Here at Last (34 page)

He thought about it for a moment.
"
You
probab
ly would ha
ve married David."

I shook my head.
“
Until I saw you,
I
’d
never
even
known that anything was missing
in my relationship with David
. At some point
,
I think I would
ha
ve
realized
that
I’d made a terrible mistake
.
Then,
I would ha
ve been miserable."

"I
’m sure
that everything happened the way
it
needed to
,” he assured me
.
“
If I
’d
met you when I was praying for you, I would
n’t ha
ve been ready for you."
We lay there quietly for a moment
,
and
h
e chuckled.

"What's so funny?” I asked.

"I wasn't ready for you when we did run into each other,
and
you weren't ready for me when I was ready for you. It's taken
us
a long time to get together.”

I remembered that first night
that we’d
made love and how
it
had taken a
few
days
for me
to realize that I didn't want to lose Nicholas. I turned
over
to face him. “If I hadn't called
you
on December 30
th
and asked you to
come over and talk, what would ha
ve happened to us?"

He shook his head. "I
don’t know
. When I
went
to your house that evening, I thought you were going to tell me
that
it was over
. No matter how strong my feelings for you were, I realized that I might have to let you go
.”

I understood
how important it was that I
’d
made that one phone cal
l. If
I
hadn't at least tried, I could ha
ve lost him forever.
“Nicholas?" I asked.

“Hmm?”

“Thank you for being patient and waiting for me while I
was
working through my grief over JT."

“You’re welcome.”
He was quiet
for a moment
.
“Do you
remember how I said before that everyone grieves differently?"

I nodded.

“
Sometimes, i
t still hits me
from out of the blue
– l
ike watching you and Hannah tonight in the bathroom
o
r watching you read to her.
It reminds me of Rachel and…
.
"
H
e stopped.

“It's okay
,” I assured him
.
“
Do
n’t
you r
emember our rules? We promised to stand by each other through our grief and listen without judgment.”

He was quiet. “I don't want to hurt you."

“You might, but it's okay. It's no
t like it's intentional.
"

He watched me
for a
moment
. "Sophia, I don't know if you'r
e really done with your grief or not
.”

“I know,” I told him.

“If
you’re not, I’ll wait for you – u
nless you change your mind about us.”

“I’m not changing my mind,” I told him.

As I became sleepier, I kissed Nicholas on the lips and told him that I had to leave.
We
walked quietly back
down the hallwa
y and to the front foyer where he
fetched my coat and took me into his arms and kissed me one last time before I walked back out into the cold and drove home.

Chapter
30

As our vacation approached
, I looked forward to
going
to Florida with Nicholas and Hannah before he and I went some
plac
e tropical.
Nicholas had told me that we would spend the
first
night at his parents’ house before leaving the next morning. Then, we would pick
up
Hannah the following week on our way back to Chicago. I still had no idea where were going
, and
I didn't need to remind
him
that I would be hitting two more firsts on this trip – Valentine's Day without JT and the first anniversary of his death.
Nicholas had
made it clear that he wanted to be with me through both of them.

I
ate dinner
with Nicholas and Hannah
a few more times before we left so that Hannah
would be
comfortable
with me
. She didn’t appear to have any problems adjusting as long as I played dress-up,
dolls
, and any number of other games with her.

Hannah had flown
before and did well buoyed by the courteous
airline staff
. Alt
hough she did insist on holding her dad's hand during takeoff
,
landing,
and brief
periods
of turbulence,
she seemed
relaxed
otherwise. Nicholas had packed some dolls and books for her as well as her pink laptop computer
, and those kept her busy
through most of the flight
.





A few hours later, we arrived in
Ft. Lauderdale
where we were greeted at the airport by Nicholas’s parents
, who lived in Boca Raton
.
Wrapping his arms around his mother, Nicholas held her for a long moment as they stood together quietly. His father picked up Hannah, who looked a little shy but hugged him around the neck while he smiled and talked to her.
T
he
picture-perfect moment
became
etched
into my memory.

Michelle was just over five feet tall, and her husband was about a head taller than she. Both
looked fit and tanned. Bernard
wore his white hair fairly short and had a close-cropped goatee. Although his smile was much like Nicholas’s, his teeth weren’t quite as straight. Michelle kept her hair brown and just above her shoulders. Her eyes were brown and warm, and I could see where Nicholas got his
eyes
.

Stepping
away
from his mother
,
Nicholas
looked back toward me
and reached
for my hand.
When
I stepped forward,
Michelle
opened her arms, and we hugged.

“Welcome,”
she
said.

I smiled at her warmth. “Thank you.”

“It’s good to finally meet you
after all that Nicholas has told us about you
.”
She glanced at him, and he smiled.

“
It’s
really
my pleasure
,
”
I told her.

She squeezed my hand before releasing it and turning her attention to Hannah, who hugged her around the waist.

“Dad,” Nicholas said,
“I’d like you to meet Sophia.”

“It’s
nice to finally meet you
,” Bernard said.
“We’ve heard many good things about you.”

“Thank you,” I said to him. “I’m
happy to
meet you
as well
.”

We stepped off the sidewalk and into the car.
Nicholas and I had been so busy with work and
life
that I’d had very little chance to ask him
what
his
parents
knew
about us. Clearly, they knew
that we were vacationing together, b
ut I wondered how they felt about their son dating someone three years after his wife had died and what they knew of me and how we’d met.
At the very least
,
I assumed that
they'd be interested in knowing something about me since I
was
a potential stepmother for their granddaughter.





As we rode
in
the car, Hannah grew increasingly comfortable.
Though s
he spoke to
her grandparents every
week
end
, it had been a while since
she
had seen
them
.
She was a
little shy at first
but
quickly warmed up to them, rattling on about the airplane and playing dress up with me and sleepovers at her friends’ homes.

"Sophia, where are you from?" Michelle asked
after talking with Hannah for a few minutes
.

"Morristown, New Jersey," I replied.

"Morristown!
”
Bernard exclaimed
.
“
I
used to go through the
r
e
on
business.
”

“What kind of business?” I asked.

“Pharmaceutical sales,” he told me.

The rest of the conversation revolved mostly around Hannah and her e
xcitement
in
seeing p
alm trees. Her grandparents explained that there are many different kinds of palm trees, including coconut palms, date palms, and banana palms.
Hannah
was excited to learn that
coconuts
gr
o
w on trees.

When we pulled up in the circular drive a
short while later,
Nicholas and I took our suitcases from the back of the car and walked up a few shallow steps to the
lovely single-story stone
-
faced home
. Michelle and Bernard explained that the home had
four bedrooms
but
that they did
n't have enough visitors to make use of all that space
. In short
, th
ey seemed happy to have us the
re. I also sensed that they
were
happy
to see Nicholas with someone.

When Michelle unlocked the front door, we stepped into the foyer. It had a beautiful
granite stone
floor that led
to the living room in the back
of the house
. The
living room was beautiful with
a lot of
glass
on three sides and
c
athedral ceilings. Running
perpendicular to the foyer
along the front of the house
were the
four bedrooms
– a
master suite on each end
with a
guest room
across the hall from each suite
. Bern
ard showed
us to the
second
master suite
where we would stay
while Michelle took
Hannah
to her
pink and purple room
, which was
situated
across from their bedroom
. They had decorated this room for
Hannah
a few years
before
, and she knew
that
it was hers. She settled in quickly before going out into the backyard for a walk with her grandfather.

Nicholas and I had just gotten our bags into
the
bedroom when Michelle arrived in the doorway. "What
can I get you both to drink?" s
he asked
warmly
.

"Water would be wonderful," I told her.

She nodded. "Nicholas?"

"The same, thanks."

Michelle
left
to get
our
water. "
Y
our mom seems
really
nice
,
"
I told him.