Page 36 of The Heart of the King

Maybe the rest would be easier.

13

When David said he had a surprise for her, Jazz didn’t expect to walk into the West Sitting Room and find her parents there.

“Mom! Dad!” Jazz found herself enveloped in a hug from her mom and her father had his arms around both of them. “What are you doing here so soon?”

“We told you we were coming.” Her mother laughed. “But David thought it would be fun to surprise you a couple of days early.”

Jazz laughed with her. “It’s definitely a surprise, but a good one.”

“Good.” As the three-way hug ended, her father gave her one of his own.

They sat in chairs around the fire crackling in the fireplace.

“We asked to talk to you privately before we have dinner with your... David.” Her father leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees.

She felt like a teenager again. “What about?”

“Leo,” her mother said softly.

“Oh. Right.” Jazz slouched back in her seat, like she had when she was a teen. “What about him?”

“Two things. Why did you elope, and why didn’t you tell us about it at the time?” Her father’s tone was gentle. “And why didn’t you tell us later? We were looking for something else online and stumbled across the information.”

“We eloped because we loved each other and because we didn’t think you would going to give him permission to ask me if he went to you first like he wanted to.” She blinked back tears. “We’d been talking about getting married for a while, but you weren’t even willing to accept that we were dating. You loved him when he was going out with Leslie, but not when we were.”

“He was more than ten years older than you and in a very different place in his life.” Her mother leaned over and placed a hand on her arm. “You pick up and go places on the spur of the moment, like your last trip to New York. Leo was a homebody. He was in his mid-30s and wanted a family as soon as possible. I know you thought you were ready to settle down and be the stay-at-home mom he wanted you to be, but were you?”

Jazz took a moment before she replied. “How do you know I wasn’t ready for that?”

“Were you?” Her father raised an eyebrow at her. “If you’re being truly honest with yourself.”

She sighed. “Probably not, but he didn’t want me to stay home and be a mom right away. We talked about it extensively.”

“Did he mean it or was he just saying it because he knew it was what you wanted?” Her father sighed. “It wasn’t that we didn’t like Leo, but we were concerned the two of you and that what you wanted out of life weren’t as compatible as you thought.”

Jazz didn’t want to think about the implications of his statement. Was he right? Were they both right?

She and Leo had said all of the right things. She was willing to travel less and be less spontaneous once they had children. He said he was willing to postpone children a couple of years rather than have them right away. But had he really meant it?

Had she?

Could she have stayed home with their children and not traveled as much?

Wasn’t that what she was going to do with David?

She had a feeling it was going to be different with David. For one thing, she’d likely never be the same kind of stay-at-home mom she would have been if she and Leo had grown old together.

They’d be traveling, at least some locally then internationally for official business, and even to different - better - places than she’d have ever been able to go for family vacations.

“You might be right,” she grudgingly admitted. “But I still think we could have made it work.”

“Probably,” her father conceded. “Especially once you committed to a lifetime together, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t think you should take some more time to be sure.”

“I still wish you’d told us, especially after the car accident.” Her mother’s hand still rested on her arm. She squeezed it lightly. “We knew you were serious about him, but it’s a different kind of grief when you lose a spouse, no matter how long the marriage was. When we heard, it explained so much we didn’t understand. We love you, and we would have been there for you.”

“Thanks, Mom.” She smiled at her parents.

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