Cross My Heart

Chapter 39

More emotional Gwen/her mum reunion.......

EMILY'S POV:

My heart was hurting so badly, like it was the day it had all happened. I had gone to sleep one night, with the love of my life, my child, my daughter, my BABY, by my side, after having looked up at the small part of the Universe that we were able to see from the grass in that small spot on Earth, and I woke up the next morning, and she was gone. My LIFE was gone.

And here now, 23 years later, here she was! She was sobbing at her own story she'd never known. Listening to the mother she'd always wondered about, I'm sure. If she hadn't, Gavin wouldn't have contacted me.

I wanted so badly to go to her. To hug her. To take her in my arms like I did when she was a baby, and hold her and take away her hurt. I wanted to hug her so badly. But she had Gavin now. She was an adult now. She'd found love. And what a love it was, I could tell. The way she trusted him. The way she let him answer for her. The way he knew exactly when I'd said something that sparked whatever sadness she had from her life away from me. I wanted to know what had happened in her life, so badly. I could see her sadness. Even though she was happy with Gavin, I could see it. There was an underlying sadness. An....exhaustion that life had put her through. Maybe a few extra lines on her young face. I don't know. But I could see it. And it wasn't just because Gavin had said in his letter that she'd had a really hard life. As her mother, I could tell. It was in all of her movements. In all of her tears. In all of the words, whatever ones they were, that made her stop me in mid story, to get the tears of her own demons out. The way Gavin read her like a book, and the way she trusted him with every horrible detail and he knew exactly what would set her off....it was a love like I'd never seen. It had amazed me all day, so far.

I looked at Gavin and Gwen through my tears. He was protecting her. I could tell that if he could, he'd take all of her pain and sorrow from her without a second thought. He was protecting her from ME, all day long. I knew this. And I loved him for it. I could easily hurt her...again. He knew that. She knew that. But he wouldn't let me. The only thing he couldn't protect her from was her demons. And she had demons. And that drove him crazy, I could tell this also. So he did whatever he could, to make sure she didn't pick up any more.

Gwen stood up all of a sudden, and tore me out of my mental analysis of them both.
Gavin looked confused, but he let her do whatever she was doing, as he struggled to figure it out as quickly as he could. She walked steadily around the table, and towards me. I looked up, not knowing if I'd receive a slap in the face, or what. I didn't care what I got. She needed to do whatever it was she was about to do.
She stood in front of me and both of her hands were covering her mouth now. One going across it, and the other diagonal up and down. She was a mess. I was a mess. And Gavin...he was a mess too. He had tears coming out as he listened to my story, too. And when Gwen broke down at the end, he did too. He hid his face in her shoulder a little bit, but he had it facing Gwen, and I.
He wasn't afraid to cry. He wasn't too cool for that. There were intense feelings in this room, and he felt them too. A sensitive boy. I liked that about him also. Was there anything wrong with him, I wondered?

Gwen took her hands from her mouth and stretched her arms out towards me.
I didn't even think twice. My hands flew to my own mouth in shock and happiness as more tears suddenly flooded out. Happy tears. I stood up and I closed the gap between us, and she hugged me.
SHE hugged ME this time. And I hugged my daughter back. This was the moment I'd been waiting for, for 23 years. The moment I'd wished for every single new year. Every single birthday. Every single shooting star. I just wanted my daughter back in my arms again. This was better than the hug at my front door. Because SHE was hugging ME. And she WANTED TO.