“Alex! Where exactly are we going?” Elise almost had to run to keep up with him.
“We’re going for a walk around town. Oh did you hear that Howie’s taking Jen to New York?” A.J. kept going.
“Ok then let’s walk!” A.J. slowed down. “ Jen told me right after he told her.” Elise caught her breath.
A.J. stopped and put his arm around her waist. They did a little bit of window-shopping and stopped at a little Italian restaurant for lunch.
They were eating when out of nowhere A.J. jumped up and ran over to a woman. She looked around the age of his mother. The woman looked ready to cry as A.J. embraced her.
A.J. rested his hands her shoulders and said, “Hey Mom, how are you?”
“I’m better. And you?”
A.J. motioned for the woman to follow him to their table. When they got there he took, a very confused Elise’s, hand.
“Mom, this is my wife, Lethia,” he squeezed both their hands.
“Um hello,” Elise was still very confused.
“Oh my! A.J. she’s gorgeous. I know Amanda approves.”
A.J. smiled and wiped a small tear from his eye and nodded. Just then Elise realized who she was. ‘Oh my god! She’s Amanda’s mom!’
“I miss her,” the woman sat down slowly.
“Believe me mom, I do too.”
Elise stood next to A.J. who was sitting down. She felt so awkward. For the first time ever she felt like A.J. loved someone else. It was a scary feeling.
“Elise sit down,” A.J. patted his lap and she slowly lowered herself onto his lap.
“So um, Lethia, I’m sorry if I interrupted. Let me introduce myself. I am Mrs. Latona, Amanda’s mom. I’m sure you know who she is.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Hey mom, guess what!” A.J. tried to make things comfortable between the two women. It was obvious Elise was uncomfortable.
“What dear?”
A.J. set his hands softly on Elise’s belly and smiled, “Guess.”
The older woman examined the situation, “Is she…” the woman smiled, “pregnant?”
A.J. nodded and kissed Elise’s shoulder. Elise was still speechless. For some reason her throat had become sore and she was getting a headache.
“Are you okay?” A.J. noticed her hands had become clammy.
“Um,” she wasn’t sure what to say. ‘Am I jealous?’ she thought, ‘ No not possible. How can that be true?’ She couldn’t even consider it.
“Elise!” A.J. shook her lightly.
“Huh… What?”
“Are you okay?”
“Um, yeah. I’m fine why?”
“A.J. you know I think I’ll be leaving now. I hope I see you again soon,” Amanda’s mom gave A.J. a quick hug and walked away.
Elise, who was now standing, stared blankly at the floor. A.J. set his finger below her chin and slowly raised her head. “You’re not okay. Let’s go home.”
All the way home Elise was silent. She wasn’t sure what had just happened and it was killing her. She felt ready to cry and wasn’t sure why.
A.J. kept trying to talk to her but kept stopping himself. She was acting so strange and it was beginning to scare him. Then out of nowhere she began to cry.
”’Lise?” he set his hand on her lap and she held it.
She continued to cry but caressed his fingers studying them with great concentration as though it were the last time she would hold them. A.J. took note of what she was doing but didn’t stop her. He’d never seen her act so strange. ‘It’s just the pregnancy’ he said to himself to calm down.
They walked in the house hand-in-hand and sat down on the couch. “Do you want to talk?” A.J. asked slowly.
Elise wiped off her face and wrapped her arms around him. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be ‘Lise.”
“Yes I do. I was such a jerk.”
“No baby. You were… nervous.”
“Alex… I’ve always been scared to ask…”
“Ask what?”
“About… about Amanda.”
“Oh, ok… wow. I thought you’d never ask. How do I do this?” A.J. sighed and gently kissed Elise’s forehead. “It was about a week before her birthday…” A.J. smiled and stood up, “You want to see what I was going to give her?”
“Sure.”
A.J. ran to the bedroom and into the walk-in closet. He came out about 5 minutes later with a box in his hands.
“What’s that?”
“You’ll see...” A.J. slowly opened the box and carefully pulled out trinkets and other boxes. “Oh here it is!” he pulled out a small velvet box.
“A music box?”
“Not just a music box ‘Lise… look.” He opened the box all the way letting the beautiful music flow out.
In the middle of the box was one of those dancing ballerinas with an engagement ring around her waist. “Oh A.J. did you?”
“Well I was going to… you know that we broke up for a while after black and blue right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well we were still friends… and I guess I still had hopes…” he took a deep breath and sighed.” We were driving home from her parents’ house. They had a surprise party for her. We weren’t very far from here when out of nowhere a truck slammed into us.”
“Oh god.”
“It hit her side full force. The last thing I saw was her crying and reaching for my hand. I had crashed through my window. If I hadn’t had my seatbelt on I don’t think I’d be here today. I can remember taking her hand right before I passed out.” Tears were streaming down his face.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“I want to, it’s ok.”
“Are you sure? I mean I’m…”
“Elise,” he grabbed her hand and she began to cry with him, “I heard the paramedics show up. The guy in the truck wasn’t hurt… he wasn’t even bruised. At first I was told he had fallen asleep… Turns out he was high.”
He looked at Elise and sighed again, “I dint’ wake up till the next morning and they told me she was in a coma, or something like that. They rolled my wheelchair into her room and left. I couldn’t say anything, I just choked up.”
A.J. stared blankly at the ceiling, Elise felt horrible for asking him to tell her but he seemed like he really wanted her to know. “What did you do?” she whispered.
“I pulled my body out of that stupid wheelchair and onto the side of the bed. Probably took me about 10 minutes to get up there. It was torture to look at her once I got up there so I just fell next to her and cried.”
“Oh Alex…” Elise hugged him.
“Right before she died she came out and moved her hand. I thought she was coming back to me so I just stared at her face. When it finally came to me that she was gone I just started screaming for the doctors to do something. Just bring her back so I could tell her I still loved her. As they pulled me away I looked down at her hand… it... it… she, she told me she loved me before she died. With one movement of her hand she said ‘I love you’ and died. As they pulled me out of the room I just yelled I love you too over and over again. Until I collapsed into a chair and couldn’t speak any more.”
“I’m so sorry Alex, I was so scared that you loved someone else… I know how dumb that sounds but I did.”
A.J. took Elise’s face in his hands and brought it close to his. “I love you Elise, don’t ever, EVER think I don’t. I love her too, that’s not ever going to change… but you don’t need to worry about it. Besides,” he smiled and kissed her, “I don’t think it’s possible to cheat with a dead woman.”
Elise laughed slightly, “That was so mean.”
“I know I’m sorry.”
“Tell her that…”
A.J. smiled slightly and opened back up the music box, “Amanda, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”
Elise reached over slowly and closed the lid to the box… Then turning to her husband she whispered, “I think you’re forgiven.”