Finding a Soul Mate (Meant to be Together Book 1)

by Ally Richards

  Samantha said, “Values—my wise father always tells me—values are what make us who we are. Dad told me many times the most important thing we can give our children is free—a set of values to live by.”

  “I’d love to meet him.”

  “I’m sure he’d love to meet you as well.”

  “I know we just met, but I enjoy your company. I felt a connection to you in the first few minutes we were together. The longer we talked, the closer I felt.”

  “After I lit the candles tonight and we embraced, it was hard to let go.”

  They moved to the living room. Samantha sat next to Moshe on a big couch, and they talked for hours. They laughed, they teased, and they enjoyed a late snack of wine, cheese, and sliced apples, feeling and acting as if they had known each other for years.

  Moshe suggested that it was getting late and that maybe he should head home.

  Samantha moved from sitting next to him, to sitting on his lap. She started kissing him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Don’t you dare leave. Stay with me tonight.”

  “I think this relationship is special, and I hesitate to do anything to jeopardize what we have started,” he told her.

  “Look, I’m a big girl and I know what I want. Tonight I want Moshe.”

  “Well you know, if I stay, we’ll have to engage in the traditional Sabbath Mitzvah.”

  “Lucky me,” a giggling Samantha told him.

  The next morning they drove the Porsche over to Dov’s home for Saturday morning Torah study. Samantha was glowing each of the many times Moshe added some insight to the discussions. He was particularly skilled at demonstrating modern relevance to the ancient stories.

  Cora invited Moshe and Samantha to stay for lunch. Meyer and Moshe spent most of the lunch discussing knot theory.

  Ari nudged Samantha during lunch and said to her, “Cool wheels you arrived in.”

  Everyone seemed to like him. She decided Moshe and her dad were going to be great friends. Even Ari and Leah were spending time talking to him. Dov nodded in approval when Moshe mentioned a life lesson Moshe’s father taught him about this week’s Parsha.

  Her parents were ecstatic over Samantha’s new boyfriend. “Like Samantha says,” her mother commented to her father, “he cooks, he davens, and he dances. What could be better for her? I sure hope this is the one. Good thing we never burned down the cabin.”

  Her father burst out laughing.

  * * *

  Three months later, Moshe drove Samantha up to the cabin in her father’s fully restored Auburn 851 Cabriolet. Moshe loved antique cars, so Ari, Moshe, and her dad shared yet another connection.

  Her mother had given them driving instructions on how to get to the cabin following the same route she and Meyer had taken many years earlier. “Don’t forget to stop at the farmer’s market in Cashmere,” her mother had told them.

  As they drove next to the Columbia River, Samantha found the location where her mother and father took a self-portrait photo when they visited the cabin all those years before. Samantha asked Moshe take a photo of them, staged the same way at the same location.

  They arrived at the cabin late on Sunday afternoon. The next morning, while Samantha was walking downstairs, she saw Moshe started cooking breakfast. There were champagne flutes on the table and Samantha immediately looked to see if there was an engagement ring in one of the glasses—there was—and she started screaming the word yes, even before Moshe proposed.

  A beaming Samantha asked, “Why did you put the ring in a champagne glass?”

  “I heard that’s how it’s done in your family. Your mom also said something about shooting a bear to prove my commitment to you—but your parents started laughing so hard, I didn’t have a chance to ask them what she meant.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ~ Full Circle

  Samantha and Moshe decided on a June wedding. All the Shapiros, Kaplans, and Goulds were in town. It was amazing to see how much Michelle and Morris’ twins grew since the last time we saw them. Michelle’s four-year-old son, Jonah, also discovered how much fun it was to spend time with me. The little guy loved to read and he and I spent a lot of time exploring my library. He read beginner books to me and I read children’s Sci-Fi to him.

  Early on Wednesday morning, I took my fire-engine-red, two-seat Shelby Cobra out of the garage to show to Moshe. Michelle insisted Jonah started shaking as soon as he heard the Cobra’s monster engine thunder to life, so she walked him out to the front drive.

  “He was so excited to see and hear the car, I was afraid his head would explode,” Michelle told us.

  I parked in front of the house and was showing its engine to Moshe, when I noticed the look on Jonah’s face. I picked him up so he could see too.

  “Man, look at them pipes!” Moshe said.

  Jonah agreed. “Yeah, look at them pipes.”

  I saw the look in Jonah’s eyes and told him, “I have to take the Cobra out for a run to warm up the oil. Would you like to come with me?”

  “Yes,” Jonah screamed, barely able to contain his excitement.

  Ari and I fitted a child seat into the Cobra’s passenger side. Leah took some photos for Jonah to take home. We have a picture of Ari standing near the front of the Cobra when he was the same age, and it’s labeled, Ari’s first love. Leah wanted to be sure Jonah had a picture with his first love too.

  I took the Cobra out onto I90 and headed east, I noticed that Jonah was watching the tachometer and studying me while I shifted gears. We talked about the car and its history and I was pleasantly surprised at the questions Jonah asked. He wanted to know everything about the Cobra, its controls, and how they worked.

  An hour and a half later, we returned home.

  “What took so long?” Joan asked. “I thought you were just going to warm up the oil?”

  “We decided we needed some cherry pie,” I told her with a grin. “Naturally, we had to get the best, so we drove to that corner restaurant in North Bend. Joan, this is not difficult to understand. He’s a car guy and he needed some cherry pie.”

  Jonah became excited, and with pride declared to his dad, “Dad, I’m a car guy.”

  “I know. I’ve seen it,” grinning Morris told his son.

  Michelle commented to Joan and Danielle, “Meyer is still my big brother. Look how he finds time for Jonah.” Then she told us we had to get out to the driveway when the twins’ two new friends arrived. “They met at camp last summer and when the twins knew we were coming to Washington State for Samantha’s wedding, they asked their friends’ parents if they could come to Seattle for a day. So their parents are driving them the three hours from Wenatchee. They were planning something special for us.”

  When they arrived in the morning the twins were in the driveway waiting. As Michelle suggested, we all walked out to join them. Ethan and David were wearing brightly-colored Hawaiian shirts, Ethan wearing red, David wearing blue. I was surprised since the boys generally didn’t wear such bright colors. Both were also wearing matching tan shorts and matching running shoes.

  A full-size SUV pulled into the driveway and as soon as it came to a stop, the right rear door flew open and the twins’ friends jumped out. They both ran to the front of the SUV and stood side by side. Upon spotting the twins they each put their left hand on their left hip and placed their right hand on their brow shading their eyes. “Keelhaul Aunt Betty’s combat boots,” they yelled.

  Ethan and David assumed an identical position and yelled, “Do that and you’ll both be tied to the mast.”

  They all giggled, David and Ethan ran over to Megan and Sheryl, and then the four of them formed a circle with their arms on each other’s shoulders, marching in place. As they rhythmically pronounced the first two words of the next saying, they opened their circle into a straight line facing the family. Together they shouted, “Alemen! Alemen! Alemen kockteple, yiskada boom, boom, you pasguniak, go right home!”

  They high fived each other, and then imme
diately re-formed an evenly-spaced line facing the family. They came to attention, like four little soldiers. In deep, loud voices they began slowly yelling, “A-Two-Two, we are the Tigers—”

  Immediately the two sets of friends were cut off by Ari and me yelling, “That’s good enough. Thank you, thank you.”

  The twins and their friends engaged in brief hugs and ran over to meet the rest of the family.

  “Did you teach them A22?” Joan asked in an accusatory tone.

  “I certainly did not.” Then I looked at Ari, who had little Jonah sitting on his shoulders.

  “Not me, Dad,” Ari informed them.

  Ari in turn looked over at Leah who was grinning until she saw Ari looking at her. The smile left her face and she shrugged her shoulders, indicating she had no idea how the twins learned about A22. At that point, and at various times the rest of the week, Jonah could be heard saying proudly, “A22, we are the Tigers!”

  The outfits Megan and Sheryl were wearing matched the Kaplan twins’ outfits—Megan matching David and Sheryl matching Ethan. Megan and Sheryl were slim and roughly the same height as the twins, and their laughter and bright expressions made them sparkle like little jewels.

  As we introduced ourselves to their parents and welcomed them into our home, Joan exclaimed, “I don’t believe it. They’re identical twins.”

  “They’re our miracle twins,” Mindy Cohen explained. “We tried every medical treatment known to man to get pregnant and nothing worked. Three months after we gave up on a cure, I found we were pregnant with the twins.”

  Leah started taking pictures while Ari talked to the Cohen twins. “So you two are the troublemakers I’ve heard about.”

  “That would be us,” Megan replied with a big smile.

  “There is a rumor around that the Cohen and Kaplan twins need a sailing lesson,” Ari suggested.

  “Oh yes, please, please, please, please,” Sheryl said rapidly.

  Megan proudly told Ari, “Ethan and David were the best sailors at our camp. Also the funniest. We were racing the last week of camp and they won all the boys’ races. We didn’t win all the girls’ races, but we had the noisiest cheering section. They even cheered us when we lost. Then we partnered with them on a bigger four-person sailboat and we won a few races, but even when we lost, we had the most fun.”

  “One of the counselors said our sailboat was powered by laughter,” David told them.

  “They named it the Comedy Craft,” Sheryl told us proudly.

  “We have to get some things from the kitchen and take them down to the Ensign sailboat,” Ari said, and the four of them raced off to the kitchen with Ari and Leah close behind.

  “I have so much trouble with those two fighting with each other,” Mindy told us. “It’s so bad, we warned the camp counselors they should keep them in separate activities whenever possible. We didn’t even want them bunking near each other. After two days of camp, we called to see how they were doing and the counselors told us they were absolute angels as long as they were with their friends. It didn’t occur to us, until we saw the DVD they brought home, that their friends were twin boys. They spent all last week worrying about whether David and Ethan would be happy to see them. I’d say they needn’t have worried.”

  “It’s like watching Ari and Leah when they were that age—except double,” Joan said.

  David and Megan raised the main sail followed by Ethan and Sheryl raising the Jib. Ari untied the Ensign and, with Leah at the helm, they slid quietly from the dock and out onto the lake. The day was perfect for sailing.

  As we stood on the dock, Robert Cohen asked me about the NM sixty-five-foot trawler. “I’d love to see it, if you have time,” he said.

  “We’re planning a short cruise after lunch. Would you like to join us?” I asked.

  “He’d love to,” Mindy told us with a laugh. “You think the twins were excited to see each other? My husband gets as excited about boats.”

  Larry and I started talking with Robert about boating, and sure enough, he was a dyed-in-the-wool powerboat sailor. As the families watched the twins head off on their sailing lesson with Ari and Leah, I offered to take Robert down to the trawler to inspect it.

  “You can show it to him, but we might not see him again.” Mindy laughed. “We have a thirty-four-foot cruiser I swear he looks at with the same love as he looks at me.”

  “Gee—I think I know about that,” Danielle said and elbowed Larry in the side. “I think his actual first girlfriend was named Connie.”

  Larry, Robert, and I headed down to the trawler. Robert wanted to see the engine room first, and Larry and I were in heaven showing him all the mechanical and electronic systems.

  After lunch we went for a two-hour cruise around the lake. Robert spent most of the trip at the helm—which he just loved.

  “Look at him,” Mindy told Joan and Danielle. “I don’t think he was as excited during our honeymoon.”

  The Cohen’s were a delightful family who fit right in. Mindy’s amazing sense of humor kept us laughing all day.

  Just before dinner, Joan and I told the Cohen’s they should return on Friday and spend the weekend with us celebrating Samantha’s wedding.

  Robert declined, saying, “No, we’d be intruding—you’ve been more than kind to us. We couldn’t intrude on a family event.”

  But I insisted, “We’re powerboat family—that’s family enough for me.”

  Robert tuned toward his wife. “Mindy, I have to work tomorrow but I could free up Friday.”

  She agreed and it was decided. Mindy smiled and told us, “When we returned from the after-lunch cruise, I found both sets of twins in the library. They were taking turns reading and discussing stanzas of Shel Silverstein’s poems. Ari and Leah were helping them choose poems. They were also making suggestions on how the four of them could put emotion into their reading. She’s found two other books of poetry with poems she thinks the twins would enjoy reading to each other. The four of them are absolutely in heaven. It’s almost like Leah and Ari are their big sister and brother.”

  “That’s a genetic trait in this family,” Michelle told them.

  “Megan and Sheryl can stay with Ari and Leah at their apartment tonight and tomorrow night,” Joan offered.

  Mindy commented, “Well, I’ve haven’t seen many children this age get along so well. Especially my two girls.”

  “I was thinking, when you come back on Friday, your family doesn’t need a hotel room. You can stay on the trawler,” I suggested.

  “Ow, quit twisting my arm. It hurts, it hurts,” Robert teased, while everyone started laughing.

  After talking to Megan and Sheryl to see if they would like to stay at Ari and Leah’s apartment—they did—Robert and Mindy headed home.

  Before dinner the four twins performed Silverstein’s poems for the assembled family. David and Ethan set up a video camera to record the readings. They seemed to be spending a lot of time on their new hobby of making videos.

  The next morning after breakfast, Joan overheard Megan and Sheryl talking about how they loved gardening.

  “I have two ten-foot-long flower beds near the dock I haven’t had time to work on. If you would like to plant flowers in them, I will have Ari drive you over to the garden center and you can pick out whatever you like. The beds are in awful condition. You’ll have to work like mad to get them in shape.”

  “I’m sure David and Ethan will help us,” Megan said.

  “They have shown no interest in gardening at our house in Boston,” Michelle warned them.

  David and Ethan were more than happy to garden with the girls, so Ari and Leah took them to the garden center. The boys cheerfully volunteered to implement the girls’ garden design. The girls looked forward to choosing the plants.

  Megan expressed a concern that no one would be around to take care of the flower beds after they went back to Wenatchee.

  Ethan told them, “David and I can take turns during the week coming over t
o check on them.”

  Sheryl gave Ethan an exasperated look and said, “You’ll fly in from Boston every week?”

  “You haven’t heard, I guess,” Leah said.

  Leah looked at Ari. “David and Ethan know, so I guess it is okay to tell Megan and Sheryl.”

  “Tell us what?” they chirped in unison.

  “We had a family meeting the day before you arrived. Morris and Michelle, David and Ethan’s parents, want to start a bio-tech company using algorithms that Morris has discovered. Moshe and Meyer have agreed to finance their company. Morris has no interest in running a business, so Meyer and Ari are going to run the business for them. Ari is going to take the next semester off to help them get started. Right now, Michelle and Morris are out looking at a house about three blocks from our house.”

  “You mean they’re moving here?” Megan yelled.

  Sheryl added, “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”

  * * *

  The Cohen’s arrived Friday morning and they went out to lunch with the rest of us parents. They told us Robert’s sales business was doing so poorly they barely make ends meet.

  “It’s getting hard to find companies to rep. I’m not sure what I’m going to do next.”

  Morris and I looked at each other in amazement.

  “We need a sales guy for the company we’re forming. If you’re willing to learn about our business, we’ll pay you to move your family here,” Morris told him. “You’ll be Head of Marketing and Sales, to start. We even have a budget for the first five years, so the job is secure for at least that long.”