Chapter 29
Bella
“Life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but about how good ya bounce.”
~ Papa Duke
“Hey, ladybug, whatcha doin’?” Sadie was sitting in the middle of the family room, a box beside her and papers strewn all around her.
“I found these in my closet.” She lifted up a paper. “They’re letters from Papa Duke to Grandma Hazel.”
“Sweetie, those are private.”
“Hey,” She dropped her hands on her lap. “You’re the one that put me on punishment. I’m just trying not to die of boredom.”
I’d decided that for punishment for sneaking out of her grandparents’ house and flying across the country alone she was grounded from all electronics for two months, until school started. And that included television. The only thing she was allowed to do was call and text back and forth with her best friend Natalie. But no YouTube, no Snapchat, and no Netflix. Those were her big three. She hadn’t really felt the pain of it the first week before Colton left because she’d been spending so much time with him, but since he’d been gone shooting the “getaway” for the show, she was definitely feeling it for the past two weeks he’d been gone.
The good news for her, and for me, was that Colton was due back today. His flight landed in an hour.
I lifted my hand and rubbed my finger and thumb together. “Do you know what this is?”
She rolled her eyes.
“It’s the world’s—” I started.
“Smallest violin,” she finished. “I know. That wasn’t funny when I was eight and it’s still not now that I’m twelve.”
“You’re not twelve yet. Not for a few more weeks.”
She ignored my specification and continued sorting through the papers.
“Some of these talk about you and Colton.”
“Me and Colton?” That had to be wrong. “But Grandma Hazel died a long time before Colton was my boyfriend.”
“Well, maybe he was writing a different Hazel then?” Sadie handed me a few letters.
I looked at the date. It was seven years after she died. I flipped to the second one and it was four years after she died. “How many of these are there?”
Her eyes grew as large as saucers. “A lot. I think he must’ve wrote her every day.”
Those words echoed in my mind. “Oh my gosh.” My hand covered my mouth as tears sprang to my eyes.
“What? What’s wrong?” Sadie popped up like a Jack in the Box.
“Papa Duke wrote these to Grandma Hazel after she died.”
Sadie’s face scrunched like she was sucking on a lemon. “Why?”
I sniffed. He told me once that when he was in Germany during the war, he wrote her every day because it made him feel close to her, and he said that nothing felt real to him until he told her about it.
I leaned down and started sifting through the letters. I found dates as soon as a month after she passed away. “He must’ve started writing her again after she was gone.”
“That’s so romantic,” Sadie sighed. “He sounds like he was funny, too. He called you and Colton moonshine and a jar.”
“What?” I wasn’t even sure Papa Duke knew who Colton was. Whenever I’d talk about him, he’d always say, “Oh you mean…” and start naming all eight Briggs brothers.
Sadie grabbed one of the papers in my hand. “See. Look.”
It read:
My Dearest Love Hazel,
The summer has been a hot one. Thank goodness for bought air. I don’t know how we got along without it.
Miss Bella has been happier than a pig in mud. She’s still seeing that McCord boy. Those two are like moonshine and a mason jar. They belong together. I see how he looks at her, like he would go to the moon and back just to make her smile.
I know that look because it’s the same way I looked at you. Still do. I have that picture that you always fussed about because you didn’t like your hair, sittin’ on my nightstand. I still give you a kiss every night before I go to sleep. You’ll always be my goodnight kiss, my sweetheart. I’ll love you now and forever.
Yours always,
Duke
The tears that had been hanging on the ledge of my lids decided to jump and rolled down my cheeks.
“And there’s more. See.” Sadie flipped to the next page.
My Dearest Love Hazel,
That old furnace is up to no good again. I spent the better part of the afternoon wrestlin’ it, and I think it’s finally got the better of me. Looks like it’s Duke: 0 Furnace: 1
I gasped. I’d always done that in my head. I’d given things scores, I never knew it was because Papa Duke did it, too. But now that I thought about it, I remembered him saying things like Duke: 2 Vacuum salesman: 0 after he’d send a door-to-door salesman on his way. Or when he’d be gardening, if he pulled up a nasty weed that had given him a run for his money, he’d say Vegetation: 0 Duke: 4.
My vision was blurry as I continued reading.
Miss Bella still has stars in her eyes for the McCord boy. They think I don’t know that he sneaks over at night on his bike and they run out in the field to catch fireflies. I would tell ’em that I’m on to them, but what’s the fun in that?
He loves her somethin’ fierce, so I’m not worried about it. He’s a good boy and I know he’ll grow into a good man that will take care of her, and she’ll take care of him just like we took care of each other.’
I do have to say, my ears are gettin’ tired, she’s been talking about him so much I asked her if she had an off switch. I also like to pretend I think he’s one of Dolly and Walker’s boys, I go through the whole lineup. I like to give her a hard time. She gets that same little twitch in her nose that you had, it’s like she’s a little piece of you right here on earth.
Although, if you were here you’d probably swat me with a rolled up newspaper for teasing her so much. But I would take all the whoopin’s you handed out if I could just have one more day with you my love, just one more hour. Sometimes it hurts so bad not being with you, I think my heart is giving out so it can go home, to you. My heart misses its home.
Yours always,
Duke
I sat down on the couch and wiped my face that was now streaming with tears.
“Mama, I’m sorry. I’ll put them away. I didn’t think it would make you sad.” Sadie was frantically trying to clean all the papers.
“No,” I shook my head. “It’s okay. I just…I miss my grandpa. And I never knew he felt that way about me and Colton.”
Sadie sat next to me and put her arms around me and laid her head on my shoulder. She always hated seeing me cry. When she was in the hospital, or sick in bed at home, I used to wait until she fell asleep and then I would sit beside her and cry silently so she didn’t hear or see it.
“Papa Duke thought that you and Colton would be together forever. He said you were soulmates and that that kind of love only comes around once in a lifetime. He said that he thought you both had enough smarts to see that and not let it go, not like other knuckleheads he’d seen.”
I laughed through the tears. Yeah, that sounded like Papa Duke.
Sadie lifted her head and bit the inside of her lip before asking, “Do you think you and Colton will ever be together again? Natalie texted me that Heather left the island yesterday and was on E! this morning saying they broke up before they flew home because they were better off as friends.”
“Yeah, I know.” I grinned. “He and Heather were never really together. They just said that for the show.”
“Seriously?” She looked shocked.
“Yeah, Colton never really wanted to do the show in the first place and when Heather saw that he wasn’t really into her or anyone else, she went and talked to him and they decided that he would pick her, but really they’re just friends.”
“Oh. My. God. Can I tell Natalie?”
“I don’t know, you have to ask Colton if that’s okay.”
“So…” she prompted.
“So…what?”
“Do you think that you guys will ever be together again?”
I knew this conversation was going to come up someday. I’d been dreading it. I knew that the most important thing was making Sadie feel safe and secure. But I didn’t want to lie to her.
“Ladybug, you don’t have to worry about that. Okay? I promise. You’re what’s important. To both of us.”
She looked at me like I was speaking another language. “Why would I worry about that? That would be the best thing to ever happen to me.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You’ve been so upset about your dad getting engaged—”
“Yeah, to a girl that graduated high school a year ago. That’s skeezy and disgusting. But Colton’s my dad, and you loved him and he loved you so much.” She held up the papers. “Papa Duke said that he was going to go into the attic to get Grandma Hazel’s veil to give to you because he knew you’d be walkin’ down the aisle with that boy.” Sadie did the same accent that she used when she was making fun of me.
“You want us to be together?” I asked, needing to make sure that’s what she was saying.
“Yes! How many more ways do I have to tell you? Yes! I want you to wear Grandma Hazel’s veil and marry him.”
I wrapped my arms around her and crushed her to me.
“Mom, I can’t breathe.” She tapped her hand on my shoulder like a fighter in a hold did. She called it the “hug tap out.”
I let her go and excitement bubbled up inside of me. “I love you so much, ladybug.”
“I know you love me. But the question is, does he know you love him?” She pointed to a picture that must’ve been in one of the letters. It was of Colton and I at the river, we were sitting on a rock facing each other with our foreheads touching. We were so young, but it was easy to see even then how much we loved each other.
“I’m going to tell him.” I assured her. “As soon as he gets home.”
“No!” Sadie clapped her hands together excitedly. “Let’s go to the airport. We’ll surprise him!”
I just stared at her for a minute. I wasn’t sure if there would be cameras there. With the news that he and Heather had just broken up, I didn’t want to make any bad press.
“Stop overthinking it, Mama.” Sadie pulled my arm so I stood. “It’s a grand gesture! If he loves you half as much as Papa Duke thought he did, he’ll love it.”
She was right. He would love it. Because he didn’t love me half as much as Papa Duke thought, he loved me so much more.