Bound to Submit

“You’re my life now, Griffin. I want you involved in every part. But this part, you gotta know,” she said, needing to tell him beforehand even though she hated for him to be disappointed in her. “This part isn’t my finest moment. I’m two years late delivering something I should’ve made a priority from the beginning, and I don’t see how Ms. Kern is going to be happy about that.”

He shook his head, so damn handsome in a pair of blue jeans and a navy button-down shirt, a pair of shades pushed up on his head. “You’re making it right, now, Kenna, that’s what counts. And letting someone know that they were thought of and loved—it’s never too late for that.”

Kenna tried like hell to keep those words in mind as Griffin drove her to Ms. Kern’s little yellow contemporary-style house, with a Mediterranean-inspired red tile roof and swaying palm trees in the yard. She didn’t think this was the house in which Georgia had grown up, but Kenna still imagined that she could feel her there, near her mom, smiling in the sun.

“Ready?” he asked when he parked the rental car.

“No,” she said, but she pushed out of the door holding a large, sealed padded envelope in her hand.

Griffin came around and gently grasped her by the arms. “Just speak from the heart, baby. The two of you loved the same person. That counts for a lot.”

Her eyes stung, but she blinked the sensation away. “Okay. I can do this.”

He kissed her, soft and quick. “Of course you can.”

And then she was standing at the door in the still-hot November sun. Knocking. Waiting.

The door opened. “Can I help you?” the lady asked. And, oh God, Kenna could see Georgia in her, in the hazel eyes and same auburn-brown hair and the shape of her mouth. She looked between Kenna and Griffin, and then her gaze dropped to Kenna’s limb, apparent in the sleeveless floral sundress she’d worn.

“Ms. Kern? My name is—”

“Kenna? Are you Kenna Sloane?”

Her chest squeezed, half sure that she was going to turn her away before she even got in the door. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh,” the woman gasped, tears springing immediately to her eyes. “Oh, I’ve hoped for so long to meet you.” Ms. Kern spilled out of her doorway and pulled Kenna into a hug, and the contact made Kenna cry, too. But they were good tears, tears that reconnected her to something so very important, cleansing tears that washed away more of her guilt. Finally, Ms. Kern pulled back and just looked at her. “Oh, you’re as pretty as Georgia said you were. Come in, please. Both of you.”

Kenna introduced Griffin as Ms. Kern ushered them into the air conditioning and fixed them both drinks, and then they all settled into the living room.

“Ma’am—”

“Oh, please, that makes me feel old.” She smiled. “Call me Leigh.”

“Okay, Leigh,” Kenna said, fingering the envelope. The lady’s reaction at the door chased away the fear that she’d be angry at Kenna, but she still knew this was going to be hard. “I have something for you, but I have to apologize because I should’ve brought it a long time ago. I hope you can forgive me.” She held it out to the older woman.

“Oh,” she said, her hand trembling. “What is it?”

Kenna shook her head, equal parts curious and afraid to see. “I don’t know for sure. When we first got to Afghanistan, Georgia came up with the idea that we should put together little good-bye presents, and that we should give them to each other. Just in case something happened. And that way,” Kenna said, trying to make it through the words before more tears fell. “That way we’d know that the other person’s loved one got their package, and that it was personally delivered in case they needed someone with them.”

“Good-bye present,” Leigh said, her voice strained as her fingers smoothed over the envelope where Georgia’s scrawled handwriting had written, simply, Mom. Kenna had retrieved Leigh’s address from the Corps. After. “That sounds like her.”

“It does.” Georgia could be a smart ass, but she was also the first one to come with an idea to do something nice for someone else. Every time.