Page 2 of The Billionaire & the Virgin Chef
Emily
Twelve Years Ago
I hurriedly leave my grade six classroom at the end of the school day with unshed tears in my eyes. There’ll be no more afternoons with her waiting outside like the other moms and dads. No more short walks with Joy and me skipping on the sidewalk a few stepsahead.
No more looking back at her when we get to a curb, arms outstretched so she can take one of our hands in each of hers to cross the street. No more begging her for two, five, fifteen minutes more outside our apartment to play a little longer before we go inside to start homework or sit down todinner.
No more meals together, no more story time, no more lullabies sung by that voice as sweet as honey to my eleven-year-old ears. No more of her warm, cozy hugs and wet kisses on my forehead after she tucks in my covers, switches off the lights, and no more blowing one last kiss to Joy and me before we close oureyes.
No more anything withMomma.
She’sgone.
Dead.
Grams says she’s with Grandpa Henry and Great Grams up in heaven, and although I didn’t ever meet them, I’m relieved she’s notalone.
But today, Joy and I won’t be able to say our last goodbye. Grams doesn’t want us to remember Momma that way. Especially not Joy. “Six-year-olds should never witness their Mommas being put into the ground,” she had said when I begged her to go. “I wasn’t much older when Great Grams passed. And seeing that casket sink into the dirt, knowing her body was in there...no. I won’t allow little Joy to see your mother that way. It’ll take away every precious sweet, fond memory ofher.”
I’d reminded Grams that I was eleven and old enough, but she told me she needed me. My job was to get Joy from her grade one class after school and take her to Penny’s Playland at themall.
There’s thirty dollars in my backpack, and I’m allowed to spend it all. I’m supposed to keep Joy occupied while all the adults who know our mother say goodbye and watch as she’s put into her final restingplace.
What aboutme?
What aboutJoy?
How are we supposed to saygoodbye?
I make it down to the main floor of our school and walk around to Joy’s classroom. She’s supposed to meet me at the doors, but I don’t see her. Checking inside the empty classroom, I call her name. No one answers. I head out to the playground just in case she forgot about what Grams told us only thismorning.
Joy is not thereeither.
A wave of panic attacks my chest and speeds up my breathing. Joy knows better than to leave school by herself. The after-school yard monitors would never let her go home alone at that age. She has to be somewhere around here. Hopeful, I check the girls’ restroom. NoJoy.
I run back to her class. “Joy Rebecca Fields, stop playing and come out here right now!” Idemand.
The tiny, muffled sound of a cry comes from the back of the room. “Joy?” I say her name more gently this time. She’s always been super sensitive, shying away from louder, gruffer sounds and people. “It’s me. Don’t be afraid. Just come out so we can leave. If we go now, there’ll be time to make your favorite peanut butter cookies after we come back from the arcade. I’ll even let you crack the eggs and measure the ingredients. All of them. I promise. Please Joy, just come out. Everything is going to beokay.”
I wait at the door, and after a few minutes, I hear the sound of metal chair legs scraping against the floor. On any other day, that grating noise would make my skin crawl, but relief washes over me. She’shere.
After moments of patience, Joy’s little head of bouncy blonde curls pops up from under a desk in the back row. “I’ll help with the baking. I’m still verysad.”
“Me too,” I admit, pulling her shoulder into my side. “I was so worried about you. Why’d you hide fromme?”
I feel the rise of her shoulders as sheshrugs.
“I don’t want to go home if Momma isn’t gonna be with us.” A big teardrop falls from one eye and trails down her face. “Why did she have todie?”
“I don’t know. Bad things happen sometimes. But you know what? Momma didn’t want todie.”
“How do you knowthat?”
“I heard Grams praying for her. She thanked God for giving Momma the strength to fight for all this time, and for keeping Momma with us for so much longer than the doctors thought she’d behere.”
“It wasn’t long at all. I want Momma,” she cries, and I feel new tears burning as they roll down my face but brush them away. Grams told me to be strong forJoy.
“She’ll always be with us.” I give her the same words that Grams said while Momma was sick and lying in her hospital bed. Turning to face her, I rest one palm over my heart and the other over hers. I add, “In here. Everything she ever said to us, did for us, shared with us, every hug, and all that love she gave us... It’s all in here. Her body’s gone, but her love won’t ever leave us.Okay?”
