Part 31 (2/2)

Carolyn was holding a small battered looking piece of notepaper in her hands then and she wasn't laughing anymore.

She turned the paper over to me. ”Remember this?”

The paper had a cl.u.s.ter of tiny bluebirds in the upper left hand corner. It was the notepaper my grandmother kept in their kitchen. The handwriting was mine. I felt my features harden as I took in the barely legible scrawl. At the same time I felt Carolyn's arm snake around my waist.

”You can't imagine what that note meant to me at the time.”

It was simple. It just read: I'm sorry, with only my first name written underneath.

”I remember that I wanted to write more to you. I wanted to tell you that I'd never do that again and that I felt really badly about what I'd done. But I knew how babyish my writing looked and I knew that if I wrote more, I'd definitely misspell something and look even more stu-”

”Don't say that word-ever.” Carolyn cut me off and then rested her head on my chest, wrapping her arms around me again, covering me in her warmth. ”I remember feeling special that day. Even though everything crashed and burned for you that morning, I remember feeling something deep in my heart. I just wanted to believe that you saw me as someone special. That note was everything...I knew you cared about me, Jeremy.”

After a quiet minute, I mustered up the courage to ask a question that had been bothering me since long before Carolyn told me we were expecting. ”Are you worried at all?”

”About what?”

”That our baby will be like me in that way.”

Carolyn turned and sat on my lap straddling me, running her fingers through my hair. ”I'm kind of betting on it.”

I felt tears stinging my eyes as I fought to hold them in. ”Really? How can you say that?”

”Baby,” she cooed. ”We both carry a strong genetic predisposition. You, your dad, my brother...My mom thinks my grandfather's brother may have struggled with it too.” She leaned down to kiss my forehead and then each cheek gently before she went on. ”But I look at it another way. I mean, who on earth could raise a child with a learning disability better than you and me? I teach reading disabled children, for heaven's sake. And you? You're a role model. Your life is a testament to the idea that with hard work you can achieve anything if you set your mind to it.” She lifted my chin so that she had my full attention before she announced with conviction, ”We got this.”

Carolyn always had faith in me, even when I had no faith in myself. I had to trust in us. I had to trust that we would be in this together, that we'd have each other to lean on...forever.

That next day, inspired by Carolyn, I popped into a jewelry store near my current jobsite in Greenwich. It was an upscale place but not too formal or stuffy. Turns out the place was perfect; the shopkeeper knew exactly what I wanted, even though I was struggling to describe my vision in words.

I held the silver chain in my hands, thinking of the day I would place the necklace around my wife's neck. It would be the day we brought our first child into this world.

The chain held three, small, round hammered silver pendants. Each one was engraved with the words I'd used to describe this perfect woman, my Carolyn, over the years: The End...for now.

Thank you for choosing to spend a few precious hours with me. I hope you got lost in the Let Me series-connected with the characters, fell in love right along with them, wept when they fell, and rallied for them when they got it right and earned their happily ever after.

Please share your thoughts by leaving a review and feel free to get in touch-I truly enjoy hearing from my readers.

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Let Me Be the One.

Book One: Darcy and Tom's story.

Let Me Love You.

Book Two: Rene and Caleb's story.

Let Me Go.

Book Three: Kasia and Dylan's story.

Let Me Heal Your Heart.

Book Four: Anna and Declan's story.

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