I get up and run to the door. “Oh, my God.” I stop and cover my mouth. Apparently, I’m going to do nothing but sob all day. “I didn’t know you were coming!”
Mr. and Mrs. Stone, Jeff’s parents, walk into the room and take turns hugging me tightly. Mr. Stone hugs me the longest, and when he sets me back from him, he has tears in his eyes.
“Jake called and invited us,” he explains.
My belly drops down toward my toes. “Jake called you?”
He nods. “He wanted to tell us about the wedding, and he thought you might want us to be here.”
“I did,” I rush to say. “I do. I just…” I don’t know how to finish it. I don’t know how to tell them that I was afraid they wouldn’t approve. “I was scared,” I finally admit.
Mr. Stone chuckles and it sounds so much like Jeff that I have to look at him twice. “Jeff wouldn’t want you to die with him,” Mr. Stone says. “He’d want you to find someone wonderful like Jake. He’d want you to be happy.”
I can only nod at him. I couldn’t get a word out if I tried.
“Well, we’ll be here watching. Cheering you on.” He leans toward me and pretends to whisper. “And drinking your beer.”
I laugh and hug him before he leaves. Jeff’s mom steps closer to me. She has been very quiet. “I’d like to make a formal request,” she says.
“Okay…”
“We’d like to spend a little more time with our grandchildren. We can come to you, or you can come to us, we don’t care which, but we want to be in their lives.” She stops and clears her throat. “We want to be in all their lives. All four of them are special to us, and we want to know them.”
Emotion chokes me and I pull her to me. “You don’t have to,” I whisper to her.
“All four of them are important to us, so we’d like to see them all. We’d like for them all to know us as their grandparents, if that’s all right with you.”
I wipe my eyes. “It’s all right with me.”
She reaches into her purse and pulls out an envelope. She holds it out for me. “Jeff left this for you,” she says.
I don’t reach for it. She thrusts it toward me again. I don’t take it. In fact, I take a step back away from it.
“It’s just a letter,” she says.
“Have you read it?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No. But you should.”
I take another step back. “Why do you have it?”
“You know the letters he left for everyone?”
I nod. Jeff left letters for everyone he loved, including me and his parents, and we got them when he died. He also left one for each of the children, for them to read on the day they get married. They don’t know about those letters, but I was left with strict instructions on how to distribute them. “I remember them,” I say. “I already read my letter.”
“Well, this was included in my letter, along with special instructions. I have another one to deliver too. You’re not the only one.”
“Who’s the other one for?”
“The other one is for the man you marry,” she says softly. “Jeff wanted to tell him some things.”
“What kind of things?” I whisper.
She laughs. “I have no idea, but knowing Jeff, it should be really good.”
“I don’t want it,” I say. “Take it with you.”
She sets it on the coffee table and walks to the door. She looks back at me. “We’d like to sit behind your parents. Would that be all right with you?” she asks. “Can we still be family?”