“We found Mrs. Ernestine because we drove down a road that was an insult to roads. My car will never recover,” Georgia said. “That was a . . . fluke. Not a sign from God.”
“How do you know, Georgie?” Jacey asked. “Have you ever gotten a sign from God?”
“Not unless you count the trampy underwear I found in the console of my fiancé’s truck last year.”
Jacey laughed again. “Something tells me God didn’t have anything to do with that.”
“My point is, this is too much,” Georgia continued.
“Why?” Jacey asked. “Why is it too much? I am young. I have a career that’s going well. I could buy my own place with a yard and maybe some land and animals . . .” Her voice trailed off as she thought about it.
“Will you listen to yourself?” Georgia nearly shouted. “You can’t keep a cactus alive, and now you want a farm? And children?”
Jacey shushed her. “Calm down. I’m just dreaming out loud.”
“Well, you need to dream about new clothes or shoes or something. This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. Adopting kids at twenty-five? You just learned how to cook macaroni and cheese last week. Didn’t know how to make French toast till a month ago. Turned all the white clothes pink ’cause you put a freaking red shirt in the washer with them. Three days ago you asked me if white meat chicken and dark meat chicken came off the same chicken! And you want a kid? Not just a kid, but three of them?” Georgia threw her hands up.
“Watch the road, Georgie!” Jacey said. “You took your hands off the wheel.”
“You took your brains out of your head,” Georgia said, launching into another speech. “Fine. Even if I could overlook the abnormal way you want things to be neat and tidy, what are you going to do about feeding three kids? Buy a place across from McDonald’s? By the way, that stuff will kill you.”
Jacey finally stopped answering Georgia and let her ramble. Georgia was notorious for being all bark and very little bite. She flew off the handle in a second, but if she had time to really think about something, she would usually come around. Besides, if adopting these boys became an option, Jacey was going to pursue it—no matter what Georgia or anybody else said. From now on, she was following her heart . . . even if it got hung out to dry.
When they got back to the hotel room, Georgia finally gave up the fight. “I don’t know why I’m talking,” she said. “I know you aren’t listening. Am I right?”
Jacey smiled. “That’s right.”
“Fine,” Georgia said. “I’m going to take a shower and wash the chicken off of me. You stay out here and think about what I’ve said. Which you won’t, but you need to. Ugh . . . chicken hands. This is disgusting.”
Jacey laughed at Georgia, then walked over to open the French doors. She leaned over the balcony railing and looked into the pool below. She studied mothers and their children while they interacted. Though she knew parenting was maybe the most challenging job on the planet, she could learn how to be a good parent. How hard could it be to love children? No matter whose body they came from? That should come naturally from anyone. They were children: little clean slates. All children really needed was a home where they could feel safe and secure, adults who loved them unconditionally, and arms to hold them when they were scared. She could figure everything else out later.
She thought about her own parents and how she and her brother never had to wonder if they were loved or supported. It must be terrifying for those boys right now to not feel that anymore, she thought. How could she not offer herself to them? She had been through the most dangerous and challenging thing in her life with them by her side. She couldn’t desert them now, the way everyone else had. Of course, Lillian hadn’t chosen to leave them, but it didn’t make her any less gone. They deserved someone to fight for them, and she was the only one left who could. She wasn’t going to let them down.
Jacey stepped back into the hotel room when her phone beeped. She looked at it and felt her heart quicken. It was from Colin. Finally. She was so excited she couldn’t retrieve the message quick enough.
She read the short paragraph, then reread it. What was he saying? Surely she was not comprehending this properly. This had to be his idea of a joke. She sat down on the edge of the bed and read it again.
“I am not the man you think I am. . . ”
What did that even mean? A “step back”? She stared at the phone, not believing the words she’d just read. Was he telling her good-bye? Had he lied when he said he was falling for her? She immediately thought about the woman on the deck. Was this because of her?
Jacey read the message again and again. This didn’t make any sense. She felt a slight wave of panic, and the tears began to pool in her eyes. Why would he say these things to her? And what was he doing? Just . . . dismissing her? Through a text message? As if she didn’t even deserve to hear it face-to-face?
She remembered waking up in his arms and how good and safe she’d felt. She’d never felt anything close to that before. It was so intense it had scared her to death, but she had trusted him, dropped her guard, and let him in. Now he was taking it all back? Had she done something wrong? She tried to remember exactly what she’d said on the voicemail she left for him. She played everything over and over in her mind and came up with absolutely nothing. How could it be something she said or did? She hadn’t even seen him since that morning.
She held the phone tightly in her hand. Five minutes ago her world had been as close to perfect as it could get . . . and now it was crashing down on top of her. The tears that filled her eyes were now dripping off of her chin, and she swiped at them. She felt betrayed and abandoned. Was this what a broken heart felt like?
“I’ve been thinking,” Georgia said, stepping out of the bathroom, her hair wrapped in a towel. “Maybe it’s not such a bad . . .” She looked at Jacey sitting on the bed, clutching her phone. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Jacey didn’t speak but handed the cell phone to Georgia.
Georgia read the message. “Are you kidding me? This is it? There’s no more to it?”
“No,” Jacey muttered.
“Of all the low-down . . . No, I’m not having this.” Georgia began flinging clothes out of her suitcase. “I’m fixing to go next door and find out what’s going on, because somebody over there knows. He’s not going to do this to you. Not on my watch.”
Jacey jumped off the bed. “No! Don’t you dare!”
Georgia yanked the towel off of her head. “Why not? He can’t just send a text message and not explain it. Who does something like that? I’m about to get some answers.”
“I’m asking you not to,” Jacey said again. “Please. It doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t matter? Of course it matters. He doesn’t get to do this. Not this way.”
Jacey stood up and wiped her eyes with Georgia’s discarded towel. “It’s my fault,” she said. “I should’ve known better. Nobody falls in love in three days, goes missing for an entire year, and then rekindles it in a week. That just doesn’t happen. It’s my own fault.”
Georgia sat down on the bed. “It is not your fault.”
Jacey rolled her eyes. “Come on, Georgie. Let’s be serious. I bought into the whole thing, the star-crossed lovers, ‘Oh, I’ll never forget you, God brought us back together’ farce. It was all one . . . big . . . lie. And I fell for it. You know, you’re right. I’m not grown-up enough to raise a kid. And three of them? I’d probably mess them up much worse than they already are. You know why? Because I’ll fall for anything. I’m not smart enough to be anybody’s parent.”
“Stop it,” Georgia said. “You’re hurt and you’re mad. I get it. But this is about him, not you. This is selfishness and immaturity at its finest. Trust me. I recognize it.”
Jacey sat down on the bed again. “I just can’t believe it,” she said. “He seemed so . . . different from anybody else. So . . . real and up-front and honest. He made me feel . . . special.”
Georgia smirked. “You can buy a minister’s license online,” she said. “Frankly, I’m a little disappointed in myself. I can usually get a pretty good read on people. I gotta tell you, Jacey, I had a good feeling about him.”
Jacey sighed. “You did? I fell in love with him.”
“Oh, honey, I know you did. But listen. I don’t want to hear you say you can’t be anybody’s parent. You are perfect for those boys. Forget Colin. You are here on a mission, and it has nothing to do with a lying, cheating, wannabe preacher.”
Jacey stared at her. “You spent an hour telling me all the reasons I shouldn’t pursue this.”
Georgia shrugged. “You know how selfish I am,” she said. “I just didn’t want you to love somebody more than you love me.”
Jacey smiled halfheartedly. Then she shook her head. “I don’t know. It seems like a crazy idea now.”
“Why? Because some preacher selling snake oil went back on his word? What do you need him for anyway? Look, I know your heart is broken, and I remember exactly what that feels like. But I’m not going to let you wallow around in it as long as I did. In the immortal words of Taylor Swift, shake it off.”
Much easier said than done. Jacey felt like she was sitting on the bed with her heart outside her body, totally exposed and vulnerable. “It feels different now,” she said.
“Take Colin completely out of the equation,” Georgia said. “Would you still want to help those boys? Of course you would, because that’s who you are. Don’t let what one jerk did to you keep you from giving something beautiful to someone else. I can’t think of another person more qualified for the job than you. You are the most unselfish person I know, and it would be a shame to deny that to a bunch of kids who really need it right now.”
Jacey smiled. Georgia always knew what to say. Even though she still felt the injuries from her first boxing match, she was determined not to let them sideline her. She could nurse her wounds and help heal someone else’s at the same time.
“You’re right,” Jacey said. “I came here for one reason and one reason only. I don’t need Colin to help me with it or fix it for me. I can deal with this . . . broken heart business later. Right now we have things to do.”
She picked up her phone up and erased the message from Colin. She never wanted to see those words again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Colin insisted on staying the night with his mother, much to Jasper’s dismay. Jasper tried to argue there was no way a fold-out hospital chair could comfortably fit Colin’s frame, but Colin had already deferred to his father too many times today. There was no talking him out of it. Jasper had reluctantly left around eight P.M. at Ava’s prodding. Together Colin and his mother watched the late news and shared some truly terrible hospital food.
“Why don’t you go and get yourself some decent food?” Ava asked him.
“I’m good,” Colin said. “I’m not really hungry anyway.”
“Since when?”
Colin chuckled. “I don’t think I’m a growing boy anymore,” he said.
Ava smiled and patted his hand. “You sure aren’t my little boy anymore. I have missed you, son.”
That felt like a punch to the gut. “I’m sorry,” he said for what felt like the hundredth time today. “I should’ve checked on you. I should’ve—”
“Please don’t start that again,” Ava said. “I wasn’t trying to make you apologize. I was simply stating a fact. I missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
“See?” she said. “Was that so hard?”
“No, ma’am.” He smiled.
“I do need to apologize to you, however,” his mother said. “What I said to you today, I . . . I shouldn’t have said it. You are a grown man, and you don’t need me to tell you how to run your life or your career. I had no business meddling, and I’m sorry.”
“No,” he said. “That’s not true. I’ve disrespected you, I’ve asked questions that were none of my business, and I’ve accused you of things I knew nothing about. You had every right to say whatever you wanted to me and more. I haven’t been a good son.”
Ava took his hand and squeezed it. “I only want what’s best for you,” she said. “You do know that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said. “I know that. I just . . . I don’t know . . .”
“What?” Ava prompted when Colin fell silent.
“I’m not sure I know who I am anymore,” he confessed. “If I’m not hating Jasper Jennings, I don’t think I have an identity at all.” It gave him no joy to say it out loud. In fact, he was ashamed of himself. But he needed to say it to his mother. He needed her to hear it. “And no, I’m no man of God. I’ve made a mockery out of the title.”
Ava sighed. “You’ve been hard on yourself since you were a child. You always had to do everything perfectly. If your building blocks fell, you cried. Not because they fell, but because you hadn’t arranged them so they wouldn’t.”
Colin chuckled. He could barely remember that, but she was right.
“You have always had a heart for the underdog,” Ava continued, “and you still do. It’s evident by what you do for flood and hurricane victims. But what you refuse to do is forgive your father. Or yourself.”
Colin was uncomfortable with her words, but there was very little he could do about it. He couldn’t storm out, leaving her sitting in her hospital bed, even if that was his first instinct. And he knew it was the wrong one.
“Let’s not do this, Mom,” he said. “Not right now.”
“Can you think of a better time?”
Colin didn’t answer.
“You don’t even have to talk,” Ava continued. “I’ll do all the talking. But this time you’re going to have to sit there and listen.”
“I’m listening,” he said.
“I want you to hear me out before you comment. Can you do that?”
He nodded his head.
“When your father and I married, things were much different between us,” Ava said. “We were so young and so in love. He was everything I ever wanted. Warm, compassionate, caring.”
Colin was having a hard time imagining that, but she had his attention.
“Your father wanted to be a veterinarian,” Ava said. “Did I ever tell you that?”
“No,” Colin said, surprised. But then he suddenly remembered, years ago when he was maybe eight or nine, bringing home a stray dog. Just a homeless mutt that had followed him up to the house from the beach one day. He was sure his father was going to make him get rid of it, but the opposite had happened. Jasper had helped him bathe the dog and even fixed a place for him to sleep by Colin’s bed. They named him Hobo. That dog became his faithful companion and for years made every step Colin made. He was always a gentle and unassuming pet—an old soul, his mother called him. One day when Colin was a senior in high school, his mother met him at the door when he got home and told him Hobo had died, probably of old age. Colin cried like a child as he dug the grave to bury him, and he remembered his father coming outside, putting his hand on his shoulder, and taking the shovel from him to finish the job. It was a good memory of his father. One of the few he had.
“Your father talked about it all the time,” Ava continued. “He wanted to finish his undergraduate degree, then apply to vet school. But your grandfather was grooming Jasper to take over the construction company. Jasper hated the very thought of it. He had to work summers for Collingsworth, and it wasn’t a pleasant atmosphere for him or anyone else. You don’t remember much about your grandfather, do you?”
Colin shrugged. “Not too much,” he agreed. “I remember him being at our house a few times. He always looked mad, and I remember him telling me one day not to be a pansy after I cut my finger on a can and cried.”
Ava shook her head. “I remember that day too,” she said. “You needed four stitches in your finger. And I had some harsh words for your grandfather.”
Colin smiled. “I might remember a little of that too.”
“Your father endured a lot of abuse at the hands of Collingsworth,” Ava said. “And I don’t mean just mentally.” She looked at Colin to see if he understood.
“He . . . hit him?”
“More like beat him,” Ava said. “Back in those days no one raised an eyebrow when a father ‘disciplined’ his son. There was no number to call or shelter to go to. It is one of the reasons I have been so involved in children’s advocacy. Your father had a terrible childhood, Colin.”
Colin took a moment to process that and actually felt sorry for his father—an emotion he’d never even considered when it came to Jasper.
“He didn’t tell me about any of this until after you were born,” Ava said. “He became very sullen when I was expecting you and standoffish with both of us after you were born. I finally confronted him. After much coaxing and, well, begging, he told me about his youth. But as much as I tried to tell him he could break the cycle of abuse, he wouldn’t believe me. In the end, he was right. He did abuse you, but instead of physically abusing you, he did it emotionally. Sadly enough, I think he thought he was doing you a favor.”
Colin stared at her, not sure what to make of her words. “So you’re saying he avoided me all my life because he was afraid he would hurt me?”
“I’m saying he did not want to perpetuate the cycle. Your grandfather tried to strangle your grandmother when your father was eight years old because she’d smiled at the milkman. He did it in front of Jasper. She left him the next day and left Jasper with him. She told your grandfather he could keep Jasper because she wasn’t going to raise a monster just like him. And your father heard her say it. How’s that for a legacy?”
Colin sank back into the chair. He tried to imagine what it must’ve felt like to hear those words coming from your mother as an eight-year-old child. He thought about Ava and how gentle she had always been with him . . . how comforting it was to be hugged by her when he was a kid, how she always smelled like lemon and verbena, how her soothing words could fix anything in his young world.
The Sweet Smell of Magnolias and Memories Page 14