Jonah gave my shoulder a squeeze before letting his hand drop away for a moment before he rifled through his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper that he’d been entrusted with. “He’s the only one I trust not to read it before it’s time,” Grandpa had claimed, sliding me a look that said yeah, you know you’d read it if I left it with you.
And he would have been right, because I had tried to convince Jonah to let me read it at least twice.
And it was that thought that brought the first smile onto my face that day.
He’d always known me better than anyone.
Well, maybe he was tied with Jonah. And he would have been totally fine with that.
Holding the paper with two shaky hands, one of the six loves of my life sidestepped into me until his biceps touched me, the side of his bare foot touching mine. I was his reassurance then, I knew. And this enormous man who had fought for every year of his career, who had put his family first every single time he was needed, who was the best friend, best father, best person I knew—tied with Peter—cleared his throat as he unfolded the piece of paper as he said, “I have a letter Granddad Gus wanted me to read to everyone.”
He cleared his throat just as Marcus took my hand again and Jonah’s little toe touched mine. Peter smiled from where he was sitting, glasses shoved up onto the bridge of his beloved nose, and let out a deep, deep breath. It was then that I saw that Mo, twenty-one years old and as beautiful as her dad, had her hand through his, and Luna had his other one. Her left hand was linked through her oldest daughter’s. Her husband’s hands were on her shoulders.
Her shiny eyes met mine, and we smiled at each other just as Jonah started again.
“Dear everyone,” Jonah read. “Fuck you—wait.”
Beside me, Marcus snorted this watery noise, but I looked up at Jonah to figure out what the hell he was reading. Sure enough, the lines across his forehead were wrinkled in confusion as those beautiful eyes moved across the sheet of paper… but it was the slow smile that crept across his face that surprised me. And the tear that bubbled up in the corner of my husband’s eye that he wiped off with a big index finger before saying, with laughter and pain in his voice, “He wrote in parentheses to point randomly around and say fuck you, point at someone else and say fuck you, and do that at least eight times.”
I wasn’t expecting the laugh that burst out of my throat, much less Peter’s or Mo’s, but it happened. Even Marcus fully laughed. Jonah smiled over at me, lips pressing tight together before he read on with a shake of his head like he should have expected that.
We all should have.
That was Grandpa Gus. Even in death, he would want to fuck with us. I had loved that man with my entire heart for the entirety of the fifty-one years of my life, and somehow I loved him even more then than ever, and I hadn’t thought that was humanly possible.
Jonah’s hand snuck over to squeeze my wrist for a moment before lifting the paper back up to his face and continuing on, but this time with laughter on his face and in his voice. “If you’re reading this, none of y’all better be crying. I’m not kidding. Not a single tear. But if you really need to, it’s okay. I would miss me too.”
I laughed again as tears streamed out of my eyes and down my face, and I had to stoop to use Marcus’s shoulder to wipe them off as he dragged a skinny fist across his face to do the same. I glanced at Peter to find him smiling huge, not a single tear in his gaze as it focused on Jonah. But everyone else… we weren’t that strong.
And my husband, my love, kept going. “I didn’t want a funeral because there’s nothing to be sad about, and I hate the color black. I hope at least one of you is wearing a Hawaiian shirt. I wanted you all to come and be together, to be happy, in one of the most beautiful places in the world. To remember the most important part of life is living it with people that you love and people that love you right back. It’s the greatest gift we can have.
“Where you’re standing right now is where the best man I’ve ever known finally married me. He gave up his family, his career, and our home, for me. For our family. We had to keep what we had a secret for over thirty years so that our business would prosper, because we were scared of being judged and losing everything.
“He gave me the best years of his life, and I tried to do the same, but as I look back on it now, I wish we wouldn’t have had to hide it for so long. I wished I had told every person in my life to fuck off, as my Lenny would say, and have had more years of our rings on each other’s fingers. But I think I would have felt that way even if we’d had a thousand of them. But it’s what we had to do, and it all worked out. What I’m trying to tell you all from the grave—”
There were a few watery snorts, because he’d gone there.
“Is this: I love you all, and I want you to remember now that I’m not around, to never forget what’s important. You’re each important. You’re each loved. And if you love something or someone, you don’t ever give up on it. Life’s not easy but hold on to the things that matter, even if you have to use some fingernails. I told one of you once that you don’t throw away the things that matter. Hold on for me. Fight for me, or like I’m behind you telling you that you better not quit,” Jonah read.
He had told me that. I remembered. When he’d fired me so Mo and I could go to Japan to be with Jonah, that had been the sentence he’d said when he’d hugged me tight and set me free. Kind of. Because he’d followed me there and stayed with me for ten months out of the year.
Jonah read a little more of the paper that was directly meant for his friends and the members of Jonah’s family that had come, and then this wonderful amazing man I had been lucky enough to spend the last two decades of my life with said, “Mo and Marcus, I love you two so much, and I’m so proud of you. I’m always here. I’ll always be listening for you. Jasper—” Jonah’s voice broke off with a laugh at the nickname the old vampire had never managed to totally drop even after so long. “—you are the second best man I know. It was a privilege knowing you—” He swallowed and glanced at me to whisper, “He called me son.”
I couldn’t help but smile at him as I wrapped my fingers around his forearm and said, “He’s been calling you that behind your back for years, Dimples. He loved you.”
He knew that. I knew he knew that. Jonah smiled before ducking down to give me a kiss on the nose. He straightened, swallowed hard, and nodded to himself. “Okay. There’s just a little more. To the two loves of my life—”
Peter and I made eye contact then. My second dad. His smile hadn’t gone anywhere, and I’d swear his eyes sparkled from behind his glasses. I smiled at him too then, knowing he was fine between Mo and Luna, while I gave my own strength to these two guys of mine who needed me.
“—you gave me a reason to live. And I’m going to haunt you both for the rest of your lives. That creaking noise you hear in the attic? It’s me. The shadow you see out of the corner of your eye? That’s me too. I love you both. You know that. You know what you mean to me. I love you all. I’m never far away. Do what you have to do to be happy, okay? No one else is going to do it for you.”