Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
“Yeah. We never had that rivalry thing, and he’s always taken care of me and answered questions, and even with being a bit OCD, he never got grossed out over things I did.”
“He has OCD?” she asked, sounding surprised.
“Do you have a bit of that yourself?”
She nodded quickly.
“I’m thinking with you being a teacher and him studying to be a doctor, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Am I right?”
I could tell she liked Hannah. “You are very pleasant to be around.”
“Thank you,” she said sweetly, and then turned to yell at her brother and his friends. “Your mother thinks I’m pleasant!”
“She doesn’t know you that well,” Kola assured her, walking over and putting Hannah into a headlock before he kissed the top of her head. “You know why this is funny?” he asked his mother, whose eyes were glowing as she looked at him.
“Because you love her and would never hurt her?”
“No,” he told her. “It’s funny because she has a fourth-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and could get me off of her, if she wanted, at any time.”
“Really?” Danique sounded impressed. “So, Hannah, you’re scary.”
“I am scary,” she said as Kola let her go before turning to him. “Keep that in mind.”
“Always,” he teased her and then whined, “Hungry. What’s happening with the fries? I could die over here.”
“I’m with Kola!” Emil called from the table.
Danique turned to me and grabbed my hand. “Thank you for this welcome and allowing our families to come together.”
“There was no way else for it to be,” I said, squeezing her hand back. “You gave me my son. I will be forever grateful.”
We hugged then, which Sam did not care about in the least when he bellowed from the back door to bring out the damn burgers already.
When we parted, she was smiling at my husband.
“What?” he growled at her. “I’m hungry too.”
“Give me the platter,” Mikhail told me. “I will help. I’m excellent on the grill. Perhaps he needs a beer.”
“You see? Mikhail gets it.”
Once both fathers were back outside, Emil and Katya were both staring at me. A second later, I noticed that Danique was doing the same.
“What?”
“Mikhail, he’s never… I don’t… I guess, loose like that.”
“Loose, yeah, good word,” Katya agreed. “He holds himself very tight.”
Danique nodded. “He’s a kind, gentle man, but not prone to laughter or letting down his guard. We’re all very loved, but there’s a weight that comes with that. An understanding that not everything that’s in his heart can be spoken aloud.”
“I get that,” I assured her. “My husband is very similar. Only with family and very good friends is he not careful.” Her soft smile, even though her eyes were suddenly swimming with unshed tears, made me warm and fuzzy inside. “You have a very soft heart.”
“It’s been said,” she agreed as Kola passed her some tissues and then wrapped her in his arms. As he held her, he whispered in her ear, and she kept nodding to whatever he was saying. I suspected he promised they would stay in touch and call and write. I hoped he would.
With starting medical school in the fall, I knew his life was about to get crazy busy. He’d already warned Finn, who, Kola had reported to me, was happy to just come over and chat with him and sleep in his bed whenever he could.
Finn was a keeper.
I didn’t worry about Kola losing Jake and Harper, that was for life and unchangeable, and of course we, as his family, would see him. But new people in his life, that communication might suffer. He’d have to make it a habit for it to last.
We had a great meal, we all sat outside, and with the high being in the low seventies, it was lovely. Danique loved our backyard, the swing, the mature trees, the birds, and Hannah’s herb garden on the other side of the house. Mikhail enjoyed his burger, talking to Kola, having the chili on his burger, Sam’s beer, and watching Kola talk to Emil and Katya. Later, Danique and I went through a few of his photo albums from when he first came to live with us. There were too many for her to look at all of them. I had documented both my children’s lives with an obscene number of pictures. I never wanted to miss a moment.
When they were getting ready to leave, phone numbers and emails and social media accounts were all shared. On the porch, Mikhail was talking to Kola for a few minutes alone before Kola shook his head and stepped into Mikhail’s arms, and from what I could see from where I was spying on them, surprising him.
Once they were gone, Kola came inside, shuffled forward, and then sank slowly, face down onto the floor by the entryway.