Chapter 11
People were already leaving at Michael's and Jean still hadn't returned. Ivan had Michael call Alex to check if she was still there. Alex told him Jean had already left earlier that evening. Ivan was starting to worry. He asked Michael if he still needed him to be there.
"No. You've done so much for me already." Michael answered.
Ivan studied Michael's face. He looked so exhausted.
"I'll be fine, Ivan. Just go." Michael said, feigning impatience.
Ivan rolled his eyes at Michael and smiled. "Okay. I'm going." He said as went to the door. "But call me if you need anything." He added before closing the door behind him.
Ivan tried calling Jean's cell phone but it went straight to voice mail. Before getting inside his car, he tried his home phone, thinking she might already be there. However, there was no one answering. He decided to drive by the diner but it was closed. He passed by the cemetery too but there was no sign of Jean there either. There was one place left to check, her apartment, but Ivan didn't know exactly where it was. Eventually, he gave up and went home.
On his way to his room, he noticed the door of his mother's room slightly open. He went to the door and saw the lamp on.
"Ivan." Jean who was sitting on the bed looked up from a picture frame she was holding. "I didn't hear you come in."
"Yeah. You didn't hear me calling on the phone either." Ivan said in a light tone.
"I was in the shower." She reasoned.
Ivan walked further into the room and noticed Jean's tear streaked face. He immediately went to her side. "Jean, what's wrong?" She handed him the picture. "It's a picture of you and Mom during high school." Ivan stated.
Jean nodded. "Turn it around." She told him as she stood up to turn the overhead light on for him.
Ivan turned the old photograph saw what was behind it—Jean and Rose's handwriting.
"Those are rules that we made for our friendship." Jean explained. "We wrote that in our junior year in high school."
"Pull up the other's hair when throwing up after drinking too much." Ivan he read it out loud. He smiled at her in amusement.
"Your mother always had to do that for me." Jean sat back down beside him on the bed and looked through the list with him. Jean pointed to a rule in the lower half of the picture.
"Look out for each other's children in the future." Ivan read.
"Yeah." She said, nodding into silence.
Ivan noticed how distant her eyes were. She was still staring at the list but she seemed to be somewhere else.
"After I found out I can't bear a child, your mother sat me down to talk. She had us renew our rules and plans for the future, especially mine. That was when she was still pregnant with you. Before she ended our conversation, she told me that she'd make sure that you would grow up thinking of me as your second mother."
"And I do." Ivan gave her arm a reassuring squeeze.
Jean looked at her arm. It was the same gesture Rose, Ivan's mother, had done years ago when she told her that she couldn't have any children. Rose had made her promise that if anything were to happen to her or her husband that she would look after Ivan as if he was her own.
"Jean, you're like my third parent." It was true. She was more nurturing than his father.
"Thank you. That really means a lot." Jean smiled at Ivan as her eyes watered. "Because I'd like to adopt you."
