Parker OFFICIAL

I ACTUALLY LAUGHED OUT LOUD as I read it. Well, damn. Amelia had written Greer’s last book. I wondered how she had pulled it off. No doubt about it, Greer had had her secrets. But we all do.

As I read, contentment washed over me. It was like she knew. Yes, she was talking about Amelia writing her book. But Amelia was letting Greer live on. And she had been grateful for that. She couldn’t have known… but, somehow, it was like she did.

Greer had been my world. She had been life and all the light inside of it. But I had a new light now—three of them, in fact.

It was time.

As I closed the journal for what I knew would be the final time, I put my hand on the soft, smooth cover. “Goodbye, Greer,” I whispered. “I love you forever. Thank you for giving me permission to move forward.” I took a deep breath, swallowed the lump in my throat, and put the journal in the box for the very last time.

I was closing the box when Amelia walked into the library. I glanced down at my watch and was shocked to see that it was almost nine a.m.

“What are those?” she asked. Then she looked at the shelf. “They don’t bother me, Park. I swear they don’t. I understand needing to hold on to a memory. Hell, I’m living in mine.”

I smiled and pulled her to me. “I know. But, Amelia, I’m marrying the love of my life today. I just don’t need the journals anymore.” I kissed her gently.

Her eyes filled with tears, and I turned and placed the heavy box on the top shelf of the closet. She put her hands on her belly. “For the babies?”

I nodded.

“No,” she said, gesturing for me to take them down. She walked down the hall into the baby blue room overlooking the sound with the matching cribs in the window, the chaise in the corner, the antique chest with the changing table pad on the side, and a huge bookshelf that was already filled with books—some from our childhoods—for our babies to read.

Amelia pointed to the top empty bamboo shelf. She opened the box I was holding and pulled out a stack of journals. “They should go here,” she said. “I never want to hide Greer away. I never want you or the babies to feel like we can’t talk about her.”

When we were finished unpacking the box, I set it on the floor. I put my hand on a volume on the bookshelf, Greer’s second book, the hardback with her glossy picture—and her name in massive type—on the cover. I pulled it off the shelf and handed it to Amelia. “I don’t know how you did it,” I said.

She froze and said nothing.

It was then that I realized the irony: Amelia’s words had actually convinced me to ask her—a woman who insisted she didn’t want to get married—to marry me. But that seemed like a conversation for another day.