Goldie and the Three Wisconsin Bears

My mother sucked on her teeth. Then she erupted into coughing. We tried not to give it too much of our attention, but the lung cancer was back, and it was going to take her this time.

“No, I don’t talk about her,” she said when she recovered. “And she doesn’t talk about me. Cut me dead when I came down here and got pregnant by a white boy who turned out not to want me.”

Oh…

“Do you regret it?” I asked her. “Do you regret falling in love.”

Another suck of her teeth, but this time it didn’t send her into a coughing fit. “I hear plenty of people talking about their love regrets in the shop. But the truth is, love isn’t about regrets. It’s about love. So love, mon p’tit bout. If you ever have a chance with a man of your own, love him with all you’ve got. With all your heart.”

Mon p’tit bout. More foreign words. But it wasn’t Wolof. It was a French term of endearment, my little bit. She hadn’t called me that since I was a child.

And she never would again.

With all of your heart…

My mother’s words whispered through my ears. And suddenly everything became clear.

I took the three rings and placed them one by one on my wedding finger. They weren’t the same size. One was tighter than the others. I realize why when I slip them all on. They fell in an interlocking pattern. Three rings made to look like one. Three rings that were stronger together on one finger.

Something loosened in my chest, and I let out a long-held breath. With my background, I might never come to believe what Jeb told me outside, to feel that I truly deserve their love.

But the only way to pay them back for what they have given me…security, worth, and pleasure beyond all bounds…was to love them in return. I needed to love them as big as I possibly could. I needed to earn their love and give it triple back in return.

As their wife.

My heart felt like a balloon inside my chest as I returned to the kitchen and grabbed the diaper bag on my way out the door.

I’d driven back to Sweet Lake, the town I passed on the way here. After so long in the forest, even a small sleepy town like this felt like a huge civilization. And it was the opposite of what was all over the news. Everything was open, and almost no one was wearing a mask.

Still, I tear open one of the packages and put a face covering on before stopping to ask a woman walking on the street, “Excuse me, do you know where I can find a bank?”

“Only one bank in Sweet Lake,” she answers. “It’s right around the corner.”

It had been so much easier than I thought it would be to open the bank account. I had seen movies where depositing a lot of money tipped off a call to the feds. But when I told the only cashier behind the glass what I was looking to do, a bank manager came out all smiles.

“Mr. Nelson told us his fiancée might be coming through today. What an interesting engagement gift!”

She looks at me in that overly cheerful way of people who want your business but also want to pry.

But she shows me straight into her office after I don’t offer her any explanations. And when I hand her my driver’s license, she says, “Okay, Gina Bryant, let’s get you a bank account!”

That was the first time someone had called me by my real name in months, but the world didn’t blow up as I feared. Instead, we went through the rather mundane paperwork. No proof of address needed, the manager told me with a wink. “Your famous fiancé’s word is good enough for us!”

I deposited everything from the diaper bag but one stack of the bills. And after I was done, I had paperwork with my name on it. For the first time in years.

I was beyond giddy as I climbed back into my new car. I imagined presenting the paperwork with my name—my real name on it to the men who’d asked to marry me, and saying, “Yes, please.”

Then I’d tell them everything. Let them help me handle the threat of Tommy. The old guilt lingered, but I put it in its place. I wasn’t going to run scared anymore. From now on, if I had a problem, I’d take it to the men I loved, and we’d figure it out. Together.

Together…

That was exactly the word I had been thinking when I heard a rustle behind me.

I’d turned and froze. There was a man in the back seat of my car! No, not a man. Tommy. Tommy was staring back at me with crazed eyes and a gun in his hand. It was the same revolver he’d pointed at me the one time I talked about us breaking up.