Ren and Della: Boxed Set (Ribbon Duet Book 3)

by Pepper Winters

  “I’ll never forget him,” Jacob vowed.

  “Neither will I.”

  Together, we tipped the silver jar and let my husband and his father free.

  The grey of Ren’s mortal body swirled and clouded, giving wings to his immortal soul, becoming one with the trees and skies he loved so much.

  Even though I knew this wasn’t goodbye.

  Even though I knew I’d see him again, it was the hardest thing I’d ever done to watch him vanish before us.

  The faraway murmur of people leaving hinted we should probably head back, but Jacob stalked toward a tree, holding the Swiss Army knife Ren had given him.

  Studiously, firmly, he scratched something into the bark, stabbing and carving.

  I let him.

  I didn’t try to stop him or interfere.

  And once he’d finished and his face was once again wet with tears, I moved closer to see what he’d done.

  And just like the father had wounded me, so did the son.

  My heart was no longer intact but a lake of mourning.

  “Do you like it, Mom?” He sniffed back sadness.

  I shook my head as my fingers traced the wonky lines of Ren’s tattoo.

  A swirl of ribbon with the initials J and D with an extra kick in its tail with an R.

  All three of us.

  Always together as the tree grew higher and our family soared closer toward the heavens.

  “I don’t like it. I love it.”

  A small smile tilted his lips. “Good.”

  My eyes shot wide as I spun to study him. The phrase Ren and I had used. The one word that meant so much.

  I had to finish it.

  To acknowledge that there would always be so much of Ren in this child. That every day he would surprise me, remind me, heal and hurt me.

  On a shaky breath, I said, “Fine.”

  And together, we walked out of the forest, toward the house Ren and I had built together, and crossed the threshold alone.

  Ren wasn’t in the fields, or on the tractor, or in the barn.

  He wasn’t in the forest, or baling hay, or dozing in the meadow.

  He was gone…gone.

  And I had to put one foot in front of the other and accept it.

  But I also accepted that this new reality was only temporary.

  Life had so many paths and different journeys, but eventually, we all ended up in the same place.

  I’d been lucky to share my life with Ren.

  I was still lucky to share the rest of it with Jacob.

  I wouldn’t give up, even on the blackest of days.

  I wouldn’t stop living, even on the saddest of moments.

  I would keep trying, learning, surviving, because I owed Ren that.

  I owed him my life.

  Jacob grabbed my hand, bringing me back from my thoughts and into our living room where we stood.

  “You okay?” his innocent voice asked.

  I smiled sadly. “Are you?”

  “Not yet.” He sniffed. “But we will be…right?”

  His dark eyes, so similar to Ren’s, blazed for an answer—a promise of healing.

  Ducking to my knee, I hugged him tight, pressing his lanky body into mine, asking for healing for both of us. He kneeled with me, and I kissed his hair, inhaling deep, smelling the scents of my son mixed with the smells of my husband. A familiar wild intoxication that no soap or time could steal.

  Hay and hope and happiness.

  “We’ll be okay, Wild One. I promise.”

  And we would be.

  Because there was no expiration on love.

  Ren was still mine.

  Forever.

  * * * * *

  That night, I went to bed in sheets I hadn’t washed and still smelled of Ren.

  I crawled from my side into the middle and grabbed his pillow for mine.

  And there, hidden beneath the place where Ren rested his head—glaring up as if impatient for me to find it—was a gift from beyond.

  With air trapped in my lungs, I sat up and snatched it from where it had been hiding. My fingers shook as I unwrapped the blue paper, revealing something that made tears explode in a flurry.

  A new ribbon wheel.

  Full to the brim of cobalt satin, tucked in place with a pin.

  The cardboard was pristine and untouched, ready to cut off lengths of ribbon to replace the faded old.

  I stroked the wheel, feeling Ren all around me as a note fell from the package.

  A note that would break me all over again.

  Biting my lip to stem my sobs, I unfolded it and read.

  Dear Della Ribbon,

  I miss you already.

  I miss your voice and touch and kisses.

  But please, don’t miss me.

  Because I’m right there beside you. I feel your sadness. I hear your tears.

  I know it will take time, but eventually, I need you to be happy because I’m always there.

  When you cut off a piece of this ribbon, my hand is enveloping yours.

  When you replace old with new, my fingers are on yours tying it in your hair.

  Everything you do, I’m there with you.

  And hopefully, this cardboard wheel will last until you come find me.

  And there, I’ll be able to touch you once more.

  Until that day.

  I love you.

  Forever and ever.

  For always.

  Ren.

  EPILOGUE

  DELLA

  * * * * * *

  2033

  ANNIVERSARIES CAME IN so many different forms.

  Happy and hard and horribly sad.

  Today was an anniversary.

  The day I lost the air in my lungs and the life in my heart.

  The day I lost my Ren.

  Three-hundred-and-sixty-five days without him.

  Three-hundred-and-sixty-five days of soul-deep sorrow.

  But I wasn’t a girl left behind with the luxury of grief. I was mother to the best son in the world, and for him, I woke in the morning even when the darkness was acute. I kept living even while my sadness was constant. I helped Cassie with her horse business. I rode often for mental and spiritual health. I learned how to run our acreage and hire help when required.

  And John was true to his vow to Ren, always there for me when the loneliness of missing a soulmate became too much.

  Life had been gentle even after being so cruel.

  And through it all, I had a contract with love.

  A contract I did my best to uphold.

  I never dared pity myself or begrudge my grief.

  I was never angry that I’d loved the best man in the world and lost him.

  Ren had given me his legacy, and together, me and Jacob would be okay.

  Every day, I spoke to Ren as if he were there beside me.

  He was in the sun, the sky, the meadow, the forest.

  He was in everything. Waiting. Loving. Watching. And I lived every day for him because I knew a time would come when we would find each other again, and I’d have the honour of regaling a lifetime of tales.

  I accepted each new sunrise without Ren. I endured each new sunset without Ren.

  I chose to continue because that was what he wanted and that was what I owed.

  After a lifetime of sacrifice, it was now my turn.

  My turn to keep moving, keep fighting, keep living.

  And I did.

  I accepted I’d had my epic love story.

  I was one of the lucky ones.

  And I didn’t want another.

  My heart was Ren’s—no matter where he was—and it would stay his until we met again.

  At least, my family understood that.

  No one dared murmur I would get over him.

  No one dared encourage me to put my past behind me and open my heart for another.

  No one dared because they knew the truth.

  The truth that a love like Ren and I had…it wa
s once in a lifetime.

  And it wasn’t over yet.

  The five stages of grief didn’t matter.

  There were no five stages for me.

  And I didn’t want there to be.

  I didn’t want the wound to heal because I never wanted to be anything less than Ren’s. I still touched him in my dreams, kissed him in my thoughts, and accepted that I might endure in a world without him, but I would see him again.

  I knew that.

  And I could be patient.

  “Mom!” Jacob’s voice rang through the sun-dappled house. “Moomm!”

  “What is it?” I pressed a hand to my forehead, pushing aside my melancholy thoughts, tucking them into the pocket of my heart where yearning was a regular friend.

  “Package for you. Need you to sign!”

  Abandoning my laundry folding, I cut through the living room to the front door where a deliveryman stood on the veranda and held out an e-tablet. “You Mrs Wild?”

  I’d long stopped scolding myself at the sharp intake of breath whenever anyone called me that. I both loved and despised that name. “Yes. I am.”

  “Sign here, please.”

  I took his tablet, scribbled on the scratched screen, and passed it back to him. “What is it?”

  “Dunno, but it’s heavy. Need help carting it inside?” He raised an eyebrow beneath his red cap.

  Jacob ducked to his haunches, testing the large box. “She doesn’t need help. She has me.”

  I chuckled under my breath, running my fingertips over his dirty-blond head as he stood and huffed. “Ugh, it’s too heavy.”

  “We’ll do it together,” I said.

  “Leave you guys to it.” The delivery guy tapped his cap in farewell and bounded off the veranda. My eyes tracked him as the sun glinted off the windscreen of his van, obscuring him just enough to show a tall man running through the garden, giving me a millisecond fantasy that it was Ren.

  Tears welled.

  Pain manifested.

  And I closed the door on the illusion.

  “Wait. The package.” Jacob rolled his dark chocolate eyes at me, so much like Ren’s I sometimes forgot he was part of me and merely saw the boy who’d saved my life.

  In a way, he had saved my life…just like his father.

  Without him, I wouldn’t have continued trying.

  Ren had saved me when I was a baby.

  And his son had saved me when I was a woman.

  Two boys of ten years old.

  Two boys of my heart.

  Charging toward the kitchen, he came skidding back with a pair of scissors.

  My hands clamped on my hips. “What have I told you, Jacob Wild? No running with sharp implements.” Just like his father, he always had a knife on his person for slicing through ropes and other farm necessities. I was surprised he’d chosen scissors instead of the Swiss Army blade in his pocket.

  The blade I was constantly fishing out before washing.

  “Yeah, yeah.” He rolled his eyes again before falling to his knees and cutting the tape on the box.

  Uncle John sometimes did this—delivered boxes of goodies from things he’d ordered online for Jacob and me.

  Care packages, I called them.

  Love reminders, he called them.

  Either way, this wasn’t one of those as Jacob tore out brown paper packaging and yanked out a book nestled with countless other books.

  A book that my eyes skimmed, discarded, then shot back to with a cry.

  A book that took the strength in my legs and crashed me to the floor.

  “I-I don’t understand.” Tears streamed down my face, obscuring the blue cover with a lonely boy walking in a blizzard. A boy almost hidden by the title and wrapped up in a blue satin ribbon.

  “The Boy and His Ribbon by Della and Ren Wild,” Jacob muttered, reading eloquently and smoothly. His eyes flashed to mine. “Mom? Did you and Dad write this?”

  My head shook blindly as I held out my hand.

  Hardback.

  Freshly printed.

  Heavy as a gravestone.

  It tingled in my hands, warm and alive and filled with ghosts.

  What has he done?

  “Mom?” Jacob asked again, but for once, I couldn’t put him first. I couldn’t assure him. I couldn’t push aside my own selfish pain. Jacob missed his father as much as I did…but he’d had Ren for ten years. I’d had him for thirty-two.

  In this…my heart was cruel.

  Standing on shaking legs, I couldn’t tear my eyes off the cover, desperate to open it, petrified to read it.

  “I…I’m going for a walk, Wild One. Okay?” My voice broke and patched together, thicker and rougher than before. “I…I won’t go far.”

  “Mom?” His voice rose with worry. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” I drifted forward as if my legs were no longer made of sinew and bone but air and storm cloud. “I-I’m fine.” I repeated, desperate to believe it.

  I left my son.

  I was a bad mother.

  I abandoned my role and slipped back into a girl who missed her boy with every frisson of her soul.

  I didn’t know how long I walked, but finally, when the shadow strings of willow leaves enveloped me and the grotto where so many things had happened whispered it would keep me safe, I sank to the earth and opened the book.

  The first page was copyright jargon.

  The second, print information.

  The third, the title.

  The fourth…the dedication.

  For Della and Jacob.

  I keeled over, rocking the book to my chest, sobs wrenched from my very toes.

  No.

  I hadn’t cried this badly…well, since the funeral.

  I never let myself go.

  Never could.

  Never allowed.

  I had to be strong for Jacob.

  But that strength was now shattered and in pieces on the ground.

  Four simple words.

  Four words that broke me.

  They broke me.

  Ren.

  His voice danced on the breeze as if he’d never gone. His wild scent of smoke and freedom swirled in my lungs. And the gentle, delicious pressure of his hand on my cheek forced me to look down at the pages, tear smudged and turning translucent.

  Read, the breeze murmured.

  Listen, the willow whispered.

  Heal, the forest begged.

  With another sob, I flipped the page.

  A letter to the reader.

  A letter from beyond.

  Dear Reader,

  First, let me explain the nature of this book before I can explain it to my wife.

  Once upon a time, a wonderful girl fell in love with an unworthy boy, and she decided to write their tale.

  Her tale opened that stupid boy’s eyes.

  It made true love leap over rules and boundaries.

  It survived years wrapped in plastic and protected at all costs in a well-travelled backpack.

  It was the best tale the boy had ever read.

  But it was also missing something.

  It was missing the side of the story from the boy who fell in love with the girl, but he wasn’t as eloquent as she.

  So he had to improvise.

  He enlisted the help of a ghost writer to turn messy dictated thoughts into words worthy of being beside hers, and he didn’t have a lot of time to do it.

  It was my hardest secret.

  And even now, I’m unsure I did the right thing.

  But it’s too late to change my mind. Too late to approve or deny the finished copy.

  I just have to hope our story is enjoyed.

  And I have to trust that every word I chose proves the same thing her words do.

  That I loved her.

  Painfully so.

  The words danced and bounced as my hands shook and shook.

  Sobs and heaving quakes took hold of me as I turned the page and found yet another letter.
>
  I wasn’t ready.

  I wasn’t prepared.

  I would never be ready to say goodbye because that was what this was.

  A goodbye.

  A final farewell organised in secrecy.

  My Dear Beloved Ribbon,

  I hope you can forgive me for taking our privacy and making it public.

  I hope you can understand why I had to do it and why it had to be this way.

  And I hope you can still love me for not being there to hold you.

  For not being able to stop the pain.

  This wasn’t an easy thing to do—I almost stopped countless times.

  But after years of watching over your shoulder as you typed, reading the paragraphs you chose, and feeling the love you had for me, it was finally my turn.

  My turn to write you a love story.

  And, God, what a love story it is.

  You were the air I breathed and the life in my heart, Della.

  You are the sole reason I existed and always will be.

  Without you, I would never have been a father, brother, or husband.

  Without you, I would never have known exquisite joy and utter heartbreak.

  Without you, I would have been nothing.

  And because of you…I am something.

  I am loved.

  I am missed.

  I am wanted.

  I was sold to the Mclary’s for one purpose and one purpose only.

  To find you.

  And I’ll find you again…soon.

  This isn’t the end…we both know that.

  I’ll be waiting…somewhere.

  I’ll be watching…somehow.

  And when the time comes for you to join me, I’ll gather you in my arms and hold you tight.

  Come find me.

  Come find me on the meadow where the sun always shines, the river always flows, and the forest always welcomes.

  Come find me, Little Ribbon, and there we’ll live for eternity.

  And now, because I can’t stand to leave this tale so unfinished, please read the end.

  The end I wrote for you.

  Until we meet again…

  I love you.

  I closed the book.

  Unable to read more.

  Not prepared to endure more pain.

  One day, I would read it.