The Trouble With Love Is You

Chapter Twenty One - The Trouble With Love Is You

Three years since mum died. Some say she jumped, some say she overdosed, she didn’t. Hallucinations started two years after taking medication. She sliced her wrist open and watched it bleed with blank eyes screaming when someone came near her.

I didn’t cry at her funeral. I just felt numb. Felt nothing.

The hushed up the prison mix-up but they couldn’t shut this off. It was all over the news, the paper. People at college whispered and nudged each other whenever I came around and treated me special.

The girl with the lunatic mother who suicide.

And I hated it. I hated the way they looked at me a mixture of pity and sympathy. I didn’t want it. Any of it. Yet I still pasted on a brave face and smiled at everyone like everything was okay.

Trey was incredibly supportive as was Dad. Holly had her kid, a cute little boy who lisped. My little godson, Tyler. They named me godmother and Trey godfather. Nathan had wanted a ‘manly’ name for a manly son. Dad joked around, “So when can I be a grandad too?”

I’d scowled and told him he was still young remembering the rime when I visited him in jail. Nathan was a good father. I could have sworn he spoke more baby talk than proper English. And since they had a kid, they’d decided to get hitched. Fresh out of high school.

Since we lived in Boston now, we saw little of our huge family but called heaps. Dad had his big break and his name and his famous painting Blue Kisses were hanging in an art gallery.

Then I decided it was time to visit mum’s grave. I’d never been before unable to face the fact she was gone. Gone but memories of her were still burnt into my mind like they were fresh.

I loved Danielle and Aunt Kayla but it was different. I would never smell my mum’s perfume again or feel her warm arms around me.

When I got to the cemetery it was even more overwhelming. Trey wanted to come but I went alone boarding a plane and taking the local bus.

I knelt down onto the rough stones and ran my hand along the smooth marble. There were no flowers, just an epitaph. Miranda Capello, Mother and wife.

That was when it hit me. I stood up fluidly and made a phone call. A few days later I had the writing changed.

Beloved mother and wife. Your memory will live on.

There were fresh flowers and I made sure to ask the local florist to replace the rotting ones with new ones every week. I paid her in full but she pushed the money away.

“I still remember my old mother,” she was a lady around sixty. “Took an overdose on drugs when I was fifteen. I blamed her a lot for dying. She wasn’t there for me and it made me mad.” She looked at me her eyes filling up with tears. “You should never be mad at your parents, dear no matter what they’ve done.”

I went back a second time, the sun was setting and it was dark. The tears that fell landed on the marble and the flowers. That numb feeling was gone, replaced by anger. Not at her, at her illness.

I ran from the cemetery wiping the tears. It was hard to remember I was twenty one. It felt like I was two again sobbing after my kite blew away slipping out of my fingers.

Like my mother.

“Why did you have to leave me?” I screamed at the sky. “You could have told me you loved me at least.” I whispered kneeling down on the pavement.

I was sobbing until I noticed something. White flakes floating down from the sky. It rarely snowed. One landed in front of me. Perfectly shaped, flawless.

“I love you too mum,” I whispered.

*

Luke was an actor. Don’t ask me how it happened. He was to be casted into a movie as leading man. I mean sure he had the looks but the talent? I shot my family weird looks and they explained how he’d played the bad guy at my party ages ago.

So of course I charged my fee of being used as a stage tool and now had a slave for a week. He wasn’t particularly pleased he had to pick up my car from the mechanics, or run down the supermarket for milk, or drive me around like a chauffeur to wherever I wanted. Yet he pasted on a big fake grin and oblige.

When the week finished, I handed over a game he’d desperately wanted. He, Nathan and Trey crowded around the play station like kids again.

“You’re amazing,” Luke smiled shooting a glare at Nathan who muttered “suck up.”

Tyler crowded around the three immature adults pointing at the screen and then the controller. Holly whisked him away quickly just when Nathan shot down a baddie.

“Irresponsible moron,” I muttered rolling my eyes.

He shot me a funny face and Trey took advantage.

“Not again! Fucking revive me you wanker!” Nathan complained.

I clapped my hands over Tyler’s ears giving him a lolly from my bag. “Naughty daddy,” I smiled watching as his mouth tried to form the words.

“Nordy dudda,” he left red drool on his shirt but none of us really cared.

Nathan dumped the controller on the ground and scooped his son up blowing a raspberry on his tummy making his scream with laughter. “What was that little man?”

“Nordy dudda,” he gurgled clapping his hands laughing. Everyone laughed with him including Nathan.

Trey came over wrapping an arm around my waist. Aunt Kayla was signalling frantically to him with her eyebrows as was Danielle.

“Is there something I need to know about?” I narrowed my eyes at him pulling away.

He produced something shiny from his pocket. “Well,” he dragged out the word. “I was thinking, since Nathan here is all old dad maybe…” he paused and slid down on his knees. I felt my forehead break out in a clammy sweat. “Will you Jordan Isabella Cappello marry me?”

Everyone was grinning like mad hatter and I felt a goofy smile slide onto my face. “Heck yeah, I’ll marry you Trey, but I got rules.”

“Like not playing violent games around my kid?” Nathan piped in.

Trey poked him in the chest, “you’re such a hypocrite! You’re lucky I never told Jordan we threw out her cd’s to make space for our ga-” he stopped mid-sentence shooting me a sheepish grin.

“What was that?” I yelled. “You threw out my best disks? You guys are such jerks!”

“Yes, Jordan,” they chorused. “We’re hot jerks, we know.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh.my.gosh. 

It's over. I can't believe it. It's actually over. My first book. 

I have this silly grin on my face right now. I can't freaking believe this. Well my lovelies, I really hope you enjoyed this!! 

I'm gonna go before I start rambling again, but about the new book? which title would you rather? 

Tiaras and Commitments

Princess Charming