Page 86 of Uproot

Her familiar smile greets us now as Evy moves around the counter to check her out. “Well hello, everyone! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving,” Ms. Grace chuckles, patting Edison on the head.

“We did!” Edison exclaims proudly. “I ate so much apple pie I almost exploded!” He rubs his stomach and we all laugh.

The front bell dings and another familiar face joins us.

“Hello Pastor Murphy. How are you?” I ask, shaking his hand.

“Oh I’m wonderful Mr. Kade, thank you! Yesterday went especially well thanks to your generous donation for all of our families in need. We served more people than we ever have before! We even delivered to some families in Hershton which has been a goal of ours for years now,” Pastor Murphy explains proudly.

I let go of his hand and wrap my arm around Selah. “Selah and I were more than happy to help, Pastor. We would be honored to make another donation for Christmas as well. I’d love to donatesome kids tablets from Kade Technology, and help with a toy drive if you’d like,” I offer.

“You..wow! That would be so incredible, Mr. and Mrs. Kade. Thank you!” he stammers, shaking both of our hands enthusiastically. “I will call you next week so we can set something up.”

Selah and I agree and we wrap things up with everyone, totting our bags of groceries outside and getting into our SUV.

There is plenty of snow on the ground from the snowfall we had yesterday, but thankfully we’ve had a reprieve from it falling down on us today. I thought I would navigate the snow and cold weather here easily considering Manhattan is no stranger to snow and cold temperatures. But Fall in Upwood has been a humbling experience.

The snow started before Edison even put on his Halloween costume, and there were mornings driving him to school that I wondered if it was really Fall, or if I had experienced a lapse of memory and somehow winded up in mid-January.

But we still have plenty of days when the sun shines just perfectly, and the view of the snow-topped mountains are enough to make you deal with any bitter cold you experience. It really is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.

And I get to experience with the most beautiful woman on earth.

It’s a win-win.

We drive home, heading towards Brimstone Walk and listening to Christmas music. I hold Selah’s hand as she chatters with Edison in the backseat while he holds his stuffed dog Ruffy tightly on his lap.

The two of them were close before I even met them, but now there is a deeper bond that is so beautiful to witness. Selah is such a naturally nurturing, and kind woman that she slipped into her role as another caretaker for Edison seamlessly. We are in the process of legally adopting Edison now, and he is beyond excited.

Charlie is serving his sentence in the state prison in Redland, and even though he still has asked for no one to visit him, he surprisingly wrote me a letter last week. In it he did something I never thought I would hear him do.

Admit he could have made better choices with his life.

He said losing Maria and then Edison made him see what a mess he had made of his life. Being on his own now without the drugs, without the bad influences whispering in his ear, and worst of all without his freedom, has him realizing that he chose a path that had an inevitable ending.

He admitted that this is the longest he has been sober since Edison was a newborn, and he and Maria briefly tried to turn their lives around.

I felt cautiously optimistic reading the words that I thought I would never hear him say, and have him finally taking responsibility, and being open about his feelings. He even wrote Edison a separate letter that was shorter, and a bit detached, but at least he made an effort.

Edison is still seeing his therapist every other Friday afternoon, and we are slowly unpacking his memories of his parents, and how he is processing everything. He is, incredibly, a mostly happy boy, but he understandably has times when he is upsetabout what happened with his parents, or has a nightmare about being left alone at home like we found out Charlie did too often with him.

Selah, Dragana, and I support him through those times in different ways we have all learned from his therapist. I make sure that I don’t just listen when he opens up to me, but try to hear all of the things that hedoesn’tsay as well.

Despite the fact that he no longer has his favorite teacher leading him in class, he is doing really well in first grade, and has made even more friends this year. I’m excited to see how he will grow and learn in the years to come.

I pull our SUV into the driveway of our new house, and glance over to see the giddy expression that Selah always wears when we drive on to our property.

I purchased this house as a surprise for her in September after we were all ready to move on from the rental home we were living in for months. I started working with a local real estate agent named Ivan McCoy in August before I even proposed to her.

I put Charlie's house on the market for sale at his request, and started looking for a new home for the rest of us to live in.Unfortunately, there weren’t any properties available that I felt were suitable enough for the four of us at that time.

Then right after Labor Day, Ivan called me with excitement filling his voice, gushing over some inside information on a property that was about to come on the market. I knew from the first time I pulled onto the gravel driveway that everyone would love it.

It is an older home that was owned by a couple that lived in it for almost 40 years, and put it on the market when they decided to retire and move further south.

It has tons of yard space like Edison wanted, and the big kitchen with double ovens that Selah desired. It has an amazing space in the backyard to plant the garden Dragana has always dreamed of, and there is an old greenhouse there for her too that I am going to bring back to life. I also have a good space for a home office, so I don’t have to work at the dining room table anymore.

Oakland and his workers have been helping us fix it up while keeping a lot of the old charm that Dragana and Selah love about it. Selah rented her other home out, and we settled into our new life here.

---