I walked to the first, hanging near the door and larger than life. A woman was holding a baby swaddled in a blue blanket. Her mahogany hair was stark against luminescent skin, but it was her eyes that drew you in. They were a soft gray, the delicate color of a cloudy sky. But there was this sunshine radiating from her. The happy glow of a new parent. When I studied the woman, things started jumping out at me. The strong jaw. The feline, slightly predatory curve of her lips.
I knew the answer, but I still asked. "Is that you and your mom?"
"It is," he said gruffly, the floor creaking beneath him as he moved away from it. I glanced at him, not missing the angry set of his body before I looked back at the picture. She looked so happy. It was hard to believe this woman wearing a genuine smile was the same one I’d met. At what point did she change?
I turned away from it, knowing that I may never get the answer to that question since she had no intention of opening up to me. She made the choice to turn her back on her son and spat on my attempt to start over. That was on her.
The second picture was of a young boy at the beach, smiling up at the camera from behind a mop of dark curls.
"Aren't you adorable!" I gushed, eating it up when his cheeks darkened and he fought to not smile back at me.
When we hit the third, I knew this one was different. He was older in this one, lanky arms and legs sticking out of his polo and shorts and his dark hair was a little less shaggy. He was looking up at the sky and an older woman in a sundress was grinning at him with a love that radiated from the frame.
"That was the first time I'd seen Nan in person in years,” he explained. “She and my mother had been at odds because I was shipped off to a boarding school on the other side of the world. My grandmother said that her son didn't go to some fancy European school and turned out alright and my mother said that no child of hers would go to some second rate private school stateside and public school was absolutely out of the question. My father sided with his wife, wanting to keep the peace." His voice wavered. "My grandmother wrote me every week. And when I saw her..."
He didn't finish and the sorrow that clutched him broke my heart.
"She sounds amazing," I said softly. "I'm glad she was there for you."
"It was so much more than that." He shed his jacket, draping it across the arm of the couch before he lowered himself onto the cushion. "I had so much darkness, Leila. So much anger. But when I came here--" He nodded around us. "--everything was different. Away from the materialism, the fake friends and fake smiles, away from my mother and father." He let out a tortured laugh that made me wince. "Alicia Whitmore refused to step a foot out here. But my grandmother never spoke ill of her or anyone else. She was a good person and I lost count of how many times she told me she loved me."
"I wish I could have met her." I walked to the couch, lowering myself onto the cushion beside him. Before, it was hard to envision anything besides the stoic powerhouse I knew and loved, but now, I could almost see a young Jacob, joking around with the kind woman from the picture, helping her in the kitchen, tinkering around outside with the rough-house looking man in the metal frame on the side table.
"She would have given you a working over," he smirked. "And she would have loved you." I slid my hand toward his and he brushed my knuckles with his fingertips. "About what Rachel said--"
"Whoa!" I cut in quickly, snapping from the Hallmark moment. "Neither of us should be paying attention to anything that comes out of her mouth. I know I'm not."
"Yes, but about the ring--"
"I don't need a ring."
"But I want you to have a ring," he said firmly. "And it's very important to me that you have my grandmother's ring."
His passion meant a lot to me and I felt honored that he wanted to give me a piece of history, a piece of his grandma, but Alicia had been pretty clear about her feelings about Jacob marrying me. “Your mother just isn’t on board, Jacob.”
When I looked at him I had second thoughts about stating the obvious.
"She's going to give it to me," he said, his tone low and dangerous. I've never asked her for a damn thing. And this is important to me."
I cupped his cheek, trying to diffuse the situation. "I would love nothing more than to wear that ring. To respect the memories that come with it and create new ones." I bit my lip, hating that his mother had controlled him all of his life and still had power over this situation too. "But I don't think Alicia is budging."
The stubborn glare in his eyes didn't dim. "She will. She has to. Because my grandmother did more than love me, Leila. She saved me."
I figured he was speaking figuratively, but the way his jaw trembled with emotion, I wasn't so sure. "What do you mean?"
A long, pregnant silence hung on the air and I dropped my hand to the couch. He was looking past me and I could tell from the way his eyes darkened that he was about to share a painful memory.
"I'd spent my summer with Nan and my grandfather and she'd just gotten off the phone. My mother was on her way. I had been gone for two months and barely a word from her or my father. And I just couldn't. I couldn't get into that limo. I couldn't go back to that house, to that life. I knew it was changing me.” He gestured around the room. “I was noticing things around this place. How worn everything was. How small. How dated. And I felt horrible about myself. About who I was becoming.” He stopped, his nostrils flaring as emotion raced across his face. “So I took my grandfather’s gun and decided I was gonna end everything."
****
My mouth fell open. "Jacob..." I didn't know what else to say. Suicide? Jacob almost killed himself? Even though I knew that the story had a happy ending, my heart was racing. My mouth was bone dry.
"There was no fence back then," he continued, not looking at me. "Just this knee high grass as far as the eye could see that my grandfather was too tired to mow. How long did they have? They'd leave me and I'd have nothing. I'd just have my mother...and I'd be as miserable as my father.
So I sat down, the rifle trembling in my hands. It wasn’t a bulky thing but it felt heavy. So goddamn heavy. And then I heard the crunch behind me. I tried to hide the rifle, but I knew she'd seen it. That was the worst part—looking into her big brown eyes and seeing that she knew.” He paused, the pain of it as fresh on his face as if it were yesterday instead of years ago. “You know what she said to me? 'I'm not gonna be here forever, Jacob. To keep you honest and make sure you know that you are loved. To tell you that as bad as things may seem, they'll get better. And you'll be better. You have to believe it. You're gonna set the world on fire someday—and don't let anyone, ever, turn your light off.'