Jacob surprised me last evening. I stopped working on deciphering Prince Caspian on the piano and came into the kitchen to help with dinner. He was almost finished in his preparations, packing the picnic basket and pulling out a bottle of wine. I looked at him curiously and he smiled and asked me if I wanted to go have a picnic in the park since the heat finally broke.
What a great idea. Dinner is usually pretty low-key or in a diner somewhere, sometimes it's a drive-by iced tea in front of the fridge since the kids aren't here.
He smiled and took the basket and my hand and we were off.
When we arrived and parked the truck, Jacob again took my hand again and then asked me to show him Cole's bench. I walked him there and when he saw the marker he said a quiet hello to Cole and then sat down and asked him if he wouldn't mind if we spent our dinner hour here. And then he passed me a glass and smiled a gentle smile that said he was doing this for me and nothing but.
We ate, we talked about things, about the kids and the upcoming autumn and when the heck we're supposed to get back to the cottage for some good memories and we talked about friends and what that means and what my plans are after my latest work is complete. We talked about how much Jake is looking forward to his new job and how we're going to deal with the new routine and Jacob being gone during the days. Normal conversations. Like normal people have. Like we used to have before everything became life or death struggles, before Bridget lost her mind and stopped pretending she was fine.
We talked about everything and Cole's memory sat beneath us like an unanswered echo across a canyon. We didn't acknowledge him again until sunset, when we were ready to leave. When we stood up, Jacob pulled a stray hairpin from my braid and reached down, pushing it straight down into the ground at my feet, beside the bench. He said that he'd promised to love me and take care of me forever and he was going to do just that, but he could stand to give a little bit to Cole to keep.
If you knew Jacob, he has a thing for my hairpins, this wasn't an idle gesture.
In other words, he's decided to share. To let me talk about Cole again. God, sometimes I need to talk about Cole. To let me feel things, good or bad. To get through this instead of shoving it away, hiding it, pretending it isn't real.
Jacob can do that because Cole can't hurt me any more and because Jacob just figured that out. The threats are gone. This gesture was more to show me that he (Jacob) won't hurt me anymore either. I am the bond that they will share forever, and the kids are our legacy of three and these two men who can evoke the same feelings but be the complete opposites of one another, well, sometimes...
Sometimes they both leave me speechless.
