Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 39840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 199(@200wpm)___ 159(@250wpm)___ 133(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 199(@200wpm)___ 159(@250wpm)___ 133(@300wpm)
“Language, Jeanette. That’s a dollar in the swear jar!” he calls out, making her shoulders sag a little further.
“I miss ’em, Mom… Grandma and Grandpa,” she murmurs.
I can tell she’s not just dealing with a crush and teenage angst on top of being a dollar down. She’s going through a lot right now.
“I miss them, too, sweetie. I miss them, too,” I console her, hooking my arm around her shoulders and giving her a big squeeze. I promise her I’ll put a dollar in the swear jar for her.
“Where do you think they are?” she finally asks, breaking my own little reverie in my mind about Iris and Phil.
They wanted to leave the stores and the whole building to James and me in their will, but James wasn’t having any of that. He offered to buy it off them instead, at triple the market value, so they could have the kind of life we have. That was right before they left us.
Both of them just… gone. Just like that.
“Mom? Where do you think Grandma and Grandpa Iris are?” Jeanette asks me again as I wipe my eyes.
I miss Iris so much…
“Italy, by the looks,” James answers her, coming out from the kitchen through the swinging wooden doors, a huge sandwich in one hand and flapping a postcard in the other before he passes it to me.
“Came just now…,” he adds, and both Jeanette and I get wide-eyed and open-mouthed, always loving it whenever Iris and Phil drop a line.
When they sold us the building, they decided to do what they’ve always wanted to—travel the world together. Their new lease on life is nothing short of awe-inspiring, and sometimes days, even weeks, pass when we don’t hear from them at all.
Jeanette reads their little message before looking like she’s had all her problems solved. She races off to show her brothers and sisters the postcard from Iris and Phil.
James offers me a bite of his sandwich, which I take if only to have another chance to hold his hands as he helps put meat in my mouth.
“Italy, huh?” I ask him, speaking with my mouth full as he leans over, murmuring something in Italian in my ear. His hand slides up my thigh under the table, helping me translate instantly.
“She can have a boyfriend when she’s twenty-one,” he rasps, putting in his final two cents with Jeanette’s little boy problem.
I’ve got a boy problem of my own right now—the man of my dreams holding a giant meat sandwich. The perfect life with my dearest friends and family living their own dreams.
Kids all occupied in another part of the house, and now he starts with the Italian talk?
I catch a glimpse of the flowers my daughter’s picked clean, scattered on the kitchen table as James scoops me up, turning like a man on a mission and marching me straight to our bedroom. I smile to myself like it’s our first time every time.
Because I don’t need flowers and rhymes to know if he loves me.
I already know that today, like every day of our lives. He loves me… He loves me lots.