And Anna and Jim were there. Of course they were, and it was a newly married Anna who was facing a new beginning.
She was looking lovely. She was wearing a gorgeous, soft auburn wig, and despite the responsibility of her three youngsters-tumbling on the lawn with Bernard-the-dog and Erin’s and Matt’s twins-Anna looked young and carefree and indescribably pretty. She’d come through her treatment with flying colours, she’d finally let go of the steely independence she’d held onto for so long, she’d reached out to Jim-and to Jonas-and she was looking happier now than Em had ever seen her.
As was Em.
Em stood in the garden by Jonas’s side while the formal signing for adoption took place, and she smiled and she smiled and she smiled.
All these people she loved so much…
Her wedding day had been wonderful but today was even better. Today she stood by her husband’s side. Jonas was holding her beloved Robby in his arms with a look that said he’d never let him go, and her heart was threatening to burst.
And there was more. Tonight, she thought. Tonight she’d confess to Jonas that this was just the beginning. Inside her womb a tiny seed was starting to grow. She’d done a pregnancy test that morning, and the magic was all about her.
‘Happy?’ That was Jonas, whispering down to her as the photographer lined them up for their first ever formal family portrait.
Happy? How could she not be happy?
‘Fit to bust,’ she said inelegantly, and he chuckled, put his arm around his wife’s waist and pulled her into him.
‘I don’t know about this formal photograph business,’ he told her. ‘How will we explain to our grandchildren that Grandpa didn’t always wear his hair like this?’
‘You might not have any by the time you have grand-kids,’ she told him cheerfully. He’d shaved his hair when Anna had lost hers-as he’d said he would-and he’d kept it off until Anna had confided that hers was growing back under the wig, but his hair was still very, very short. ‘When you’re a grandpa you might be balder than Anna ever was!’
‘Good grief!’ He hadn’t thought of that. He put his wife away from him and looked at her with mock anxiety. ‘What if I am? You’ve loved me once when I was bald, my darling Em. Do you think you can love me again?’
‘I won’t have to,’ she said serenely, and she lifted a chortling Robby from her husband’s arms and gave him a squeeze-because if she didn’t squeeze someone she’d burst with happiness.
‘Why not?’
‘Because to love again means I have to stop and start again,’ she told him. ‘And I don’t think I can do that.’
‘No?’ He was making love to her with his eyes, and his smile was warming her through and through.
‘It seems Bay Beach isn’t the place to stop loving,’ she told him, her voice alight with love and laughter. Robby gave her arm a tug, she set him down on his sturdy little legs and watched him waddle off Bernard-wards. Then, unable to contain herself any longer, she let herself be caught in her husband’s arms and held. For a very long time.
‘Look about you,’ she whispered. ‘All of us… We’re all happy-ever-afters if I ever saw them. Bay Beach is a place of miracles, Jonas Lunn.’
‘Just one miracle,’ Jonas said thickly, pulling her into him so she was crushed against his heart. ‘Just one miracle, my love. And that miracle is you.’
And who was Emily to disagree with that?
Marion Lennox
