Almost a Family

After that kiss, all Molly wanted to do was disappear and brood, but Sara was demanding treats, and Molly knew the rest of the day would be a disaster of pouting niece if they didn’t give in. Hopefully, there’d be no time to talk. Molly simply wasn’t prepared. How could they possibly work things out when she didn’t even understand her own feelings?

Jason made cocoa from scratch while Molly watched him from across the room. He frothed the milk with a wire whisk while Sara romped with Bubbles and Molly put out a plate of store-bought cookies. In some ways Jason was unpredictable, but in others…

Oh, in others. The way he kissed hadn’t changed at all. He had a style, a taste that was simply Jason, one she was helpless to resist. One that was as natural to her as the sunrise each day. As he brought the steaming mugs to the table, topped with fluffy white marshmallows, she swallowed hard to stop remembering. To stop wanting him again.

“I only filled yours half, muffin,” he explained, putting the cup before Sara. “But you can have more if you want it.”

Sara happily munched on oatmeal raisin and sipped her cocoa, using a finger to dab at the white blobs on the top. Silence fell, heavy and awkward, until Sara finished her snack and headed for the living room and television, clearly subdued after her busy afternoon.

“Mol…”

She stopped him with a look as she cleared mugs off the table. “Not now. I can’t talk about this now.”

“Then when? Because we should talk about what happened. Today and the other day, too.”

She aimed a furtive, frustrated glare in his direction. “Nothing happened, okay? Nothing that can happen again.”

“We can’t pretend it didn’t happen, Mol.”

“Yes, we can!” She turned her back to him, rinsed the mugs and put them in his dishwasher. She wondered how his voice could sound so calm and rational when everything was churning up inside of her. “We can because it changes nothing!”

“Aunt Molly!” The shout came from the living room followed by a tiny giggle. “You were pretty!”

She met Jason’s bland stare and he shrugged, so she followed him into the living room.

Sara was in the middle of the sofa, her chubby hands holding a white-covered photo album in her lap. “Look.” She pointed, obviously enthused. “Aunt Molly’s pretty dress. And you have funny hair, Uncle Jason!”

Her angelic face looked up, having fun with an album Molly never even knew existed. One that Molly would rather not look at, but she didn’t have the heart to take it away from Sara, not when the girl was having so much fun with it. She couldn’t expect a child to understand what she herself could not.

They sat down, one on either side of Sara, with a book that was a visual diary of their years together. The picture she was pointing to was their prom. Jason in his black tuxedo and she in a long blue gown, a corsage of white roses adorning her left wrist. Pictures of the two of them and friends they’d long since lost touch with. Other pictures from their final year of high school, when he’d lived in rugby shirts and jeans, and she’d had her hair permed into a blonde, unruly mass. There was one of them at a school dance, her arms around his neck and his resting on her waist as they smiled for the camera. Another of them at the school Christmas drive for the local food bank. At a skating party with their group of friends. Sara asked what each one was and Jason dutifully explained while Molly swallowed back sadness as the memories trickled in, warm and painful.

Jason’s mind drifted back as he touched a picture with his finger. This one, their hair damp and both of them dressed in oversized sweatshirts after a beach party and bonfire at the provincial park. That night had been the first night they’d made love after a year of dating. He’d known with all the wisdom of his eighteen years that he loved her, and that night, in his two-man tent, they’d gone all the way. It had been better than he’d expected. His nervousness had melted away the moment he’d held her warm, soft body in his arms and kissed her. He’d been her first. And she his. They’d learned all that they knew together.

For the next four years, they’d been inseparable, completing their first degrees and falling even deeper in love.

He flipped the page in the album and stopped.

He’d taken a photography course in his third year and as a joke, she’d modeled for him, hamming it up for the camera. He’d captured a few that he remembered now he’d kept, showing no one but putting them in his own personal album. One where she was laughing at something silly, her eyes and nose scrunched up and mouth wide with hilarity. Another of her sleeping after he’d loved her thoroughly, her hair rumpled, lashes laying long and full in slumber. Her cheeks were flushed and the silk strap of her ivory nightie was brushed off her shoulder, the sheets wrapped around her hips.

“Aunt Molly, you look just like Sleeping Beauty,” Sara breathed.

Molly laughed, the sound coming out husky and shy. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

“Was Uncle Jason the Prince that woke you up with a magic kiss?”

How could they resist such a guileless, enchanting creature? Jason watched as Molly put her arm around Sara and squeezed. “Yes, baby, he was.”

Their gazes met and delved deeply. No matter how hard they tried to pretend, how much Molly protested, nothing was over between them. Not even close.

He looked away again and turned a final page.

This was the one he’d loved the most, the one he’d forgotten entirely about until seeing it again. He’d developed it himself in the dark room at school. Experimenting with black and white, he’d taken a picture of her beneath the arch at the Christmas Ball in their fourth year. Her hands held her long skirt in her fingers as she had half-turned. She’d worn white that night, a strapless bodice and full skirt, looking more like an angel than a woman had a right to. When she’d looked over her shoulder at him like that and smiled, he’d captured it. He’d wanted to re-create that shot, but on their wedding day, perhaps with her bouquet hanging loosely from one hand as she held her skirt, and a few strands of hair loose after their long day.

Sara’s hands clapped. “You look like a bride!”

Molly swallowed hard. A bride that had never been.

She rose abruptly, avoiding Jason’s probing gaze. “I just remembered I have some phone calls to make.” The excuse was lame. It was Sunday. He had to know there were no calls, but he let her go.