Love Across the Seas | A Plus Size Romance | Full Figured Romance | Short Novel

by J. J. Alston

  That day w W hen she got ready for work, she paused by the mirror to look at herself. She really did have a pretty face. But now it was lit from within by a joy she hadn’t felt before. It made her smile. Mother noticed something different -- Candace could tell by the strange look she gave her -- but she didn’t say anything.

  Work couldn’t go fast enough for her, and afterward she rushed home with her purchases, grabbed the laptop with a quick kiss for Mom, and dashed into her room. She read Rio’s latest email, picturing him with his family in Bali, imagining his voice speaking out his words, then she replied. It felt as if he was right there in the room and they were talking face to face. She was comfortable in her own skin for the first time in as long as she could remember. He made her feel completely at ease, and at the same time exhilarated, like she was flying, or falling.

  “Candace!” her mother called from the living room. “Are you going to get dinner soon?”

  “Coming, Mom!” She sighed and shuffled into the kitchen.

  Eating dinner in front of the TV, Candace was aware of Mom’s eyes flicking from the screen to hover on her from time to time. That was unusual. Normally nothing could take her attention from Reality TV. She didn’t have to wait long to find out why.

  “Candace, what’s going on with you?”

  Candace smiled in surprise. “Nothing, Mom. Why?”

  “You’ve been acting weird. Smiling.”

  “Don’t you want me to be happy?”

  “Of course. But it’s just – you haven’t been watching TV with me much, and you look like you’re keeping some kind of secret. I wish you’d tell me what’s going on.” Mom reached across the cluttered side table to grasp her hand.

  “Like I said, it’s nothing. I’m just happy, that’s all.”

  “Honey, I just don’t want you to think you need to be like your sister.”

  Mom’s words stung more than Candace cared to admit. She snatched her hand back.

  “I’m not trying to be like Tiffany. Why would you even think that?”

  “Because you’re two different people, you know. Tiffany was made to run around and sparkle. I could tell early on that you were more of a homebody. You belong here with me.”

  “I know that, Mom. I just ...”

  “I don’t want to see you trying to be somebody you’re not. I don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

  “I won’t, Mom, I promise.”

  “Because women like Tiffany do the heartbreaking. Women like us just get their hearts broken.”

  “Okay.”

  Mom turned back to her show, and Candace lapsed into brooding silence, her optimism evaporating. She wanted more than anything to disappear into her room, but Mom would notice that, so she disappeared into herself instead.

  Later when she’d helped Mom into bed and cleaned up the kitchen, she pulled out the computer. It was the middle of the night in Indonesia, so no new email. But Candace read over the last few, hoping to raise her spirits. Yet she couldn’t get her mother’s words out of her mind. Women like us just get their hearts broken. Who did she think she was? Tiffany? That’s who Rio thought he was writing to, when all was said and done. No matter what he thought of Candace, he still pictured Tiffany’s face, Tiffany’s body.

  Bitterly, she opened a new message, stared at the blinking cursor. Then she began to type.

  My sweet Rio,

  I have loved reading your words and getting to know you. But I haven’t been honest with you. I’m not the girl you met on the beach.

  With a heavy sigh, she backspaced over the last two sentences.

  I have loved readin g your words and getting to know you. I’ve come to care about you more than I can say. So what I’m going to tell you is hard.

  I haven’t been honest with you. I’m not the girl you met on the beach I don’t think I’m the girl you think I am. When I met you in Bali I was looking my best. But the truth is my weight isn’t always so under control. I wish it was. But I’ve been pretty heavy. And I can’t guarantee I won’t be again. In fact, I’m already bigger than I was when we met.

  Candace took a deep breath, nearly deleted the whole thing, kept writing.

  My sister Tiffany gave you my name, and when your letter came, I stupidly thought I could enjoy a little bit of her life for myself. It was wrong, and I ’m sorry. Not only have I been lying to you, but I am as different from Tiff as I could be. I ’m overweight. Really overweight. If it had really been me in Bali you ’d never have noticed me.

  It hurts to admit this, because I know it means you won’t want to talk anymore. I feel like I’m a better person from having known you. I ’m sorry So I think it’s best if we stop this. I don’t blame you for anything, but I know it won’t work out.

  So grateful.

  Candace

  By the time she was finished, silent tears streamed down her face. She closed up the laptop and put it away. Maybe for the last time.

  Candace was of half a mind to ignore the email the next morning. But curiosity was too much. She had to know what Rio said, even if it meant heartbreak.

  So she crept out in the early morning, still in her p.j.s, to get the laptop. She couldn’t bear to have Mom notice and ask what she was doing. Not now. An email was waiting in her inbox, from Rio, with no subject line. With a deep shuddering breath, she opened it.

  My beautiful, brave Candace,

  What courage it must have taken to write those words. But you don’t be afraid.

  I knew you weren’t the same girl. I guessed right away , when you didn’t mention things we’d spoken of, when you didn’t remember the name of the cafe . But I didn’t want to shame you by telling you, and I didn’t want you to stop writing. I was being selfish, maybe , because I’ve enjoyed your emails .

  How could you think me so shallow that I would care about your weight? I know you don’t know me that well yet, and so I can forgive you, but in the future, you’ll know this: the outside doesn’t matter. The wrappings change. Who you are is inside you, and it’s that true self that I have come to love.

  Yes, that’s what I said. I love you. No matter what you look like that won’t change. Don’t shut me out for such a little thing. Let me love you. Let yourself be happy.

  Love your Rio

  P.S. Did I never tell you I like a girl with some meat on her bones? :)

  Candace stared at the screen in shock. She’d been expecting a nicely worded exit, something about it all being for the best. In the darkest corner of her heart, she even supposed she might get an angry accusation, a scornful dismissal, or even nothing. But this?

  Rio loved her. Her. Candace: the one he’d been writing with. Not Tiffany at all, then. Her.

  A sound bubbled from her lips, halfway between a sob and a giggle, and she clapped her hand over her mouth.

  He loves me. She would never doubt that again.

  She wrote him back right away, spilling out all the relief she felt, all the heartbreak she hadn’t shared before about the constant comparisons between her and her sister. She asked him why he loved her. She asked him, though she feared the answer, why he’d liked Tiffany in the first place. Then, with a deep breath, she attached her picture.

  Part of her thought Rio’s response to her confession was a dream. She hardly expected to find another reply in her inbox. But it was there, as faithfully as ever.

  I’m so sorry that you have been made to feel that way about your sister. Sisters are a gift, and not something that should bring one pain. Tell her how you feel. Maybe she has never known.

  What did I like about Tiffany? I don’t know. When I first saw her I liked her eyes. I thought she was too skinny, but that a few of my mother’s good meals would round her out. When we spoke, I was most interested in the things she said about caring for her family and her sweet, encouraging words. But now I see it wasn’t her at all. In fact, I think she was trying to be you so I would like her better.

  Thank you for your beautiful picture. My professor let me
print it off at school and I’ve put it on my wall at home. My whole family is in love with you, especially because of how happy you’ve made me.

  You asked me why I love you. Don’t you know that by now? I’ve told you a million different ways that you have touched my heart. You are beautiful, inside and out, and I can’t help loving you. It must have been fate that I met your sister, that she gave me your name. Only God could have brought us together from across the world, and I thank him every day for it.

  Candace blinked at the email in surprise. God. It certainly did seem like a miracle. She remembered the desperate prayers she’d uttered in her loneliest times. Was this God’s answer? If anyone might know, it would be Rio. She typed up a new email.

  Tell me more about God, she wrote.

  She didn’t have to wait long for an answer. And what he told her would change her life forever.

  You ask about my love. You talk about how someone can’t love like that – how it can’t be real. But I learned how to love from the master. For as much as I love you, God’s love is more. My love might fail, might have limits, but his love is limitless. He loves you as you are because he made you. If I were to give you any gift in the world, it would be this: to know his love and to live within it.

  With eyes full of wondering tears, she accepted Rio’s gift.

  Days passed, then months. Months of emails flying back and forth around the globe. Months of unstoppable smiles and silent daydreams and strange looks from Mom. Candace lived in a fairytale world, wrapped in love, real love, for the first time. Maybe she was no Tiffany -- she would never be Tiffany -- but she could honestly say for the first time that she didn’t want to be anyone else but Candace. She felt better about herself than she had in her lifetime.

  Rio was everything she had dreamed. Although he lived a world away, his emails made him seem right by her side. He was attentive to her needs. He could sense when something was bothering her even between the lines on his computer screen, and he’d never let her hide her insecurities from him, always exposing her shadows to the daylight of his love. Together they unfolded God’s gift. They talked about being missionaries together one day. Nothing could spoil this for her, it seemed.

  But one day when she came home from work, Mom wasn’t in her recliner. She was at the table, with the laptop in front of her, a pensive frown on her face.

  “Mom! What are you doing? Isn’t your soap opera on?”

  “My story can wait. Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been doing?” She turned the laptop around so Candace could see the latest email from Rio. Candace resisted the urge to lunge forward and snatch up the laptop.

  “I’m pretty sure you can see that for yourself.” Candace stood up straighter. Mom might be able to cow her into submission about most things, but not about this.

  “Do you know how ridiculous this is? You know this Rio’s going to break your heart. Sooner or later they all do.”

  “Just because Tiffany’s dad and my dad broke your heart doesn’t mean all men are like that. Rio’s different.”

  “Oh really? What happens when he says he wants to come here and live with you ? . You’ve already talked about the possibility of marriage with him. Has it not occurred to you that he might be using you to get citizenship?”

  “Rio wouldn’t ... he’s not like that!” Her certainty shook in the face of the mother she’d always obeyed without question. But then she remembered Rio and she stood firm.

  “I’m telling you, Candace: you need to let this go, before you get hurt.”

  Candace lifted up her chin. “No. I’m not going to do that, Mom.”

  While her mother gaped in astonishment, she reached for the laptop and snapped it shut, tucking it under her arm and marching to her room.

  A gentle tap sounded on her door a long while later. Candace was calmer now, after reading from an online bible and praying.

  “If you haven’t changed your mind, I’m not interested in what you have to say, Mom,” Candace said, trying not to sound like a rebellious teenager.

  “It’s not Mom, Candy. It’s Tiff.”

  Great, just what I need. Candace got off the bed and opened the door, looking up at her sister’s concerned eyes. “Mom sent you to talk some sense into me?”

  “She told me what happened. But I’m not here for her.”

  Candace stepped back and let Tiffany into the room. “I’m listening.”

  “When she told me at first I was concerned. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea.” Tiffany sat down on the bed.

  Candace glanced at her in sharp surprise, sinking down beside her.

  “I remember this Rio. He’s a really nice guy, even if he’s not my type. Actually, he’s exactly the kind of guy that should be your type, if you had one. Mom didn’t tell me everything, but I get the idea that he really cares about you. And I can see you care about him. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m kinda jealous.”

  “You? Jealous of me?”

  Tiffany laughed. “I made a choice. No one would ever take advantage of me. But it means I don’t get real love. So, yeah. I’m a little jealous.”

  It was Candace’s turn to laugh. “Wow. I never would have thought it. You really think Rio is good for me? You don’t agree with Mom?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Wow, I thought …” Candace felt silly now, but Rio had once encouraged her to tell Tiff the truth, and now was her chance. “I don’t know. I’ve always felt like Mom liked you better. I felt like you got all the breaks and I just got broken. But I’m learning to take responsibility for my own life. Not to be a victim of my circumstances.”

  “Oh, Candace,” Tiffany breathed, dismayed. “I never knew … I never meant you to feel that way. I know Mom only meant the best for you, too. I meant what I said, you know. I’m jealous of you. That’s why I pretended to be you when I met Rio. I didn’t think I could get a nice guy like that to like me unless I was more like you.”

  Candace laughed at the irony. “If there’s anything knowing Rio has taught me, it’s to be myself. So I’m passing that advice on to you. Be yourself, Tiff. Anyone who can’t love you for who you are is not worth your time.”

  “I wish I could believe that. Maybe I’ll try. Seeing you, I could almost think it’s possible.”

  “Then believe it.” Candace hugged her sister, for the first time feeling on equal footing.

  Mom came around after a while. Candace even let her write Rio an email to grill him on his intentions. It took a while, and a lot of coaxing from both Candace and Tiffany, but eventually she came to love Rio almost as much as Candace did. And though she couldn’t make it out of the house to go to church between her weight and her badly mended leg, she started watching TV services and asked Candace all kinds of questions.

  She felt giddy sharing it all with her mom, taking a lead from everything that Rio had told her about God and his love. And Mom believed. For the first time, she let go of the bitterness she’d held about her broken heart and forgave Tiffany and Candace’s fathers.

  It all seemed too good to be true. That was when Candace’s new perfect life came crashing down.

  She got home from work that day, eager to check on her emails. She set the groceries on the counter like always. She called out a cheery hello to her mom in the recliner. But Mom didn’t answer.

  “Mom?” she raced over to her mother’s side. Her eyes were closed. She wasn’t responding. Frantically, Candace gave her a shake. Nothing. She checked Mom’s pulse – it was there, but weak, like the flutter of a wounded butterfly. “Mom, hang on!” she cried as she grabbed the phone and dialed 911.

  This was the moment she’d feared for years – the moment she’d never been able to admit would one day come. Morbidly obese. There was a reason they called it that. Every day Candace had said goodbye and shut the trailer door with a catch of apprehension in her gut. Everyday she had just shaken the thought away and told herself everything would be fine. But now it wasn’t.


  The ride to the hospital was a nightmare. Candace squeezed as far out of the way as she could as the paramedics worked to save her mother. She called Tiffany to tell her what happened. She prayed over and over in her head.

  Tiffany met her there and they hurried after Mom’s stretcher, only to be turned aside at the door. They waited together in tense silence, hand in hand, united in love for the woman who’d given up everything to have them. Tiffany cried. Candace prayed.

  At last a nurse came out.

  “You can see her now.”

  Tiffany and Candace jumped up and hurried after the nurse. Candace could see Mom from the hallway. She didn’t look great. A doctor intercepted them before they could go in, his face set in grim politeness.

  “How is she?” Candace asked, putting her arm around Tiffany.

  “I’m afraid it’s not good. Your mother’s heart is just simply not up to the task of running a body her size. She’s suffered a massive coronary. We could operate, but she would almost certainly not survive the procedure. It’s only a matter of time. I’m sorry.”

  Tiffany lost it on Candace’s shoulder. She was crying too, but she gave her sister all the strength she could. “Shh, shh. It’ll be okay. Be strong for Mom.”

  After Tiffany got control of herself she gave Candace a weak smile and they went into the room. Mom was conscious, if a little confused. But her face relaxed as she saw them.