Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 21094 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 105(@200wpm)___ 84(@250wpm)___ 70(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 21094 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 105(@200wpm)___ 84(@250wpm)___ 70(@300wpm)
Your loving wife,
Jane
I focus on the word “loving” until the black letters are blurry against the cream paper. I shake my head and continue reading. There are letters where she’s asking me questions, wanting to get to know me better, and then there are letters where she talks about how she’s never been more alone than she is now, but she doesn’t feel lonely.
I sit here for hours poring over her words that are unfiltered, and while I do, I get to know her even better.
When I get to the end of the thick book, I see the letter that she wrote last week after finding out I’m coming home.
To my husband,
You’re coming home. I still can’t believe it but I’m so excited I can barely contain myself. I have all these dreams for when you come home. Have I told you about them? I think about it all the time but I can’t remember if I wrote you about them or not so here it goes.
In my mind, you come home and decide you love me.
I know, I know, you probably think I’m rushing things but I have been your wife for seven years. LOL.
Anyway, you come home and decide you can’t live without me. I, of course, am finally going to tell you that I love you and I have for a long time. Then we’re going to have kids. I actually have thought about this a bit and there’s nothing I want more than to have kids with you but I also want to spend some time together, just the two of us. We can go on vacation together, heck we can just sit on the front porch and watch the days go by, I don’t care. I just want to do life with you, hand in hand.
Anyway, I’ll see you in 3 days. Be safe and I love you.
Yours forever (if you’ll have me),
Jane
She loves me.
After everything… talking her into this marriage and then leaving her for seven years, and she still loves me. I’m not sure what I did to deserve her, but I can’t screw this up.
I grab the book and walk out of the bedroom. I take the stairs two at a time to get to her, and when I walk into her bedroom door, ready to tell her how I feel, I stop suddenly when I find her asleep on her bed. I tiptoe the rest of the way into the room and hover over her, watching her sleep peacefully. How this beautiful woman has come to love me is beyond me. It’s more than I ever could have imagined, and I know I need to do everything I can to earn her love.
I move to the chair in the corner and open the book again, scanning over the pages she’s written to me. When exhaustion takes over, I hold the book against my chest and close my eyes. I should go down to my room, but the need to be near Jane is overwhelming, so I sink farther into the cushions and let sleep take me away.
CHAPTER 11
JANE
Something wakes me up, but I’m not sure what. I lift up and immediately wonder if Grant is having another nightmare. I stayed up for as long as I could last night, hoping after Grant’s therapy appointment he would come talk to me, but he never did. I stayed in my room to give him space. I feel as if I’ve hovered over him this last week, and I’m not sure if that’s what he wants or not.
I try to listen to the sounds of the house, and it’s jarring to realize there’s someone in the room with me.
When his soft snoring sounds in the room, I can’t help but smile. I climb quietly out of bed and make my way over to where he’s sleeping.
He has my notebook held against his chest, and he looks completely at peace. My palms itch wanting to wake him up, but I resist. I know he’s not been sleeping well. I grab a blanket off the foot of my bed and then tiptoe back over to him. I lay it gently across him, and I think I’ve succeeded in not bothering him until his eyes open and he reaches out from the cover, grabbing my wrist.
“Hey. I’m sorry for waking you up.”
He leans up, staring at me. “You mean hey, husband?”
I refuse to be embarrassed. “Yeah… hey, husband. I’m sorry for waking you up.”
He pulls me down onto his lap, and instead of resisting, I tumble on top of him. It’s not graceful, but I don’t think he cares. He holds me to him like I’m precious to him, and I burrow against his heat. He kisses the top of my head and then rests his chin there. “I love you, Jane.”