I have hoped there was a way I could still have you in my life, that maybe we could talk from time to time or even visit every now and again. But I know where that would lead, and it would only end in heartbreak. For now, I have to close this door or I will not be able to follow through with my decision. And it feels intolerably selfish that I am the one to make it with no agreement from you, but I believe in my heart that you understand.
Thank you, Jack. Thank you for my children. Thank you for loving me enough to let me go. Thank you for loving me enough to let me be the mother I need to be. There will never be a day I don’t think of you. There will never be a day when the thought of your lips on mine will not cross my mind.
You will forever remain in my heart and my memory. I wish with all my might that you will find a woman who loves you as much as I do and cherishes you for all you are the way I do. While it is hard for me to imagine anyone could ever love you as much as I do, I hope that for you all the same.
All my love,
Ansley
I LOOKED UP AT him. He was smiling down on me, and I felt the tears roll down my cheeks.
“Oh, Ans, no. What’s the matter?”
“I feel so awful,” I said. “I just left you in the middle of the night.”
He smiled at me sadly.
“That was one of the worst nights of my entire life,” I continued. “I will never be able to describe to you how empty I felt writing that letter, leaving you behind. But I knew it was the only way.”
He nodded. “Reading that letter the next morning felt impossible but also, in a way, poignant.”
“Were you mad at me?” I snuggled in close to him, for once not longing for my youth but grateful we were here now.
“It’s hard to explain,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “I was mad at you, but I understood your decision. Even when I was begging you to stay, I knew you had to leave.” He shrugged.
He was right. “Plus, the mess we had made was too big to clean up.”
He kissed me on the lips this time. “It’s a smaller mess now, Ans. It’s a mess we can manage.”
I gazed up at the stunning canopy bed with the ethereal white curtains I had copied from Phoebe Howard. The walls were a light gray, on the lavender side so they felt warm, not steely. It probably wasn’t a color I would have chosen for Jack the bachelor. It was a color I had chosen for me, a color I had chosen for our life together. As I lay there, feeling totally at peace, I finally admitted that, all this time, I had been decorating this house for me.
I could feel Jack’s eyes on me, and I smiled at him and rolled over.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m just thinking what a treat it is to wake up beside you.”
I smiled back. “The feeling is mutual.” I glanced at the alarm clock on his bedside table. I most certainly did not approve that Sony with the radio for the design scheme. I had about a half hour until the girls woke up. I had thought ahead enough to bring my exercise clothes with me so I could come in after they were all awake and act as though I just got back from a walk. I thought I was quite sneaky.
I groaned. “I need to get back over there before the girls get suspicious.” Oh, the girls. They were all grown up now. But I still needed to protect them. I still needed to set a good example.
“Speaking of the girls . . .” Jack said, but then he trailed off.
“What?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing. Never mind.”
I crossed my arms. “Jack.”
“I don’t want to mess up this tentative hold I have on you,” he said.
I leaned over and kissed him. “It’s not tentative, Jack. It’s permanent. And that means we tell each other the truth and ask the hard questions.”
“OK, if you say so,” he said. “So here’s what I want to know: Why did you never tell the girls? I mean, it’s not like you would have to tell them the whole truth.”
Ah, yes. The big question. Might as well go ahead and get it all out there in the open. I had grappled with telling the girls for their entire lives.
“It’s tricky,” I said. “It’s not like an adoption where you’re meeting your birth parents, someone who had you and gave you up. In their minds, I don’t even know the man. In their minds, their father is Carter. The other half of their genes is a test tube.”
He nodded. “I guess I get that. Do you ever want to tell them?”
I laughed. “Oh, Jack. I’ve wanted to tell them a million times. Of course, for years I never thought it would be possible. Carter didn’t want to know who you were, so the girls certainly couldn’t. But then once he found out . . .”
Sloane had developed a fascination with her biological father when she was studying genetics. She pushed us to find her father, and Carter and I had agreed. It was incredibly difficult for him, of course, because he had found out that Jack was Sloane and Caroline’s father, inadvertently, when we ran into him on
