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He snorts.
“You might have had a correct suspicion, but I do need to say this. Do not, under any circumstances, ever again refer to my late mother-in-law by that term.”
My father’s bloodshot eyes survey me, as if I’m pulling his leg.
Jakob’s mother’s name may be Silver, but Jakob is a Haart brother through and through, whether I love that fact or not.
I shift my focus to the box next to me. I open it, and as I suspected, there are all the letters that I wrote to Jacob before I gave up. I pick up one of them and study my handwriting, not all that different at 14 as it is now. I was always fussy about this.
At least now I have answers.
“That boy you disliked found his way to me anyway, didn’t he, Dad?”
The harrumph from the older man is dry and weak. “Now you’re in a right royal mess, aren’t you?”
I wish everyone in my life would stop assuming that I can’t handle reality. Jakob is not a mess; he’s my husband. I’m just taking some time to think and to process. But Jakob is still my Jakob.
“I’m married. And sometimes marriage is work. Not that you understand the meaning of that word.”
He scoffs. “Some marriage if you don’t invite your own father.”
“It was a private ceremony.”
“Suppose you came here to get my congratulations. Perhaps a wedding gift?”
I know what my father’s doing. He’s pointing out sardonically that he doesn’t have any money as a way to make me feel guilty.
“Dad, you know I never asked for anything from you. I only came here to get answers.”
He gets a twinkle in his eye, and I remember why I went no contact when he replies, “How much are these answers worth to you?”
Without a pause, I snap, “My gratitude.”
He winks. “And yet my pockets are empty. If only I knew where to get some of that palace money.”
The audacity. He refers to my childhood friend as the son of a whore, not worthy of his daughter, but now he can’t wait to get his grubby hands on the king’s money.
This gives me an idea. “How about instead, if I go back to the palace, I can have the chief of staff put you to work. And then you have your own earned pocket money instead of guilting me out of mine.”
He changes tone, knowing he’s found another pressure point in my psyche.
“If? There’s trouble in paradise already, my dear?”
Here is where I leave, and I take the box with me when I go.
38
Jo
It’s time to prepare for the busy season in Mirror Lake.
But the usual excitement for the busy season simply isn’t there this time.
I work in the garden alone. Just as I always did between the time Jakob left and I found him again.
I was always content to work in the garden alone, turning over the soil, planting seeds, pulling weeds. Deciding where to put flowers with no rhyme or reason, because flowers don’t need rhyme or reason.
The songbirds are returning to my little cottage in the woods. The tulips have bloomed and died back already, and the summer plants are beginning to revive themselves.
