Healed

by Rebecca Brooke

  “Me too.” I smiled.

  He walked over and grabbed a plate of his own. “If everyone else is eating, so am I.” He took a quick look around the room. “Then again, I could probably just pick off your plates instead of making one up,” he said, taking a quick peek over his shoulder and turning back to give a wink. It was easy to tell how much the Bentley’s loved each other. It was very similar to my parents. They knew how to have fun and joke with each other, plus they still had their romantic sides. I hoped Andrew and I could have the same once we were married.

  Sarah glared at her husband as she walked out of the pantry, yet there was the subtlest of lifts at the corners of her mouth. When she walked back into the pantry after only a moment, I knew she was trying to hide the smile that was threatening to come out.

  Mike sat down at one end of the table and looked at Andrew and I. “I’m sure someone already asked, but since I missed it, any wedding plans taken care of yet?”

  Andrew rolled his eyes. “Why do you think she’s been screaming?”

  Rolling my eyes at Andrew, I looked over at his dad. “Not many. All we’ve decided so far is the bridal party.”

  “Next April is a while away—you have plenty of time. I’m sure you’d both like to get through graduation first.”

  “More than you know,” I said.

  “Let’s hear about the internship position you got, Andrew. How did your meeting go with the partners?”

  “Oh yes, honey, I want to hear all about it,” Sarah said, taking a seat at the end of the table, finally apron free, and with a plate of her own.

  The rest of the meal was spent with Andrew telling his parents all about the internship and the opportunities it would provide when he left school. It was a simple brunch on a beautiful Christmas morning, and listening to everyone talk while we ate made me happy that I’d gotten to spend the holiday with Andrew’s family.

  Their interest in my thesis had a certain warmth spreading through my chest. Most people, outside of those studying history themselves, weren’t curious about the paper I was writing, but Andrew’s parents asked a ton of questions—Mike even gave me a few new ideas to add into the mix. It was a nice feeling, and knowing I was going to have two families that cared about me was more than I could ever have asked for. You always hear the horror stories about the in-laws but, thankfully, that was a problem I was never going to have.

  The biggest surprise of the whole morning came after we ate.

  Andrew

  SEEING EMILY SO RELAXED and happy throughout brunch went a long way to dispelling some of my earlier unease. Never in a million years had I expected to piss her off so badly. I had an inkling that if it hadn’t have been Christmas, there’s no way she’d have forgiven me so easily. I’d probably still be home, on my knees, groveling. When Emily was in that mind frame, she was a force to be reckoned with—another reason why it surprised me that she didn’t want to use her degree to go into politics. It was a dog-eat-dog world, but no one would be dumb enough to take on my fierce little pit bull. It was a good thing my sister and Emily got along so well because Jess’s constant questions about the wedding were getting to be a bit much. Even I’d wanted to freak-out a few times. But Emily just took it in stride, not once getting annoyed. Well, at least there were no outward displays of it.

  After we all finished eating, Jess was determined that we exchange presents, which was fine by me. Emily had done so much shopping for everyone that I was kind of excited to see their faces, especially since they were probably just expecting gift cards. My family was going to be shocked with having actual presents to open.

  We helped Mom clean up the mess and then followed my father into the living room, where I’d put the presents from us. I’d taken them out of the bags and set them under the tree with everything else. We each took a seat. Emily and I on the love seat, my parents taking up the couch, and Jess taking her usual spot on the floor in front of the tree. As we’d gotten older, the job of passing out the presents had gone from my mom to my sister. Jess loved it. Actually, she loved trying to guess what everyone else got.

  Starting with my parents, Jess handed them each a gift from her and took the gift from Emily and me for herself. The sounds of wrapping paper tearing filled the room, followed by squeals of delight.

  “I love it!” Jess screeched. “I can’t believe you bought me an actual present.”

  I laughed. “Well believe it, ’cause I did.”

  She rolled her eyes. “What I actually believe is that Emily made you get presents and then she picked this out.”

  Sometimes having a sister who knew you so well could be a little disconcerting. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “See, I told you everyone likes getting things besides gift cards,” Emily chimed in.

  “Thanks for giving my secret away,” I said, pulling her up against me and wrapping my arm around her.

  She giggled. “It was pretty obvious anyway.”

  Mom and Dad opened some new kitchen appliance from Jess that my mom went absolutely crazy for. Slowly, piece-by-piece, we made our way through the pile under the tree. Emily and Jess ended up with a ton of clothes to wear. My mom got more kitchen stuff, plus a few beautiful new pieces of jewelry from my dad. Emily thought it would be best to get my dad stuff for his fishing trips—little had we known that both my mom and Jess had thought of the same thing. Shit, that made us laugh for a while. Maybe we needed to talk to each other about what we were buying.

  Emily and I were looking over the things I’d gotten for my internship when my mom leaped from her seat.

  “We have one more thing for you.”

  She wasn’t very specific, so I had no idea who she was talking about. She practically ran from the room, returning a few seconds later with a huge box, all wrapped up and ready to be opened. She placed it on the floor in front of Emily and me. I looked down at the box and back up to Mom’s face. She was up to something. It was written in the way she was bouncing on her feet with a huge smile on her face.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m guessing you’ll figure that out when you open it up,” Jess piped up from the other side of the room, a smirk on her face.

  “Really? I never would have guessed that.”

  “Would you two knock it off,” Emily said and turned to my mom. “Thank you, Sarah and Mike. We’d love to open it.”

  I gestured to Emily, indicating that she should do the honors. I wanted to watch my mom’s face and see what she was up to.

  Emily made quick work of the paper, pulling it all off in seconds, to reveal a new luggage set. My brows drew together. It seemed like an odd present for two broke college students who were about to graduate and enter the workforce for the first time. I mean, of course we wanted to travel, but realistically we knew that would be a few years away while we saved up.

  “Thank you. It’s a great set,” Emily said, looking it over. Her voice clearly sounded excited, yet the tilt of her head as she studied the luggage showed she was just as confused as I was.

  Mom was too excited about a set of luggage that may sit under the bed for a few years. She was still bouncing on her feet. That’s when I realized there was more to the gift than met the eye.

  “Look inside, there are five pieces.”

  There was something in the luggage she wanted us to find.

  “Okay.”

  I got down on the floor in front of Emily and unzipped the first case. Inside that one there was a second smaller case with wheels, which Emily reached down to open, a curious smile on her lips. The only thing in there was a garment bag and a large duffel used for carry-on luggage. The minute my hand landed on the duffel, I heard a small squeak from behind me. Whatever was in that bag was what she wanted us to find.

  “Here.” Looking at Emily, I offered her the bag. “You open it.”

  She shook her head and pushed it back toward me. “You do it.”

  Taking the bag and placing it on my lap, I unzipped
it slowly and was slightly surprised when the only thing in the bag was a smaller duffel bag. I gave my head a slight shake, trying to figure out what could be exciting about five pieces of luggage. At least that was until I noticed the envelope that sat in the front pocket.

  I took the envelope out and handed it to Emily. Examining the envelope, she turned it over in her hands and carefully pulled up the tab holding it sealed together.

  “Oh my God!” she screamed as the envelope slipped from her fingers.

  Jumping from the floor, I grabbed the envelope and sat next to her. Emily’s eyes were wide and she was just staring straight ahead—I could only assume she was looking at my mom and dad. Taking a deep breath, I opened the envelope and peeked inside. There sat two round-trip tickets to Puerto Rico, plus the itinerary and passes for a six-day, seven-night cruise to the Caribbean.

  “Holy shit.” My head snapped up to look at my parents, whose faces held the biggest smiles I’d ever seen.

  “You . . . you . . .” I sputtered, unable to form a coherent sentence. The date on everything was for the morning after our wedding. My parents had paid for the entire honeymoon. There weren’t any words to describe the love I felt for them at that moment. Grabbing Emily’s hand, I noticed that she still hadn’t spoken a word.

  “Em?”

  Dazed eyes stared at me, then a smile graced her beautiful face.

  “Merry Christmas, my angels,” Mom said, walking over and wrapping both of us in a hug.

  Dad came over to join her. “We hope that this is where you would want to go. You always talk about visiting tropical places, so we thought you might like it there.”

  Dad was doing his nervous rambling thing. He’d done it for as long as I could remember.

  Emily finally snapped out of her daze. “Like it? I love it. I can’t believe you did this for us,” she squealed, crushing my parents even tighter to her.

  “Anything for our son and soon-to-be daughter.” Mom gave us each a kiss on the side of the head.

  Emily’s eyes were bright with unshed tears but the smile on her face let me know that they were ones of happiness.

  “I can’t believe you guys did this. I don’t know what to say,” I said to both of my parents.

  “You don’t have to say anything, sweetheart. We love you both and just wanted to show you how much,” Mom said, her eyes starting to get misty.

  “Thank you, we love you too,” I said, hugging everyone tighter.

  After a bit, Mom went back into the kitchen to finish working on dinner, and Emily and Jess went upstairs to try on their new clothes. My eyes followed Emily with every step she took up the stairs.

  “It never ends.”

  I turned to see my dad watching me. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the way you feel when you see her. That need to watch her will never go away.”

  “How do you know?”

  He reclined back in his chair, like he was ready to impart some unknown wisdom. “I know, because I still feel that way every time I see your mom. She’s everything to me.”

  I smiled. It was a wonderful feeling to realize how happy your parents were together. They were a great example of what a loving relationship should be like. If Emily and I had only half of what they had in the future, we would be incredibly lucky. “You’re right. Emily is my world. I don’t know what I would do without her.”

  “Did I ever tell you about the first time I met your mother?”

  Racking my brain, I tried to remember. I knew the story of their engagement and their first date, but not how they met. “No, actually you haven’t.”

  He laughed. “The first time I met your mother, she turned me down for a dance.”

  “She turned you down?”

  “Yep. She didn’t even give me a second look.”

  That was news to me. I always imagined Mom and Dad seeing each other and it being love at first sight. Which, when I really thought about it, was kind of stupid. Love was hard work. “What did you do?”

  “There was something about your mom, and even though she didn’t want to give me the time of day, I was determined to get a shot—even if it was just a hello. She spent the night dancing with my friends.”

  It was weird to think of my dad struggling to get attention from a girl.

  “I spent the rest of the night watching her. If I was going to get my way, I needed to learn things about her. Not everything—just enough for her to give me a chance. That night I went home and still hadn’t talked to your mom. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get her out of my head. I’m sure you know exactly what I am talking about.” He winked at me.

  Did I ever. The first time I saw Emily, I wanted her. Did I expect anything like what we had? No. I would have been happy with one night. Except then I got to know her and one night with her didn’t seem like enough. “I do.”

  “I had a feeling you would. The next weekend I went to the same club, hoping to see her again. When she hadn’t shown up after an hour or two, I almost gave up and left. I paid my tab at the bar and stood up, and that was when she walked in the door. Without giving her a second, I walked up to her and offered to buy her a drink. She agreed, but looked skeptical. She did, however, follow me to the bar and I ordered her favorite drink without even waiting to see what she wanted. The smile that graced her face told me that I’d done exactly the right thing. She spent the rest of the night talking and dancing only with me and, well, you know the rest.”

  “I can’t believe she ignored you at first. That’s not what I expected.” I laughed.

  “As funny as you find that, I had a better reason for telling you that story.”

  My laughter turned to chuckles. “Sorry, Dad, it’s just that you always seem to have the answer whenever I had problems with a girl. To think Mom gave you hard a time is just funny.”

  “Yeah, very funny. Back to the point. Mom and Emily have something in common. There’s something about them that draws us to them. Something we can’t ignore. And because of that, there won’t be a time when she’s far from your thoughts. You’ll always know where she is in a crowd of people, and your need to protect and care for her will override everything else.”

  Dad’s speech stopped the laughter instantly. I knew exactly what that meant. It was how I felt about Emily every day of my life. “That’s it, exactly.”

  “I know, Son. Just remember to treasure it always.” Dad placed his hand on my knee and gave a squeeze.

  “I will. Thanks, Dad.”

  My parents were amazing. Between their present, which was more than I could have ever expected, and Dad’s story about how him and Mom met, I couldn’t get the smile off of my face all day.

  It was Christmas, and it was wonderful.

  Eventually the girls came back downstairs and we spent the rest of the day lounging around, watching movies. It felt good to snuggle on the couch with Emily and a bowl of popcorn. Like we were a family. No, it wasn’t like we were a family—we were a family. And this was only the beginning of a host of new things for us.

  A few hours later my aunt and uncle showed up for Christmas dinner and like everything concerning food and holidays in our household, it was way over the top. Even though she shouldn’t have been surprised after the spread at brunch, Emily’s eyes had bugged out of her head when she’d seen the table.

  “Dinner was delicious,” Emily said, giving my mom a hug as we were getting ready to leave.

  “Thank you, sweetheart. I’m glad you liked it.” Mom pressed a kiss to her cheek, then bent down and whispered something in her ear, before pulling back to look at her. Emily smiled and nodded.

  I wonder what that was all about?

  Mom turned her attention to me. “Now, no more dillydallying with the wedding plans. Any help you two want, call me, I’m there.”

  “You bet. Although, I don’t know why I’m saying that—it’s all up to her,” I said, gesturing toward Em.

  She laughed and patted my cheek. “You’re learning early
.”

  Emily burst out laughing too. “Yes he is.”

  Dad came around the corner with a bag full of Tupperware containers. “Here,” he said, handing me the bag. “Your mother won’t be able to sleep if we don’t send you home with leftovers, and there is no way in hell we can eat all of this food ourselves.”

  “Mike,” Mom scolded with a laugh and a swat to his arm. She smiled back at us. “But your father’s right, you need to take some food home. We have more than enough.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Jess said, poking her head out of the kitchen.

  “What is this, ‘Pick on Mom’ day?”

  “Maybe,” Jess and I said at the same time.

  Mom shrugged. “Well, at least you’re leaving someone else alone.”

  “So, I’ll see you guys sometime next week when I come down to visit?”

  “Definitely,” Emily said, walking over and giving her a hug.

  “Merry Christmas, Sis,” I called from the doorway.

  “Merry Christmas. Have a safe drive home.”

  “We will.” I turned to Emily. “Ready?”

  “Yep.” She looked over at my parents again. “Merry Christmas, and thank you so much for the trip. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate it.”

  “You’re welcome. Now get going before it gets too late,” Mom said, shooing us out the door with a smile. Emily stepped out first and I gave my mom a quick peck on the cheek, shook Dad’s hand, and followed her out the door.

  When we were settled in the car and backing out of the driveway, my curiosity got the better of me. “What did Mom say to you right before we left?”

  Out of the corner of my eye I could see the smile grace her face, illuminated by the light of the dashboard. “She told me that she understood how hard it is to be away from your family on Christmas for the first time, but that I wasn’t away from my family, I was just spending time with the other part of my family this year.”

  Wow. “My mom knows everything.”

  “Yeah, she’s pretty amazing.”

  “She is. Did you have fun today?”