Page 44 of The Choices I've Made
“Come on in,” she insisted, stepping aside to let us through. “Didn’t expect to see you here, Jake. Figured you’d be cozied up with a bottle of bourbon by now.”
“Oh, he’s already done that,” I said.
“And what the Sam Hill is wrong with you? Tripped over your own feet, did ya?”
He didn’t snort this time, but I saw a snide smile spread across his face.
“What do you have for me today, Terri?” I asked, changing the subject. “Anything good?”
“Anything good?” she repeated. “All of it is good. Who do you think you’re talking to?”
“Swallow an extra sassy pill today, Terri?” Jake said, chuckling under his breath.
“If I’d known you were going to show up at my door, I would have taken three,” she replied, shaking her head.
She offered us seats at the kitchen table, but Jake took his time, looking around.
To him, probably not much looked different.
But, for me, someone who visited this old house two or three times a day, I could see it. The modern step stool she’d bought last year to replace the antique one she’d had for years. The curtains she’d sewn last month to brighten up the dining room.
We waited in silence as Terri went through her storage cellar, pulling out various things for me to look at—fruits and veggies and several canned goods.
“I like the curtains,” Jake said, giving me a knowing look.
Okay, so he did remember the little things.
“Don’t sweet talk me, Jacob Jameson.”
“You know that’s not my name.” He laughed.
“Well, it should have been,” Terri grumbled. “Giving a boy a nickname instead of something proper. No sense in that. No sense indeed. Do you think Terri is my given name?”
“We both know it’s not,” I answered.
Jake turned to me.
“Of course it’s not.” Jake and I mouthed the words along with her, trying not to laugh, “Theresa Victoria Chandler.”
She caught us and immediately shook her head, mumbling under her breath. She talked mean, but underneath the icy exterior, Terri was nothing but heart. She loved deeply, cared sometimes too much, and was as loyal as they came.
Watching Jake walk away all those years ago, the boy who’d been the closest thing to a son in her life, had been hard for her. But you wouldn’t have known it, looking at her. The days after he’d left, she’d continued on like any other day.
But I had seen it.
The pain and loss. It had been like looking in a mirror.
Eventually, we’d both moved on.
Terri had decided to turn her hobby into earnings, converting her small garden into something more substantial.
And me? Well, I’d kept going.
What else was there to do?
“You know, Molly and Dean Sutherland are set to be married this fall?”
“I didn’t realize they’d set a date,” Jake replied, his eyes set on mine.
