Page 16 of Last Chance Love

The day of the accident opened Ema’s eyes in a way I don’t think she was prepared for. For as much as she shielded and protected Damien from their censure, he still heard a lot of it and understood far too much. Damien has mostly forgotten that part of his life because he was so young; Ema, on the other hand, is still healing from the garbage they said to her. In so many ways, she’s still the teenage girl looking for approval from the people who should have loved her most.

“EmaLeigh, look...at...this!” Chloe’s dramatic voice carries across the event and has almost everyone staring between the two girls as she waves her hand at Ema’s empty mukluk table.

“Oh my gosh!” Ema shouts. The sisters spent the majority of the summer creating almost five hundred pairs specifically for this event with the hopes of selling at least half before going to the bazaars to sell the rest afterwards.

“Told you so,” I mutter in Ema’s ear before she waddles over to her sister.

When shopping for the supplies, they had run into their mother and the other sister Nancy, who Chloe also has nothing to do with, and the two made snide remarks about how they wouldn’t sell.

The people of Polar Bear did not disappoint.

And from the look in my wife’s eyes as she donates every penny to the charity box, followed by the crowd cheering, they didn’t disappoint for her either.

For so long, she never felt like she was part of the Polar Bear community, and in the last few years, they have shown her time and again that she is treasured. Exactly as she should be.

The End!