The moment I emerge from behind the screen, the chatter falls silent.
“That one,” Bethany breathes, her eyes wide. She brushes her hair out of her face—it’s longer than mine, now, and I hope she grows it out. I hope she never buzzes her head again. “That one is perfect.”
“I agree,” Grandma says. “That’s the dress.”
Mom, crying, just nods.
I look at Frederick—he’s tall, stout, prematurely gray hair in a voluminous pompadour, wearing a pink three-piece tuxedo and full eyeliner and mascara, and a thick graying beard. “This one, Frederick.”
His smile is bright and joyful and knowing. He winks at me. “Darling, I’ve already tailored that one for you. I knew you’d pick that one.”
“You did?” I ask. “How?”
He just shrugs, makes a demure face. “Oh, well, I’m your fairy godmother, didn’t you realize? I just know these things.”
“That’s why it fits so much better than the others,” I say.
He claps his hands. “Yup! Now, I just need to take it in a touch here…” he pinches a spot, “and let it out a little in the bust, touch up the hem a bit…” He’s already calculating. “Okay, off with it, darling. I need to make it perfect. Chloe!”
Chloe arrives, then, her head freshly shaved, wearing an incredible crimson gown that hugs her figure and displays her legs. She embraces me tightly. “You work quick don’t you, honey? He put a ring on it already!”
I just grin as I release her. “I’m so glad to see you, Chloe.”
She runs her fingers through my hair, now long enough that I have to actually style it. “You have to let me do your hair for you. It’s growing out so nicely! I bet it’s gonna be thick and amazing, once it’s longer.”
“I wouldn’t let anyone but you do my hair,” I say.
She winks. “Good answer, hon.”
The next couple hours are occupied with hair and makeup, fitting into my dress, only to have Frederick demand one last adjustment. My dad arrives, wearing a classic tuxedo and looking as dashing as ever—he’s tearful, and gamely choking it back.
“See, Dad?” I say, patting his cheek. “I told you I’d be fine. Nothing to worry about.”
He laughs. “Is that an exact quote?”
“Yes. I distinctly remember telling you I was going to make a miraculous recovery and get married to a movie star the day after getting out of the hospital. Didn’t I tell you that?”
He just huffs. “Yeah, I remember that, now that you mention it.”
I hold his gaze. “Do we have your blessing, Dad?”
He blinks up at the ceiling. “Yes, honey. You do. The whole thing has been highly unorthodox and weird and I would never have in a million years predicted any of this. But it’s clear as the nose on my face that that man loves you something fierce. And you love him back. And I’m just—” he breaks off, tries again. “I’m just so grateful that you—that you’re—”
I hug him. “I know, Daddy. Me too.”
“I love you, Jo-Jo-Bean. And nothing could make me happier than to give you away to Wes.”
I poke his ribs. “You’re just glad you’re inheriting someone to talk about football and grilling with.”
He nods, tips his head to one side. “That is a bonus. I’ve been the only man in the family for a long time.”
By the time I’m nearly ready, I can hear the buzzing murmur of voices from the backyard—I haven’t had a chance to look out there, so I have no idea who’s there or how many people there are.
There’s a band playing classical covers of pop songs.
My heart is starting to beat out of my chest.
Mom has taken her place out in the yard as the mother of the bride, and Dad is waiting behind the mobile curtain set up between the back door from the kitchen and the rows of chairs. Bethany is with me, arranging my train. Handing me my flowers—a bouquet of red and white and pink roses.
Dad sees me, now with my veil and my bouquet and the train trailing behind me, and he finally loses to the tears he’s been fighting all day.
“You look…radiant,” he says to me, wiping at his eyes.
“Thank you, Daddy.” I tuck my hand into his proffered arm. “You look handsome.”
“Why thank you, my dear.” He sighs deeply. “Are you ready for this?”
I’m nervous, but more than anything…I’m ready. I nod. “More than ready.”
He gives a signal to someone, and I hear the band transition to the Wedding March. The curtains are pulled back by invisible hands, and I now see the rows filled with people.
I choke up.
Cancer survivors and current patients make up a section—friends from chemo, and some of them online friends from cancer kid chat rooms.
Another section is the nurses and doctors whom I’ve become close to over the years, especially Dr. Miller.
The cast, director, and principal crew of Singin’ in the Rain.
Chloe. Frederick. Even Michael, the carriage driver, with his massive shoulders and an unlit pipe.
Mom, Grandma, Aunt Macy.
Dinah.
With Dinah, an older man and woman who by the resemblance to Dinah and Wes I assume are his parents—I had been wondering if they’d be here, since he doesn’t seem especially close to them.
More people than I’d have ever imagined would be at my wedding—had I ever dared imagine I would even have a wedding.
And Westley.
He’s waiting for me at the altar, in a white tuxedo, black tie, black and white Oxfords. His eyes shine. Hands behind his back, chin high, pride and love and anticipation on his face.
His eyes fix on me as I walk with the sedate, almost too-slow pace down the aisle toward him. He’s fighting tears. Swallowing hard, breathing as if exerting the strictest control over himself.
The walk to Westley seems to take an eternity.
Finally, finally, I’m facing him and my hands are in his and I’m gazing up into his deep rich wild exulting brown eyes.
I love you, he mouths.
I want to kiss him so badly. Instead, I squeeze his hands and will myself to not cry until after I’ve said the vows.
I barely hear the minister’s brief speech. He reads I Corinthians 13, and connects it marriage, and then he’s looking at Westley in expectation. “You wrote your own vows?”
Westley nods, but I freak out. “I didn’t have time to write anything!”
He shakes his head. “Just speak from the heart, honey. I didn’t write anything either.” He breathes in, holds it, chin high, and then lets it out through pursed lips. “I really just wanted an opportunity to tell you, publicly, in front of our friends and family, that I love you with all my heart. I just wanted to be able to tell you how amazing you are. You inspire me. You challenge me to be the best version of myself I can be.” He pauses, swallows hard. “You made a TikTok proposing to me. You couldn’t have expected any of the things that have happened since you and Bethany put that video out on the internet. No one could have. Yet somehow, I saw it. And in that video I got a glimpse of your soul. I saw the brave, strong, funny, talented woman that you are, and I think in that moment, in those short three minutes where you sang ‘Marry Me’ by Train, I first fell in love with you. I honestly don’t if I really thought we’d end up actually getting married, when I went out to see you. Even after I met you and said yes, I don’t know that I really knew yet what you would come to mean to me, how important you would become in such a short time.” He takes a shaky breath. “Somewhere between Cheyenne, Wyoming and sitting at your side in that hospital, I didn’t just fall in love with you, I discovered that when God created the heavens and the earth, he created you and me for each other.”
I breathe and blink. Try to contain my tears, my tumultuously overwhelmed emotions.
I can’t think of what to say. I love you, a hundred times in a row?
Then, I see a ukulele on a little stand on the stage. And I have an idea.
I hold up a
finger and leave Wes at the altar. Retrieve the instrument. Stand in front of him, hold a deep breath, and then start playing the song that started it all.
“Marry Me,” by Train.
Somehow, my voice is steady and clear, and my fingers know their marks. The music takes over, and I sing the song again. This time, directly to him. And now it means more than ever.
As the last notes quaver in the air, I finally have words inside me for him.
“I’m living for you, Wes. Maybe it was Grandma praying without ceasing, demanding that God give us all a miracle. Maybe it was you and your love that killed the leukemia. Maybe it was…just a random miracle. A fluke of nature. I don’t know, and I don’t care. I just know I’ll be thankful, every moment of every day that I’m blessed to spend with you. I love you, Wes. More than my heart can bear, and more than my words can express.” I choke on a laugh, and address the minister. “Now, buster, you’d better pronounce us married, or I’m gonna kiss him anyway.”
The minister laughs, a deep, guffawing belly laugh. “You’ve already shown that you take each other through sickness and health. So I guess all I need to ask is if you, Westley, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, come what may?”
Westley nods. “I do.”
“And do you, Jolene, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
I nod eagerly. “I do.”
“Then, by the power vested in me by the State of California, I pronounce you married.” He addresses me. “You may kiss your husband.”
I lean up into him, his face in my hands. And I kiss him.
I don’t hear the cheers, or the band striking up. I just hear my heartbeat, and his, beating together.
Epilogue
Just…Living
Jolene
“Mama!” Our son totters up to me, wobbling on unsteady legs, and falls against my shins, clinging to my legs and grinning up at me. “Up.”
I pick him up, toss him gently, and catch him against my chest. “Hi, Bug. Did you get it?”
He has one chubby, brown little fist clutched tight. “Got it.”
“Let me see.”
He frowns. “Fly ’way.”
“Well, we have to let him go back to his family, right?”
He sighs, as if the weight of the decision is too heavy. “Oh-kayyyy,” he grumps. His little fist opens, and a slightly crumpled moth wiggles its wings.
He looks at me, surprised that it’s not flying away. Then back to the moth. “Fly ’way?”
“You did have him squeezed pretty tight, there, Bug.”
We call him Bug because he loves bugs. Moths, spiders, ants, caterpillars, bumblebees, if it’s a bug or an insect, he loves it and wants it to be his friend.
He’s eighteen months old, and we adopted him the day he was born. He’s Black, and beautiful, and full of joy and wonder and impossible amounts of boundless energy. His hair is impossible to keep clean, because he’s always grubbing in the dirt for bugs. He’s always got scraped knees for the same reason. I love him more than reason, more than life itself. His name is Charles Inigo Britton, aka Charlie Boy, aka Charlie Bug, aka Bug.
The moth beats its wings again, flutters them, and then wafts up into the sky, and Charlie claps his hands together in glee.
“Bye-bye, mof! Bye-bye!”
“Bye!” I say, waving.
Charlie wiggles, and I put him down. He stands there at my feet for a moment, looking around, hands clasped at his chest. Looks up at me. Smiles, just because.
And then he spies a big fat grasshopper, and he lets out a positively evil little cackle and takes off at top toddler speed, hands outstretched.
Normally, I’d say good luck, buddy. But this is Bug, my best boy, my son, and as unlikely as it may sound, he’s weirdly amazing at catching bugs. He caught a bee once, and it didn’t sting him. Just crawled on his hands and arms, and I swear it looked at him before it flew away.
Wes strides into the backyard, then.
He’s put on muscle, and grew a beard over the past year. I like it on him.
Singin’ in the Rain was a smash hit with the critics and audience alike, even though it was delayed more than three months, when Wes adamantly refused to leave my side in the hospital.
The leukemia did indeed vanish, and two and a half years later, hasn’t returned.
My reproductive system didn’t experience a miraculous recovery, though, so we immediately began discussing adoption.
It took time, as these things do.
But then, on May 3, we went back to the same hospital I nearly died in, and we went home with Charlie.
What else is there to say?
I’m a mom.
I sing for my boys, and I cook dinner, and I work out with Dinah. We go to premieres and parties together. There’ve been any number of pieces written about our story, including an in-depth interview with Dateline.
But mostly, I’m just…living.
And endlessly, impossibly grateful for every moment.
For Erin,
And Laura,
And everyone who didn’t get Jolene’s miracle.
PLAYLIST
I haven’t done a playlist in a while; it’s a short one, but meaningful.
“Marry Me” by Train
“Jolene” by Dolly Parton
“Can’t Help Falling In Love” by Elvis Presley
“One Day More” from Les Miserables
“Breakdown” by Jack Johnson
“Lucky” by Jason Mraz, featuring Colbie Caillat
“Come What May” from Moulin Rouge
“You Were Meant For Me” by Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds, from Singin’ in the Rain
Also by Jasinda Wilder
If you enjoyed this book, you can help others enjoy it as well by recommending it to friends and family, or by mentioning it in reading and discussion groups and online forums. You can also review it on the site from which you purchased it. But, whether you recommend it to anyone else or not, thank you so much for taking the time to read my book! Your support means the world to me!
My other titles:
Forbidden Fruit
Wild Ride: Biker Billionaire
Delilah's Diary
Big Girls Do It:
Big Girls Do It
Married
On Christmas
Pregnant
Rock Stars Do It
Big Love Abroad
The Falling Series:
Falling Into You
Falling Into Us
Falling Under
Falling Away
Falling for Colton
The Ever Trilogy:
Forever & Always
After Forever
Saving Forever
From the world of Wounded:
Wounded
Captured
From the world of Stripped:
Stripped
Trashed
From the world of Alpha:
Alpha
Beta
Omega
Harris: Alpha One Security Book 1
Thresh: Alpha One Security Book 2
Duke: Alpha One Security Book 3
Puck: Alpha One Security Book 4
Lear: Alpha One Security Book 5
Anselm: Alpha One Security Book 6
The Houri Legends:
Jack and Djinn
Djinn and Tonic
The Madame X Series:
Madame X
Exposed
Exiled
The Black Room (With Jade London)
The One Series
The Long Way Home
Where the Heart Is
There’s No Place Like Home
Badd Brothers:
Badd Motherf*cker
Badd Ass
Badd to the Bone
Good Girl Gone Badd
Badd Luck
Badd Mojo
Big Badd Wolf
Badd Boy
Badd Kitty
Badd Business
Badd Medicine
Badd Daddy
Goode Girls:
For a Goode Time Call…
Not So Goode
Goode To Be Bad
A Real Goode Time
Goode Vibrations
Dad Bod Contracting:
Hammered
Drilled
Nailed
Screwed
Fifty States of Love:
Pregnant in Pennsylvania
Cowboy in Colorado
Married in Michigan
Billionaire Baby Club:
Lizzy Goes Brains Over Braun
Autumn Rolls a Seven
Laurel’s Bright Idea
Standalone titles:
Yours
The Cabin
The Parent Trap
Non-Fiction titles:
You Can Do It
You Can Do It: Strength
You Can Do It: Fasting
Jack Wilder Titles:
The Missionary
JJ Wilder Titles:
Ark
Wish Upon A Star Page 31
