Epilogue

July 14, 2018

Six weeks later…

“Jon.  Tell me where we’re going!”

Jon angled a tan face toward the woman in the passenger’s seat of his SUV and grinned.  It was only the third time she’d asked in the thirty minutes since they came out of the tunnel from the city.   Delaney was showing some patience today.  That bode well for the day’s events. 

“You said you wanted to go rock climbing in the Adirondacks.  We’re finally going.”

Wedding season, taking occupancy of his (their) new apartment, beach trips, Independence Day, Zoi’s graduation, moving Zoi and Oliver from Chicago into Delaney’s old place, and the final hearing for his divorce had put the trip on one delay after another.  Today, though, they were on their way.

After a little pit stop.

“You just said to dress casual for today.  Rock climbing is not casual, and if we’re going all the way upstate that means we have to spend the night, right?  I didn’t pack a bag.”

But Petra did, and it was waiting at their pit stop.  Her sister had assembled an overnighter with all the essentials plus rock-climbing gear, a pretty dress and a swimsuit.  

The conspiracy came with a price tag, as usual, but he didn’t mind.  Jon had reached the point in his relationship with Delaney’s twin where he would’ve been disappointed if she hadn’t leveraged something for herself out of the deal.  That was just Petra, and once he realized she wasn’t a bitch at heart, he didn’t mind.  Everybody came with quirks.  God knew he had his share. 

Delaney Gardener was his biggest and favorite quirk.

There had always been a chance that, once the drama settled down, that they would tire of one another in the mundaneness of everyday life – even if his everyday life wasn’t quite as mundane as some people’s. 

Jon was pleased to find that hadn’t been the case.  Between his job and hers, things were always busy, but they managed to stay connected over a glass of wine nearly every evening. 

His favorite thing had become sharing that glass side by side in their apartment on the most ass-cuppingly perfect leather couch ever manufactured.  She’d done good with the furniture. 

FaceTime was okay, too, when he had to go out of town and she just couldn’t get away.  They’d sip and either talk or bitch, depending on what the day brought.  Sometimes they were left texting photos of wine glasses at different times of the evening, but that had only happened a couple times so far.   

Unlike other divorced men, he didn’t have to worry about coming home to an empty house.  He wasn’t forced to spend evenings contemplating all the ways he’d fucked up his marriage and family until it made him want to blow his brains out.   

As he’d told Matt, he had Delaney and she was everything to him.  He looked forward to coming home when she was there because the kinship he’d felt with her from the very beginning had melded into something unique and special. 

She taught him to rock climb, he taught her to play guitar, she told him his lyrics sucked and he told her roses stunk.  They’d refereed the confession/confrontation between Zoi and Max until nobody was yelling. They’d gone to visit Violet and to the beach with his kids, they had their crazy friends over for dinner.  He’d spent more time with her in two months than he had Dorothea the last year of their marriage. 

That would change.  Touring, football, and business would all take him away from home for short and extended periods of time, but he was confident that their relationship wouldn’t suffer for it.  There would be no more invitations for guys to grope her ass nor strange women in his bed.  Those things had been intended filled a void and now there was no void for either of them to fill. 

They had – and would have – their ups and downs, because, hey.  Shit happened.  Short tempers, misunderstandings and bad moods all came and went.  Today, the ring of coffee he left on the kitchen counter was wiped away without comment.  Tomorrow, she might lose her shit about it. 

It wasn’t a perfect life, but it was a fan-fucking-tastic life, the likes of which he’d never dreamed possible after Chelsea came knocking on his door. 

As for Chelsea, she was settling in at the Soul Foundation and had gotten accepted to NYU for the fall, while her nutcase cousin was looking at long-term treatment.  The kid wasn’t his daughter, but he still took her under his wing – without mentioning it to his kids.  It probably wouldn’t be an issue, but it was more important that they acclimate to Zoi than the kid who just worked for him.

As he’d told Delaney, one step at a time.

“Jon?” she huffed impatiently, making him realize he’d never answered.  “Are we staying overnight?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry.  I took care of everything.”

“This is starting to feel a lot like prom,” she drawled with an accusatorily arched brow. 

They’d been together long enough for her to understand that the whole prom thing was an aberration of his personality, so she wouldn’t necessarily complain if he something like that up his sleeve. 

Living with him taught Delaney that her Crown Prince of Attitude was half a slob, he recycled his jeans until they could walk Manhattan on their own, and routinely neglected to tell her he was going out of town or that he’d made plans for them.  As often as not, he was self-involved, just like he warned her.  Sometimes he spent the entire evening talking to his phone instead of her. 

She’d gotten used to him drinking the last of the coffee and kept an emergency stash in the back of the cupboard, but the next time he emptied a toilet paper roll and didn’t change it, Jon was a dead man.   

And Delaney wouldn’t trade him for anything in the world. 

Unlike the majority of the world, she got the real Jon, who loved the real Delaney.  When she got snarky, he snarked back and told her to calm the freep down.  When her daughter made her nuts by changing nursery paint color for a fifth time, he reminded her that she’d missed her kid. 

He wasn’t perfect, and it was one of her favorite things about him, along with watching him write songs.   That was an amazing treat that she hoped to never tire of.

When he wasn’t being a self-involved slob, though…. Jon was the same sweet and thoughtful guy that had gifted her maracas and a forget-me-not ring, glued the pieces back into her broken heart, gone after her estranged daughter and, yes, thrown a prom.

“No prom,” he denied now.  “Just a regular party.”

“Party?” She couldn’t even be surprised that he’d neglected to mention yet another set of plans.  Thank God she’d worn nice capris and sandals instead of her stretched-out yoga pants.  “Who’s having a party?”

The corners of brilliant blue eyes crinkled behind the newest of his eight thousand pairs of sunglasses.  “We are.”

“I’m sorry.  What?”

“We’re throwing a party.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” he countered with a careless shrug when signaling to exit the freeway in Newburgh.  “The divorce was final this week, Zoi graduated, Max doesn’t hate her, there's a grandbaby on the way, it’s summertime…. How many more reasons do you need?”

“It just seems to me that if ‘we’ are throwing a party, that ‘I’ should know something about it.”

“I wanted you to enjoy, not worry about details.”

She took a deep breath, reminding herself that he was just impulsive sometimes.   This was equivalent to him inviting her to move in or buying a cute blue jeep for her to drive around the Hamptons.  He wanted to do something and he did it.  End of story. 

How did Dorothea keep her sanity for so long?

“We really need to talk about communication more, Jon.  The first half a dozen times you neglected to tell me about a social event, I told myself you’d get better about it, but you’re not and it’s making me crazy.”

“Okay.  I’ll do better,” he promised without conviction.

Resigning herself to a life of impromptu parties, Delaney looked out the window with a frown and inquired, “But Newburgh?” 

“North of it, actually,” he corrected as they pulled onto a lesser state road and pointed at her side window.  “The Hudson’s right over there.”

All Delaney saw was trees and houses, so she took his word for it with a bland hum of acknowledgement.  She didn’t know anybody in Newburgh – or north of it – and the more rural the scenery became, the less it seemed like a celebrity gathering spot. 

“What kind of party is this?”

“I told you already,” he murmured blandly while taking a left turn onto a local secondary road.  “Ours.”

“Is it a sit-down dinner?  A pool party?  A hoedown?  What?  And who’s coming to ‘our’ party?  I sure don’t know anybody that lives in this part of the state.”

“It’s only an hour from Manhattan, Mou.  Not exactly outer Mongolia.”

“Okay, but still.  Who?”

The edges of his mouth tugged in way that was easily recognizable as annoyance.  “People.  Now be quiet and enjoy the ride, would ya?  We’re almost there.”

Delaney’s brows dropped low behind her sunglasses when she knit them in a frown.  Something weird was going on here.  She was starting to think this wasn’t just another neglected mention of a social obligation, and her mouth popped open to start with another round of annoying questions – that her mate completely ignored.

Jon nodded to the freshly painted sign marking the left turn he signaled for and talked over her to observe, “Nice artwork.”

Snapping her mouth shut, she irritably cut her eyes toward the artwork to which he referred. 

It featured a field of forget-me-nots as the bottom border of the sign.  Along the left edge was a fruit tree in bloom, with some of the blossoms “blowing” in the wind and yet more assembling to advertise “DJ’s Farm”.   A smaller sign hung from hooks at the bottom, stating that the farm was closed for a private event today. 

Evidently, Jon rented a farm for this party she knew nothing about.

“Pretty,” she agreed distractedly as he accelerated with a crunch of rock under tires. 

It may be a dirt and gravel road, but it was wide and well-maintained, flanked on both sides by trees.  Not the big fifty-foot shade trees that would shadow them from the July sunshine, but more modest ones that were full and round on their compact trunks.  Among the branches, she could see peaches that were approaching the final stages of ripeness.

Peering across him toward the other side of the road, she inspected the trees there to find…

“Are those plums?”

“I dunno.”  He brought sunglasses low on his nose to better see what she was pointing to.  “Looks like it.”

“Neat.” 

She’d never been to one of these pick-your-own fruit places before.  The peaches looked good.  Maybe she’d try her hand at a pie when they got home. 

Jon preferred cookies, but there was no doubt in her mind that a fresh peach pie would get eaten, even if she had to enlist Jake’s help to do it.  The kid was a bottomless pit whose appetite was only matched by Romeo’s.  Those boys could eat.

The road widened into a gravel parking lot, and as they drove in, she saw that one end of the lot was occupied by a big one-story building.  It was probably a store, but Delaney was too distracted by the familiar cars surrounding them to be sure. 

Petra’s Mercedes was parked in the back corner of the lot along with Pearl’s Prius.  As she went down the row of vehicles between here and there, she spotted David’s car, Matt’s, Max’s, and her parents’ in the midst of a handful that she didn’t recognize.

“My family is ‘people’?”  she asked.  “We could’ve just had this in the city rather than everybody schlepping all the way out here.”

Jon’s earlier annoyance was replaced by an easy grin as he put the car in park but left the engine – and air conditioning – running.  “Nope.  Had to be here.”

He didn’t seem inclined to elaborate further, and it earned him a half-hearted scowl before Delaney noticed the field adjacent the store.  Curiosity had her straightening in her seat for a better look at the two huge white canopies that screamed party. 

“Is that where we’re going?” 

“Eventually.”

Slumping back against the SUV’s leather seat, Delaney popped her sunglasses on top of her head and sighed, “Okay, dude.  This cryptic garbage has lost its charm.  Cough it up.  What the freep is going on?”

His teeth flashed with a laugh, and Jon tossed his own sunglasses on the dash.  She could now fully see that his baby blues were shimmering with amusement. 

“You saw the peaches and plums.  Did you notice those?”  He nodded to the rows of trees lining the far side of the parking area. 

She’d noticed the rich blue of the sky and the single cloud that floated along in it, but no.  Delaney hadn’t paid any attention to the trees.  At this distance and with the row of vehicles blocking most of the view, all she could do was take a shot in the dark. 

“Cherry?”

“Nope.”  He hiked a thumb toward the left.  “Cherry’s that way.  Pears, too. Guess again.”

“Did I mention that this cryptic thing is getting old?” she grumbled when unlatching her seatbelt so that she could scoot useless inches forward to inspect the sturdy row of fruit-bearers. 

“Did I mention that’s too fucking bad?  Humor me, Mou.  Guess.”

Okay, fine.  He wasn’t lost in self-absorption and wanted to play.  Since she happened to like him playful, Delaney opted to do as he suggested and humor him. 

New York was too far north for lemons, limes or oranges.  They’d already mentioned peaches, plums, cherries and pears…  What else was there? 

“Apples.  They must be apple trees.”

“That they are,” he approved, and the wrist hanging over the steering wheel lifted so that he could point to the ones under her scrutiny.  “Honeycrisp there, Braebern beyond that, Fuji and Rome on the other side of the store, Pink Lady past the party tents, Red Delicious in the next field.  Scattered around, you’ll also find Granny Smith, Winesap, Golden Delicious and about five other kinds I can’t remember the goddamn names of.”

“Well, thank you Johnny Appleseed,” she laughed, bewildered at his sudden fascination with any apple that didn’t sync to iTunes.  “Are you branching from wine into hard cider for your next booze venture?”

“Nah, but there are grapes out there, too.  Makes me wonder if a new wine might be fun.” 

“I’m sure Jesse would love that.”

“Yep.”  His smile faded to an expression of thoughtfulness.  “You said you’d rather have an apple tree than a ring, Mou.”

Delaney’s heart slammed against her sternum for one fierce beat before stalling.  She didn’t draw a breath as her eyes skimmed back and forth along the row of trees that he’d identified as Honeycrisp.  There were at least fifty that she could see.  Who knew how many of those other varieties lurked out of sight? 

Surely he hadn’t….

“Uh.  So you adopted a tree here for me?  Like that thing where they name a star after your loved one for fifty bucks?”

“No,” he denied softly, reaching for her hand and linking his fingers with her ringed ones.  “I didn’t adopt a tree.  I bought you an orchard.  Farm.” 

Goose pimples shivered on her arms, and it had nothing to do with the air conditioning.

He remembered the apple tree, but did he remember why?  Did he know what a freeping orchard said to her and – oh God.  Her family.

As if God Himself was nudging it, the sun shifted.  Dazzling rays bounced against the windshield of her father’s Ford and into her eyes as chastisement. 

Her dad was going to lose it.

“Jon, my parents are here.”

Questioning fingers lifted a little as he tilted his head to one side.  “Yeah?  So?  Mine are here, too.”

He didn’t get it.  He had no idea what he’d done.  Jon thought it was cute to buy her an orchard.  Kind of like a couple dozen roses. 

Her parents wouldn’t think it was cute.

“Apple trees are a big deal in my family, Jon.  It’s not a traditional Greek thing but it stemmed from one, and my parents have made the apple tree in their front yard…  Well, let’s just say his name is Agamemnon and we’ve always referred to him as our older brother.  Apple trees are equivalent to Giannopoulos children, so buying an orchard made them grandparents a hundred times over.”

“More like two thousand, but okay.”

Two freeping thousand apple trees.  Oh, sweet Jesus.

She didn’t know whether to choke or kiss the man that was so incredibly over the top sometimes. 

Neither.  Make him tell you he gets it.

“What do you mean, okay?”

“I mean okay,” he repeated calmly.  “You do realize I love you, right?”

She leaned a heavy shoulder against the seat back and hit him with an aggravated scowl.  “Don’t be dumb.”

“From where I sit, it’s not me being dumb.”

Rather than engaging in that particular debate, Delaney dropped back to answer his original question.  “Yes, I realize you love me – just like you realize I love you.”

“Right.  And now that the divorce is final, I’m free to offer you more than a place to live.  I’m free to offer you the commitment your apple trees symbolize.  So I am.”

Her scalp tingled.  Her pulse quickened.  Her palms grew clammy, which is probably why he eased his hand away from hers.    

Oh my stars.  He gets it.

Yes, logically, she’d known they were together.  Even together together, but the man had just “put a ring on it” in the precisely the way she’d asked him to.

Petra’s going to drop a load when she finds out there’s no diamond.

She perversely looked forward to Petra’s pouting over a silly diamond.  It would be the second highest point in Delaney’s day, because nothing would top a freeping orchard.

“Frankly,” Jon sighed and stretched out a leg to dig into the front pocket of his jeans.  “I imagined this going better, but maybe these will help.”

He reclaimed her abandoned hand, turned it palm up and deposited two drawstring pouches in the center.  Made of velvet, one was black while the other was navy blue, and neither was bigger than a matchbox.  They didn’t weigh much more than that figurative matchbox either.

“It’s not how I wanted to do this part, but since you’re being classically stubborn, I guess your family will understand if they miss out on the real reason for the party.”

Her eyes snapped from the fascinating little pouches to his eyes.  “What do they think now?”

“That DJ’s Farm is a new business venture we’re celebrating.  Please note that you got top billing there, by the way.  I haven’t given away top billing since the early eighties, so this is serious shit.”

Mention of the farm name was a reminder that he’d specifically called her attention the sign when they arrived.  DJ’s Farm.  Delaney Jon’s Farm.  Written in apple blossoms and adorned with forget-me-nots.

Oh, Jon.

“I don’t need whatever’s in these cute little bags.”  She pushed both of them back into his hand.  “I have the world’s sweetest man and a frazzle snapping orchard.”

Planting one palm on each of his ears, Delaney leaned in to kiss him stupid.  Excitedly, hotly, wetly, overwhelmingly stupid.

“Fuck, I really do love you,” he laughed breathlessly when she finally let him come up for air.   

The man was handsome with three days’ beard and bedhead.  With fresh-kissed lips, eyes glittering like pale sapphires and pink cheeks, he was freeping gorgeous.

And he was hers.

“Of course you love me.  Two thousand times over,” was her sassy rejoinder before easing back to her side of the car.  “Now, before we go out there and give my family the big birth announcement, you have to tell me what you want as a show of commitment.  What would mean something to you?”

“Besides you?”

She loved it when he got that look in his eye.  This wasn’t self-absorbed Jon.  This was his polar opposite, who made her feel like the best and only thing in his world.  She liked this guy, but there were more practical matters to attend to than her ego.

“Besides me.”

“You sure you wanna know?  ‘Cause I’ve got a list.”

Delaney lifted both eyebrows high with surprise.  Honestly, she’d expected him to say he didn’t want anything, so to find out he had a list…

“Go ahead,” she instructed with confidence and the belief that he was being melodramatic.  For a rock star, his needs were simple, so he probably didn’t want more than weekly blow jobs.

“Alright.  Just remember, you asked.”  He took her hand in his and restored possession of the navy bag.  “First thing I want is for you to earn this.”

Earn? 

Puzzled, she untied the drawstring drew the top open before turning it upside down to dump the contents in her other hand. 

“Oh my God.  No.  Seriously?”

A host of little diamonds winked up from their bed in the background of a gold pendant shaped like the Superman logo.  Summer sun caught every facet of the jewels as well as the two gold streaks shaped in a lazy, double-S.

It was the infamous Slippery When Wet charm given only to those on the inner circle of Bon Jovi.  When Delaney flipped it over and found “Mou” engraved on the back, she nearly peed her pants.

“Seriously,” he affirmed.  “That one’s yours, but nobody wears one unless they’ve done two tours.  You never answered me about Japan and Australia, but if you go on that leg and then to Europe with me, you can wear it as early as next summer.”

What fan didn’t want this piece of jewelry?  This was the Holy Grail of Jovidom.  Yeah, yeah, it was the man who held her heart and not Bon Jovi, but she couldn’t be expected to shed all those years of fan mentality and this was cooler than even her maracas.  Heck, it was cooler than Jon’s guitar being parked by her bed at night. 

The fan groups were going to start throwing darts at her picture, and Delaney wouldn’t blame them.  She was the luckiest Jovi girl in the world. 

“Sign me up,” she chirped, throwing her arms around him with a squee of delight.  Her reservations about Japan and Australia had just become irrelevant.  “I have no idea how I’m going to staff the shop, but I’ll figure it out.  I’m going on tour with Bon Jovi!”

Setting her away to look down his nose, he warned, “Yeah, well it ain’t glamorous, but at least you’ll see it for yourself.” 

Lack of glamour didn’t bother her, and Delaney had always been wildly curious about the behind-the-scene stuff.  The only reason she hadn’t leapt on the opportunity when he first offered was because of Pearl.  It remained to be seen if he could keep from killing her, or if anybody could keep Petra from wanting to tag along. 

“I don’t care about glamorous, but Petra may whine and beg until she gets to come along.”

“She already has,” was his unsurprised and wry response.  “I needed her to pack your bag for this weekend, so she bartered for Europe.  I figure I’ll throw the other in since she’s missing out on the presentation of jewelry.”

“You really are the sweetest jerk alive.”

He laughed without remorse.  “Some days I’m really glad you don’t cuss.  It saves me from being a prick or an asshole.”

“But not an anus,” she retorted cheekily.  “You’d better get on with that list of yours, because Petra’s headed this way.”

“Ah, fuck.  Okay.  I respect that you don’t want to get married,” he assured.  “It’s too soon, we don’t know each other well enough and all that happy horse shit.  What I personally want is to do the first tour leg, football season, Christmas and the Super Bowl together.  If we make it through those okay….  Well, I thought maybe we’d come back out here in the spring and get married in the middle of the blooming apple trees.  And that you’d wear this.”

Jon pressed the black pouch into her hand, and she folded mindless fingers over it to stutter the dumbest ever response to a marriage proposal.  

“But… but… don’t you have allergies?”

“Yeah.”  His closed fist edged along Delaney’s jawline as he regarded her with affectionate amusement.  “And the fact that you thought of it is part of why I want to get married.  I’ll take a couple extra allergy pills, bring a box of tissues or maybe get a shot beforehand.  Whatever it takes if you say yes and wear the ring.”

The ring. 

Until that moment, Delaney had believed she didn’t want or need one, but now that she knew….  Now that she held it in the palm of her hand, there was nothing she wanted more in the world – besides Jon, an orchard and a Slippery pendant, of course.

It didn’t even bother her that Petra was going to gloat over the diamond. 

Don’t you think you should look before you start calling it a diamond?

With unsteady fingers, Delaney unknotted the bag’s strings and burrowed into black velvet to find metal predictably cool to the touch.  There was the expected circular band, but the pads of her fingers encountered a different shape, too.  Something that didn’t feel quite like a traditional solitaire.

When the ring came into the light, it twinkled with a dazzling brilliance that belonged in a showcase at Tiffany.  That alone would’ve been enough to steal Delaney’s breath, but the stunningly unique design guaranteed her lack of oxygen.

This was very definitely a diamond.  She didn’t possess the expertise to guess how many carats, but the focal point of the piece was big.  Ridiculously big.  A split shank of diamonds supported a single diamond of maybe three carats – which was nestled in a bed of six platinum petals bearing three diamonds each.

Her engagement ring was a flower.

“Holy shit, he did it!”

The loud exclamation at the passenger window startled Delaney so badly that she almost dropped the ring.  It actually slipped from her fingers, but she managed to catch it with her other hand as Jon’s chin fell to his chest with a sigh. 

“Your sister is a pain in the ass.”

“Ya think?” she huffed, catching a breath before growling over her shoulder.  “Petra, go away!”

“No way!  Let me see that thing.”

Impatient hands gestured for her to roll down the window, but Delaney just flipped up a middle finger and turned back to her souley. 

“You’re sure you want to be related to that?”

“Like I have a fucking choice?”  Good humor sparkled in the shades of blue that colored her life happy.  “No matter what your answer is, I’m not letting you go.  So I’m stuck with her, too.” 

“Wow.  You must really love me, then.”

She was only joking, but sparkling irises darkened from sky blue to midnight, with his voice following suit as Jon solemnly recited, “S’agapo.  Eísai i psychí mou.  Eísai ta pánta gia ména.”

I love you.  You are my soul.  You are everything to me.

A fat tear plopped onto Delaney’s cheek, trekking down into the deep dimple that only revealed a fraction of the joy she felt in side.

“How can I say no to that?”  Stabbing the button that would lower the window, she passed the ring over to her sister.  “Show that to whoever you want, just make sure I get it back.  We’ll be along in a little while.”

The glass silently slid back into place amid Petra’s protests, but Delaney turned her back on them in favor of the man who was snorting with nerdy laughter. 

“You really don’t care about the ring.”

“The heck I don’t!  But she’ll take better care of those diamonds than most people do their kids.”

A lock of silver slid over his forehead as Jon shook his head with resignation.  “Your sister –“

“Is not here,” she interrupted and fisted the front of his shirt to yank him close.  “I am.”

“So you are.”

His slow grin was almost as hot as the palm that came up to cradle Delaney’s cheek, and his smell filled her nostrils with a fragrance sweeter than a flower-filled Madison Square Garden.  It didn’t matter how many parties he forgot to tell her about, how many times he left the toilet seat up, how many hit singles he had or if he ever wrote another song.  She wanted to share this life with him. 

“S’agapo Jon Bon Jovi,” she whispered as their mouths met in a sizzling serenity that she only found when their souls connected.  

Luckiest  Jovi  girl in… the… world.

85 - Forgiven

Penelope’s features streaked with pain and then went eerily blank as she pushed back her chair to stand.  “Then I guess I should go.”

“No.”  Jon defied with authority, gesturing for her to sit while himself rising.  It was too early to make this decision, and if she left now, God only knew when the stubborn duo would again be in the same room.  They needed to ride this out to the end.  “Nobody’s going anywhere.  Just give me a minute to talk to your mom out back.  C’mon, Mou.”

“Jon-“

He halted the argument in a low voice meant for her ears only.  “You need a deep breath and some perspective.  Come outside with me.”

Delaney’s agreement was tainted by obstinance, and he couldn’t clearly declare the winner at a glance.   She could either order her daughter out or come along peacefully, and he didn’t know which it would be until she stalked to the door without speaking.

Fine.  He’d take it, but before following, Jon pointed a commanding finger at each of the young pair. “Do not leave.  She’s spent years thinking you hate her.  Stay and prove her wrong.”

A puckered mouth and stony jawline made it apparent that Delaney’s daughter was the one who was feeling hated, but Oliver – God bless mouthy Oliver – settled a heavy arm around her shoulders and pledged, “We’ll wait.”

“Thank you.” 

Pivoting on his heel, he trailed after Delaney and wondered what the hell to say to her.  He’d known she needed a break to avoid blurting out something she couldn’t take back, but Jon didn’t know how to make this all better.  All he could do was encourage her to yell at him while she thought it through. 

He found her leaning against the dandelion logoed delivery van with folded arms and a jawline as stony as the one on the young woman inside. 

“Give it to me,” he coaxed, slipping his arms inside her folded ones to draw her close.  “Let it all out.  Beat the hell out of me if you have to, so we can go back in there and put this to bed once and for all.”

“Maybe I don’t want to.  Maybe I just want to be freeping angry and childless.”

“No, you don’t,” he murmured into her hair.  “You want her respect and love, and you don’t feel like you’ve gotten either.  But you can’t hold her accountable for Violet, baby.  It just validates her reasons for staying gone all these years.”

“I’ve already said I don’t hold her accountable for Violet.  I made peace with that when I was throwing clothes on the closet floor this morning, but this other stuff is harder to swallow.  And it freeping hurts.  She had to do this her way.  Couldn’t even accept my forgiveness because she wanted to run the show, thinking she knows best.  Well, she doesn’t.  She’s just a dumb kid.”

Delaney’s muscles practically vibrated with the frustration.  It had her stiff and unyielding within the circle of his arms, but Jon didn’t loosen his hold.  If anything, he cinched her tighter.

“Then teach her, Mou.  Tell her the bad decisions hurt more than what she was hiding, but for God’s sake don’t push her away.  It’ll only slice a new wound that’ll fill with bitterness, and bitterness doesn’t belong in you.  She’s already hurt you like hell.  Give her a chance to make amends for it.  Isn’t that what Violet would want?”

Her rigid stance dissolved into something more natural, and she gently pushed against his embrace to turn up a face overtaken by big, damp eyes. 

“I love you.  Someday, I’ll have had enough chances to prove it that the words won’t matter so much, but right this minute that’s all I’ve got.  I hope you believe it and understand how unbelievably grateful I am for you and this… thing we have.”

Her submission was proof enough, to be honest.  The fact that she didn’t dig in her heels and ignore every damn thing he said in favor of what her wounded pride wanted to do was plenty proof – but Jon was a man known for making the most of an opportunity. 

“You want a chance to prove it?  Like, right now?”

“Yes.”

He adored the fact that she didn’t even hesitate and smiled down at his feisty other half while gently brushing the hair away from her face.  “First, go in there and fight for your daughter.  Fight with her, too, if you have to, but don’t stop until you’ve got your girl back.  Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good.”  Tender lips grazed her forehead.  “And move into the new apartment with me.”

“Move in?  What?  Are you craz-?”

He dipped in to swallow the protests, taking it as a positive sign that she struggled only briefly against the kiss.  It wasn’t a long one, but it did the trick in quieting her.  When Jon withdrew, it was only silvery eyes that loudly questioned his sanity.

“No, I’m not crazy.  It’s not like I proposed.  I just like living with you and prefer to have a little more space than what you’ve got in Queens.”

“But-“

“Stop,” he instructed gently.  “We can debate it later.  Just know that it’s what I want and think about it after we get through this with Zoi.”

Her expression went from stupefied to dour in an instant.  “Zoi.  That’s something else that makes me mad.”

“One step at a time, baby,” was Jon’s soothing advice when placing both hands on her shoulders and twirling her toward to door.  “One step at a time.”

Delaney twisted the knob with a deep breath. 

He was right, as he seemed to be about most things.  The name thing was a minor detail that might work itself out with time.  She still had unanswered questions and would focus on those instead of the anger stemming from her hurt feelings, she vowed when striding into the room.

“If you’d never taken drugs, then where did you get them?” she fired off, gripping the back of her vacated seat and leaning on it instead of sitting. 

She felt Jon sigh as he stopped just behind her, but he didn’t try and tone her down.  He merely pushed hands into his pockets to watch the rest of the story unfold. 

“You don’t want to know.”

“Penelope Cressida, the time for secrets is over.  After what you’ve put me through, I deserve to know everything.  Now spit it out.”

“Mom, no.”  The words themselves were defiant but her daughter’s eyes were as much a plea as her quiet, “Don’t make me.”

Delaney considered relenting, but she’d already been left way, way out of the loop.  Her pride was wounded and she needed to know she wasn’t the only idiot still floundering in the dark with that remaining mystery. 

“Does your dad know?”

“No.  Just Oliver and my therapist.”

“And now me,” she insisted with dogged determination and a selfish bit of relief.  “Tell me.”

Gray eyes locked on gray, one begging for the truth while the other pled for leniency. 

“Please don’t.”

“Tell me.”

“I can’t.”

The first crocodile tear slid down Penelope’s cheek, and it almost broke Delaney’s heart.  Would have, if she hadn’t been so determined to get the answer. 

“Tell. Me.”

“Zoi,” Oliver quietly interjected as Delaney’s grasp on the chair threatened to splinter wood.  “She has a right to know.”

For a moment it looked as though she would defy him, too.  It was painfully obvious that she wanted to, but Oliver’s opinion carried more weight than Delaney’s.  Penelope knuckled away the tear and ran the same hand through her hair, pinning the waves away from her face before releasing them with a broken sigh. 

“Uncle Max.  I got it from Uncle Max.”

Delaney reeled as though the girl had slapped her, taking a step back and bumping into Jon.  Max?  Her brother Max who had grieved as fiercely as anyone? 

That was impossible.  There was no way she could buy into that story. 

“Max isn’t a drug dealer.”

“I didn’t say he was,” Penelope countered with resignation.  “You remember his story about the old man with the Crown Victoria?”

“Yes.”  It was one of Max’s favorite “cool” stories to tell, and the fact that it made the six o’clock news only added to the fun for him.  “He brought it into Max’s garage because it wasn’t running right, and it turned out…  Oh, holy Mouseketeers.”

“Is this the guy that had like a dozen kilos of coke in his gas tank?”  Jon inquired with stabilizing hands at her waist.  “Whose grandson turned out to be a drug runner?  I heard Max telling Dave about it on Saturday night.”

Coke.  Cocaine.  The car relinquished to the police was full of cocaine not heroin.  What did that story have to do with this story? 

She would’ve asked had her daughter not flawlessly pre-empted the question.    

“Yes, and Uncle Max once told me and Violet that he kept a souvenir from the glovebox.  He figured the heroin was for the grandson’s personal use, because there was so little of it, and that nobody would miss it.  So he kept it hidden inside one of his tool boxes as a memento.”

Dumbfounded, Delaney realized aloud, “That’s where you stopped on the way to the party.  Max’s house.”

“He and Aunt Renee weren’t home, but I had the code to the garage.” The tear that leaked out this time was smaller, but it came with friends, and Oliver curled a protective arm her.  “I didn’t keep it from you just to be selfish.  I was protecting Uncle Max.” 

“Max knows, and he didn’t tell me, either?”  This was supposed to be the end of a nightmare, not the beginning of a new one.  How could her brother keep this to himself?  How?

“He didn’t know it was me.  I never told him.”

Leaving him to assume it was Violet, and also leaving him with the burden of responsibility for Violet’s death.  No wonder he was the moodiest of them all when it came to the twins’ birthday.  He was consumed with guilt, too.

Oh, Violet.  When I asked you to send me answers, I had no idea. 

“So, it wasn’t just me you made suffer for years.  Your uncle had to deal with a guilt that he doesn’t deserve, either.”

“I…”  The sniffling young woman desperately wanted to deny it, but she averted tearful eyes with a quiet.  “Yes.”

“Oh, Penelope.”  Delaney bowed her head into one hand as adrenaline and anger fought for dominance, only to give way to exhaustion when she hit the figurative wall. 

She didn’t have the strength to do this.  She had every right to be raging mad and should be, but too much lost time robbed her of the desire to scream about the immature handling of it all.  She didn’t have it in her to hate the child who obviously was – or had been – just that.  A child. 

Not when she had to find the strength to console and apologize to her brother. 

Not when all she wanted to do was curl into a fetal position and cry.

“Why now, Zoi?”  This question came from the warm wall of man who tucked her into his side and to act as her strength.  “Just because I came to Chicago and asked?”

Accepting the napkin Oliver pushed at her from the table, Penelope wiped away the weeping mascara and blew her nose before snuffling, “No.  I’d already planned to come home after graduation.  I miss my family, especially now that…”

“Go ahead,” Oliver prompted when she hesitated.  “Your mom’s right.  No more secrets.”

A sheen of tears blurred the make-up smudged eyes that sought Delaney’s. 

“Oliver and I…  We’re having a baby.  Your granddaughter’s name is Evangeline.”

Evangeline.  Violet’s middle name. 

Nothing would ever replace her lost child, but knowing that her name – and maybe some of her personality – would again grace the world brought a crushing wave of emotion.  A strangled sob pushed out hot tears, in a display so pitiful that Jon immediately tried to pull her closer.

She loved his unwavering support, but just this once, he wasn’t the part of her soul that Delaney needed to hold close.

“Penlope.  Baby.”

It only took the slightest tug to encourage the girl to her feet, and they came together in a fierce hug.  Slight shoulders heaved with the release of a burden that Penelope should’ve never carried alone. 

“I’m… sorry Mama.  I love you so much.  Missed you… so much.  Please… forgive me.”

Those were the words.  Those were the words that put the biggest missing chunk back into Delaney’s broken heart.  It was a jagged piece that hurt like the devil going back in, but it was there.  

“Oh, baby,” she choked softly into her daughter’s ear, through a throat clogged with too many feelings.  “I love you too much not to forgive you.  We’ll work it all out.”

Mother and daughter clung to one another, weeping tears of pain, healing, grief, guilt, happiness, relief and promise until they were both drained of everything they’d been holding onto.  Only then did they reluctantly separate to reach for more take-out napkins.

Dabbing at her eyes, Delaney asked, “Can I call you Poppy now?”

Swollen eyes flashed with regret as Penelope scrubbed away the mascara dripping from them.  “Heroin comes from poppies, Mom.”

Oh. 

And Zoi meant life.

“I can get used to Zoi,” she decided. 

Her daughter was alive.  She may not be perfect.  She was, in fact, one-hundred percent wrong in her handling of this whole situation, but she was alive and carrying a baby that linked the future to the past. 

The road ahead of them might not be a smooth one, but it was lined with violets that would remind them the journey was worth a few potholes along the way. 

To paraphrase a famous songwriter, they had each other and that was a lot.  For love, they’d give it a shot.

84 - I Just Don't Know

“Hi, Mom.”

Delaney absorbed every feature of the face she hadn't laid eyes on in over five years.  Yes, she'd seen Poppy more recently than that, but not with this face.  This was the face of the girl she’d supported through midnight study sessions, broken hearts, and every other imaginable teenage milestone.  It was sweet and familiar instead of filled with hate, and for that reason, Delaney found it more beautiful than a supermodel's.    

She wore a stylish polka-dotted top with her leggings and sandals, and as Jon said, had auburn tips and dark roots to her hair.  There were hints of creases at the edges of her mouth and eyes, and expertly highlighted cheekbones were more prominent.  The makeup was applied with a mature hand instead of a teenager, but this was still her Poppy.  The one she’d missed so dearly. 

Finally. 

You will not cry.  You’re stronger than that.

“Hello, Poppy.”

A shadow fleeted through eyes that were an exact replica of her own, and her daughter quietly corrected, “Zoi.”

“I didn’t name you Zoi.  I named you Penelope,” she blurted before thinking. 

“Then call me Penelope, if you have to.  Just not Poppy.”

Great Ceasar’s ghost, Delaney.  Don’t pick an argument in the first ten seconds.

“I’m sorry.  I’m just…  This is unexpected.  I’m flustered.”  Jon’s thumb skated in the curve of her spine, and the gesture wasn't so much soothing as a reminder.  “Jon, this is my daughter Penelope.”

“Zoi,” he greeted quietly.  “Good to see you.” 

“Hi again, Mr. Bon Jovi.”

“Just Jon.”

The hair swayed against a fragile jawline as Poppy – Penelope – ducked her head in acknowledgement.  “Jon, Mom… This is Oliver.  My boyfriend.” 

The young man who stood behind Penelope much as Jon stood behind Delaney finally stepped forward to speak and offer his hand.  “Ma’am.  I’ve heard a lot about you.”

He’s too old for her.

Then again, Penelope was twenty-four, not nineteen.  The hipster sporting a full dark beard and high-and-tight hairstyle whose top was held away from his face by a plethora of shiny hair product was probably not much older than that.  His urban work boots, lightly patterned button-down and jeans could be found on fifty-percent of the mid-twenties age bracket.  He was age-appropriate in every way.

“Wish I could say the same,” she apologized  with a tight smile, releasing the hand that wasn’t quite as well groomed as the rest of him.  The kid was no stranger to work, it seemed. 

“How about we sit?”

“Oh.  Right.”  Shooting Jon a grateful look for the murmured suggestion as Oliver took a backward step, Delaney gestured to the corner opposite her desk.  The scarred, round table and four chairs served as a makeshift lunch area that was oddly uncluttered today with nothing but a handful of napkins and plastic forks piled in the center.  “Please sit.  Would you like some coffee?  Water?  Something?”

Penelope gave a negative shake of her head as Oliver scooted a chair close to the one she chose, and Jon did the same, situating his seat close enough to Delaney's for their thighs to touch when he sat.   It was one couple across from the other as the younger woman folded hands on the worn wooden surface and one of her boyfriend’s palms subtly draped her thigh beneath it.    

“As much as I dread this, the inane pleasantries are worse, Mom.  You look good, I look good, we both obviously have protective partners who also look good.  There.  Now can we just… talk, please?”

“Okay," she agreed with a voice that would barely accommodate her.  Her throat had tried to close off at the odd comfort of her daughter's familiar no-nonsense approach.  "I guess you'd like to start, since you came here?  Which I’m glad you did, by the way.”

Jon squeezed her knee with either a show of support or silent message to get her act together. She couldn’t tell which without looking at him, and she was afraid to.  There was an irrational fear that if her eyes left Penelope, even for an instant, that the girl would disappear as a figment of imagination.

“You might change your mind about that,” warned the young woman whose tone revealed to Delaney that she wasn’t the only one experiencing fear.   

Realization that her self-confident daughter was afraid of what reaction this news would bring is what galvanized Delaney into Mama Bear mode.  Whatever was said couldn’t be any worse than what they already suspected – what they would somehow work through – and letting the uncertainty linger was unnecessarily cruel. 

“No, I won’t,” she resolved evenly into the eyes that were a mirror-image of her own. “Nothing you say will make me sorry you came, Penelope.  Nothing.”

There was a slow blink.  And then another as the subliminal message took root.  “You already know, don’t you?”

“Know what?”

She may know it in her heart, but there was no way she would put those words in Penelope’s mouth.  They had to come out all on their own, and there was a slight tremble to the girl’s chin before she steadied it to confirm Delaney’s worst fear. 

“That I killed Violet.”

It was funny how such a horrific truth could instill such serenity.  She’d thought Jon’s unconditional acceptance of her dilapidated soul was the sweetest peace she’d ever know, but this…. 

Nothing compared to the tranquility that came with snapping that last, long-sought piece of puzzle into place.  With the full picture revealed, Delaney was no longer left floundering helplessly in ignorance.  Now she could finally do something to resolve the situation she so desperately hated.    

“You didn’t kill her,” she declared with purpose and authority.  “Whoever laced that heroin with fentanyl killed her.”

“Mother, please.”

“What?  You think I don’t realize you badgered her into taking it?  No, the video Kyle’s stepdad gave me showed that quite clearly, thanks.  You also badgered her into learning how to walk, ride a bike, drive, get an A in History and at least one other accomplishment every day of her life.  That’s what you did, baby.  You challenged Violet to live.”  

Penelope swallowed a groan and rolled frustrated eyes to the young man at her side. 

“Mrs. Gardener,” Oliver solemnly assumed the lead.  “I understand you mean well, but Zoi’s spent a lot of time preparing for this.  There are very specific things she feels the need to say, and I think she’ll be more likely to listen to what you’re saying if she can get those off her chest first.”

His authoritativeness, as respectful as it was, carried the impact of a physical blow.  Delaney physically retreated, withdrawing until Jon’s hand between her shoulder blades wouldn’t allow her to go any further. 

Okay, then.  So maybe this wasn’t her Poppy. 

This was Oliver’s Zoi, and while the two might share a resemblance on the surface, Delaney had just been politely informed that she didn’t know the young woman across the table.  Not really.  She knew when she lost her first tooth, when she started her period and her senior prom date, but as for who Penelope had become as a person?  The cruel truth was that even Jon probably had a better idea than she did.

It was Delaney’s first indication that this might not turn out to be the happily ever after she’d been dreaming of for so long.

“Of course.  Yeah.”  She dipped her chin as Jon’s thumb kneaded the tense spot in her right shoulder.  The man could read her mind, and as appreciative as she was, it didn’t do anything to ease her renewed tension.  “By all means, go ahead.”

Jon silently willed his souley to not close herself off.  She possessed the power to fix this, but not without a contribution from her daughter.  If she didn’t let Penelope try, this would be nothing more than Chicago, take two. 

Delaney needed to be receptive, and on cue, she caught his gaze from the corner of her eye.  A subtle nod and deliberate unclenching of shoulders gave the promise that she would.  It was irrelevant whether she felt his coaching or “heard” it.  She got the message, and he relaxed.

“It’s no great secret that we were mad at you that night,” Penelope launched into her script and withdrew a hand from the table to grasp her boyfriend’s, Jon assumed.  “I’ll be honest.  Now, it seems really stupid and childish, but at the time we were furious that you and Dad didn’t talk to us at all about the divorce.  You just dropped the bomb and expected us to accept it in an instant, when you guys had spent months getting used to the idea.  God, we were pissed.”

Jon gave Delaney serious kudos for biting her tongue.  She wanted so badly to defend herself, but Mou just fisted the hands in her lap and let the girl go on.

“Ironically enough, I thought Violet was going to kill us with the way she was driving.  I didn’t think we’d make it to Kyle’s house without wrapping around a tree or something, so I made up an excuse to stop on the way.  Then, when I got back in the car, I made her let me drive.”

“Where did you stop?”  Delaney wanted to keep her mouth shut and just listen, but she was too agitated to do it.  It ended up being a moot point, though, since her daughter didn’t bother acknowledging that anyone had spoken.

“She was so wound up.  I was upset but Vi….  I thought she was going to give herself a stroke.  You know what a drama queen she could be, and after listening to her go off for a solid hour, I’d had enough.  She needed to chill, so I made her take…”  The sentence faded away, and she inhaled to deliberately finish, “I convinced her it would make her feel better.  I thought one time wouldn’t hurt either of us, then she spilled half of it down the bathroom sink.  There was only enough left for one and she needed it worse than I did.”

Delaney’s heart constricted with an overbearing grief she thought she’d gotten past in the cemetery last week.  That grief was for Violet, and she evidently had a whole separate supply for Penelope.   She’d been living with the guilt of believing she sacrificed for her sister, when she’d actually ended up sacrificing her sister.   She’d lived when they both would’ve died.

It didn’t excuse what she did, but Penelope had paid for that mistake with what must’ve been torturous pain.

“Why’d you turn on your mom?”  Jon quizzed without accusation.  “Why did you lay the blame at her feet?  Had her arrested, for fuck’s sake.”

Lifeless eyes flitted to Jon before shifting to Delaney for a subdued, “I thought it would be easier having her hate me for being a bitch rather than for killing my sister.  Turns out I hated me enough for both of us.  And it took me five years for me to be able to say that.”

Delaney was nauseous.  Sick to her very core with sympathy at what her child had endured – and anger that she’d purposely endured it alone. 

“Can I talk now?”

There was some type of movement under the table, and Delaney presumed that Oliver was offering a physical gesture of support as Penelope squared her shoulders.  “Go ahead, Mom.”

“Were – are – you an addict?  Is that why you sent me away when I came to Chicago?”

“No.  No drugs.  Ever.” she declared with a lifted chin.  “I wasn’t in a good place when you showed up.  It was the first anniversary, and I was already emotional after an ugly therapy session.  I just…  I couldn’t cope with the hopeful look in your eyes, knowing that the least bit of honesty would steal it away.  I did what I had to do to get you out of there.”

There was little emotion in the delivery, but remorse pooled in her daughter’s eyes.  It was a tragic glimmer of promise.   

“We would’ve worked through it, Penelope,” she chided without heat.  “All you did with that restraining order was prolong the pain.”

“I revoked it within a week.”

“You what?”

When Delaney’s jaw went slack, Jon swore silently.  He should’ve told her about this already, but Katya and her damn phone call had upstaged everything.    

“Sorry.  I forgot to mention it last night,” he contritely murmured, assuming responsibility.  “She also dropped the battery charges.”

“He’s right.  The next morning, I told them it was all a misunderstanding, but they wouldn’t release the restraining order until later.”

His Mou wasn’t impressed. 

“Well that’s a lovely gesture that nobody bothered to freeping tell me about.  I’ve spent four years under the assumption that I’d be arrested for coming near you.”

“Mrs. Gardener, if it helps any, I don’t think it was wasted time.  Zoi needed to heal herself before she could face you.”

A petite spine went rigid under Jon’s touch, and while the angle of her head prevented him from seeing her eyes, he would bet anything they’d gone white with a barrage of lightning flashes.

Oh, kid.  You done fucked up.

“No, Oliver,” she countered coldly.  “What Zoi needed was to tell me the truth so we could both heal!  Instead, she was selfish.  She left me to fester in ignorance with my grief and pain until such time that she decided I’d suffered enough.” 

Jon couldn’t find anything about that to disagree with, so he didn’t put himself in the path of her anger. 

Unfazed by the glowering man that was twice her size, Delaney leaned forward to address her daughter directly.  “I would’ve forgiven you.  If you’d given me the freeping chance, I would have told you exactly what I’ve already said – that you didn’t kill Violet.  I would have forgiven you!”

Dead silence reigned for a beat.  Then two.  Then one more before…

“Does that mean you’re not going to forgive me now?”

Okay, now Jon actually felt sorry for the girl.  She was trying her damnedest to remain unaffected and act as though the answer didn’t matter, but he saw the quiver of her chin.  It was impossible to miss the flutter of eyelids over misty eyes. 

Her mama’s answer mattered a whole hell of a lot – and it wasn’t the one she hoped for. 

“I don’t know, Penelope.  I just don’t know.”