Chicago, Ryla always called me mom—or mama when she was a toddler—but never momma . It brought a picture into focus: our future life here. Over time, I expected the kid’s accents would get progressively more dipped. Jace and I would sit hand in hand as we watched Ryla’s theatrical performances or quietly root for Max with each big step he took along his own path. Looking at Jace, seeing the love and affection in his eyes, I could tell he was thinking the same thing.
Ryla tugged at my shirt and pointed at the map. “We found a new trail! There’s a lake at the end of it with fish and a waterfall!”
“Hold on there, Ryla,” Jace said. “I said if there’s a lake, there’s probably fish, and even though that symbol means there’s a waterfall, it might not be the right season to see it. Your momma and brother have to agree to walk with us, too. It looks easy enough, but it’s about a mile just to get there which is a lot of walking for everyone.”
“I can do it! Please? Please! I wanna see the waterfall!”
I looked at Max who just shrugged, then shifted my gaze to the sky, which had gray clouds in the distance. “Jace? I know you said the weather forecast was clear all day, but do you see those clouds?”
“There are always little showers here and there, but I ’reckon those clouds are a good twenty miles from here. My only concern is the length of the trail. It’s two miles round trip. It should take about twenty minutes to hike one way, so if any one of us gets tired, speak up and remember, it’s the same distance coming back as it is to walk there.”
Twenty minutes and two unmarked forks in the trail later, there was no lake and no waterfall in sight. At the first fork, Jace gave a confident smile, telling us he knew exactly where we were. It was at the second fork that Jace started to look uncertain. He was looking down furtively at the map, then off into the distance more and more.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Ryla shouted, pausing from drawing in the dirt with a stick.
I fought a laugh. Leave it to Ryla to ask what we were all thinking.
“Of course I know where I’m going. I just need to find a landmark.” Jace continued looking between the map and the distance. I walked over to him and glanced down at the map, but it might as well have been in hieroglyphics; cartography was never my strong suit.
“You know exactly where you are, huh, Ranger Vargas?” I teased Jace out of the earshot of the kids. He pursed his lips, unamused. Hiding my smile, I went over to check on Max, who had been glancing nervously at the clouds, which admittedly were getting a deeper gray.
I held out my hand, which he took. “Ok Max. Give me one squeeze if you want to keep going and two squeezes if you want to head home.”
I didn’t have to wait long until I felt two squeezes on my hand.
“Jace?” I called out. “I think I might be done. My heels are hurting, and I don’t think I should walk any further in these shoes.”
Jace glanced up, looking from me to Max, understanding dawning. Immediately, Jace folded up the map. “Absolutely. Deal’s a deal.” Ryla started to protest, but Jace got to the balls of his feet in front of her, speaking so low I couldn’t hear them. After a minute, he’d performed a Smokey Mountain miracle when, without a fuss, she climbed up onto his back for a piggyback ride. Max and I walked behind them.
I was just starting to enjoy the serenity of the landscape again when I heard Ryla exclaim, “Ahhh! A bird just pooped on my head!” She immediately let go of Jace’s neck to claw at her face, and Jace, to his credit, quickly lowered her safely to the ground.
Speaking soothing words, I peeled back the hand from her forehead to reveal: nothing.
“Ryla, sweetie, there’s nothing there. Maybe it was a bug,” I tried to explain. However, this was equally as traumatic as she gasped, “A bug peed on me?”
She was an adorable little drama queen sometimes.
“ Nothing pooped or peed on—Aaaah!” I shouted, my hand practically slapping my face as something wet landed on my cheek. I was relieved to see a drop of water on my fingers.
Jace held out his hand and looked at the sky. “I just felt a drop too. But not to worry, it’s only a few drops. Those clouds still look a ways off. It might sprinkle a bit, but trust me, it’s not gonna rain.”
Drip. Drip.
Drip, drip, drip.
The sound of rain hitting the soft vegetation filled the air as a steady rain began not one minute later.
“Run for your lives!” Ryla screamed and took off. Jace ran after her as Max, who actually looked more resigned than anxious, hurried along with me as we followed them.
Five minutes later, we were soaked and huddled underneath the small awning of an information sign, looking out at the steady rainfall.
“It’s gonna let up any second, and we’re less than a quarter mile from the parking lot. We’ll be in the car in no time. The mountains are known for little showers like this,” Jace was saying, smiling, trying to reassure the kids.
And as if it were a movie, Jace’s words hadn’t even dissolved into the ether before the steady rain became a downpour.
“Oh, come on!” Jace yelled, shaking his fist to the sky.
I held out my hand and shivered, delighting in the sensation of the cool rain on my palm. I hadn’t seen any lightning or heard any thunder; the darkest clouds had already passed. I took a few tentative steps forward, then spread my arms wide, becoming instantly soaked. Facing the sky, I let the cool rain run down my face as I turned in slow circles, laughing in delight. Ryla was looking at me like I was nuts and Max’s eyebrows were high on his forehead as they watched me hold my arms up as if I had an imaginary dance partner and begin to waltz. Because if there was ever a time that called for dancing in the rain, it was now.
I was so absorbed in what I was doing that I didn’t hear Ryla’s question to Jace out of the side of her mouth.
“What’s Momma doing?”
I also missed the proud smile on Jace’s face as he watched me, and the twinkle in his eye as he looked down at both of my children and replied, “She’s dancin’ in the rain.”
Hair plastered to my face, clothes utterly drenched, a warm hand grasped my outstretched one as a real person replaced the imaginary. And then, Jace began to dance with me.
We danced around the narrow trail in the rain, laughing as Jace tried to spin me, looking for all intents and purposes, like we were smoking something illegal. Ryla ran to my side, hugging me, then took Jace and my hands to start dancing in a circle. Eventually the dancing turned into spinning; we started to spin so fast that Ryla’s head fell back, letting out a little whoop as she went airborne, her beaming face looking free and alive. We stopped, dizzy and giggling, and I glanced at Max. I held my breath, taking a beat to look right into his eyes as if to say, I got you. Whatever you decide, I got you. Suddenly, Max made a break for us, and instantly, Jace and I let go of our joined hands to grab Max’s outstretched ones.
And then, we were just four imperfect people, soaking up all the imperfect moments, spinning in a circle and laughing in the rain, our conjoined whoops and ringing laughter floating up and mixing with the cool mountain rain.
* * *
On the ride home, huddled under jackets and the heater on full blast, Jace regaled Max and Ryla about camping stories filled with tents, bonfires, spooky stories and s’mores. Of course, this led to a dinner of microwaved s’mores once we got home and got all dried off. We capped off the night under a makeshift camping tent in the basement, made with two large king-sized sheets, chairs and pillows, using a flashlight to tell funny, not scary, stories.
Ryla’s eyes had closed half an hour ago, and Max fell asleep not long after. Jace and I were sitting diagonally across from each other, cross-legged, our knees almost touching.
“I think you may have scared them off hiking forever,” I whispered to Jace.
Jace groaned quietly. “I shouldn’t have let Ryla talk me into that last trail. I need to redeem myself. That’s never happened to me before. In good weather, on a trail I know, I’d never get lost. We can take them again, they’ll love it. And camping! I bet they’re gonna love camping with a real bonfire when they try it.”
I tilted my head. “Have you met my son?”
Jace glanced down at them. “Ok, we can start small.” He glanced back up at me with excited eyes. “Like camping in the backyard.”
“I never went camping as a kid.” I held up a hand when Jace’s mouth went slack. “Which I’m totally fine with, incidentally. I never minded missing some of the regular things kids did. Really, I think the thing I would have liked the most was a basic sleepover with a group of friends.”
“You’ve never done a sleepover at a friend’s house? Not even Leah?”
I shook my head.
“It’s a good thing I’m willing to do as many sleepovers as you want,” he smirked. “I mean, I’m willin’ to put in the extra effort here. We could play two truths and a lie, then spin the bottle, then progress to seven minutes in heaven. All with yours truly, of course.”
I playfully pushed him on the shoulder. “What’s two truths and a lie?”
“It’s a game where you say three facts about yourself, one’s a lie and two are true. Everyone has to guess which one’s the lie.”
“And that’s . . . fun?”
Jace tilted his head back and forth. “I mean, it’s usually played in middle school, but we can play for funsies.” He rubbed his hands together. “Here’s an example. My name is Jace Vargas, I played Romeo in high school, and I perm my hair.” Jace pointed to his frizzed-out hair, which had dried all haphazard after the rainstorm today.
I couldn’t help but laugh at the obvious lie.
“See? It’s fun. You try!” Jace’s whispered enthusiasm was infectious.
I looked down at my kids, then back to Jace. “I have two awesome kids. I love wearing pretty shoes, and I drink coffee every morning.”
Jace nodded encouragingly. “See! You’re getting it.”
I grimaced, shaking my head. “There’s a reason this is for middle schoolers.”
He grabbed my hand. “We’re just warming up. I’ll try again.”
He cleared his throat lightly. “I once dressed up as a clown for a six-year old’s birthday party.”
I smirked at the memory as he squeezed my hand.
“I’m great at predicting the weather by looking at the sky.” He lifted his eyebrows at me, making me chuckle.
Jace then looked up in thought, his thumb stroking absently over my knuckles. When he faced me again, his smile had tempered, expression suddenly serious.
“And I love you.”
My heart immediately began to hammer in my chest. I replayed his statements over in my head.
I once dressed up as a clown for a six-year-old’s birthday party. True.
I’m great at predicting the weather by looking at the sky . Lie.
Which meant, by process of elimination, what Jace said last, had to be true.
And I love you.
I swallowed roughly.
I thought I’d been in love once. But then after years of being with David, I realized it wasn’t love. You don’t treat someone you love that way. With silent disapprovals in your facial expression and cold shoulders year in and year out.
Jace was like finding the sun. He’d filled my world with so much light that at first, I was blinded by it. Scared that when he got closer, he might not like what he found. But day by day, through his actions and words, he showed me that the sun was a good thing; it scared away all the shadows. The people that love you, stick around, even if you’re not perfect in the harsh light of day.
He demonstrated what unconditional love was supposed to feel like.
“My name is Polly Anna Alberton.”
He brought laughter back to me and my kids.
“I hate romance novels.”
He taught me that magic, just might be real.
“And I love you, too.”