LWLU – Paul’s Gift
Tears flowed from her eyes as she continued to gaze at the object in her hands. She didn’t turn her head when she spoke; it wouldn’t matter. She couldn’t see through the tears anyway. “Paul…it’s perfect.”
“Are you sure?”
“No…” Sara started to speak, but the words got stuck on the lump of emotion in her throat. She cleared it softly and continued. “No, it’s exactly…How did you know to get me this?”
“You mentioned something about it on our first date.”
“But that was six months ago.”
“Well…” His tone was playful. “It hasn’t been six months yet.”
A smile touched her face at the mention of their private joke. “No, not quite, huh?”
Nika cleared her throat. “Aren’t you going to hold it up so the rest of us can see?”
“Sorry.” Sara held up the gift with one hand while wiping away tears with the other.
Roni gasped and her hand flew to cover her mouth. Nika started waving her hands in front of her face as though she could dry the tears forming before they could smudge her mascara. The brothers exchanged a look.
Jane was lost.
“Can someone tell me why we’re all freaking out because he gave her some book?”
“Because it’s not just some book,” Veronica snapped.
“It’s so much more than just a book,” Nika added, fighting – and losing – the battle against the tears. “It’s like the most perfect gift…”
Sara didn’t bother to explain, choosing instead to trace careful fingers over the lettering on the cover. There were no words for this. How could she make someone understand how precious this gift was to her? How could an outsider understand how close this was to her heart?
With hesitant caution, she wrapped the book in a few sheets of the tissue paper and set it by her side. She turned to where Paul was watching her, still behind the couch, and reached for him. “Paul…”
“So, it’s a special book. Great. What the hell does that mean? What book is it, anyway?”
Paul glanced at Jane over Sara’s shoulder. “It’s a first edition of The Great Gatsby.” He turned his attention back to meet Sara’s eyes. “Happy birthday, Angel.”
“Thank you. So much. I…” Rather than making fruitless attempts to explain how she felt with words, she leaned forward to press a kiss to his lips…stopping time.
From somewhere in the distance, Lincoln cleared his throat. “That was her mother’s favorite book. She wrote her Graduate Thesis on it.”
“Uh…okay. Still seems like kind of a lame gift.”
“Her mother gave her the copy she’d used in college with all her notes in it on Sara’s 16th birthday. She must have read that book, word for word, at least a hundred times in just a few weeks.”
“Why a few weeks?”
No one spoke. Finally, it was Michael who broke the silence. “It was in Sara’s bag in the car at the funeral. Someone stole the bag and the book was never returned.”
“Funeral?”
Nika sniffed softly. “Her mother passed away unexpectedly after Sara’s birthday. It was her funeral.”
“Oh.”
But Sara didn’t hear any of that conversation. She was lost in bliss with Paul. It may not have been the exact copy she’d lost five years ago, just as Paul wasn’t the same man she’d lost five years ago, but it was all she needed to fill the void. So was Paul.
He was all Sara needed.
