Her Wedding Wish

“This is a good book.” Jonas tapped the picture he’d taken—and didn’t remember—of her buckling in Madison, who was in the middle of struggling, chubby arms reaching toward her daddy. “I can see a lot.”

She was glad she’d taken the time to make the album, the careful cutting and pasting, the rubber-stamping and gluing and framing, the glitter and cutouts and ribbons. These memories and pictures were more important now than ever. She’d originally started the books so that they wouldn’t forget the good times and the small details about the kids—they were growing so fast!—but now it had a larger purpose. To remember where they’d been. For what could be again.

The front door opened, and the security system chimed an announcement.

“Hello?” Her older sister Katherine’s voice echoed in the foyer over the sound of running little-boy feet. “Anybody home?”

For a nanosecond, Jonas’s gaze found hers, the panic raw and honest on his face. So many expectations, because Tyler didn’t know his daddy couldn’t remember him. They had decided together that it wouldn’t be right to hurt him that way, to rock his security like that. So, the little boy who pounded into the room, his brown hair sticking straight up, only knew his daddy had been hurt and was now home to stay. Excitement lit him up like a lightbulb as he threw his arms wide and wrapped them around Jonas.

“You’re here! Daddy, you’re home!” Tyler didn’t let go but laid his cheek on his dad’s wide chest and grinned up at him. “Aunt Katherine brought nachos and Mexi-fries just for you.”

Danielle knew that the man beside her no longer knew the significance of their inside joke of Mexi-fries, but that didn’t matter. Jonas’s eyes filled with emotion as he ran an awkward hand over the top of his little son’s head, affectionate and sweet and devoted.

What truly mattered hadn’t changed.

Chapter Two

Danielle walked into the kitchen and saw her sister. Katherine had Madison on her hip and was unloading two bags of food from their favorite Mexican take-out restaurant.

“Mommy!” Madison’s arms shot out and she thrust herself through the air, trusting her aunt had a solid hold on her.

Danielle came to her rescue as Katherine held the half-prone princess. Her little play tiara was askew, sitting crooked in those soft light brown curls, and Madison was bright with happiness. Danielle wrapped a secure arm around her daughter and hefted her onto her hip.

“They’ve both been wound up all day.” With her sleek blond locks, girl-next-door loveliness and great clothes sense, Katherine was cover-model gorgeous, even four months pregnant. She reached out to straighten Madison’s tiara. “Jonas is in the living room?”

“Yes, Tyler is with him. He’s been waiting a long time for his daddy to come home, poor baby.” She set Madison to the floor and the little girl immediately spun around and stretched both hands toward the out-of-reach counter.

“Gotta get my phone!” she singsonged, while her aunt produced the plastic pink cell phone from the collection of stuff on the counter. “There you go, sweetie. Dani, you look tired. Are you feeling a little worse for wear?”

“And a little short of time. Know where I can buy a few more hours to add to the day?”

“I wish I did, believe me. I’d be the first one in line.” Katherine wrapped her in a hug. “You’ve been going hard all day, which is what I figured. That’s why I brought dinner. It’s a little earlier than your normal suppertime, but I thought you’d be too tired to fix a meal.”

“Could you be more wonderful?” Danielle thought of all that her sister had done for her, and not only Katherine, but her entire family—her brother and sisters and her parents, not to mention her church family. “Like you don’t have enough to do?”

“My Jack wasn’t hurt in the line of duty.”

“Thank God for that.” Danielle prayed for her brother-in-law every day. Katherine’s husband was also a state trooper; Jonas had helped his childhood friend Jack get his job when he moved to Montana last year.

Such violence, like the kind that touched their family, wasn’t common in this part of Montana, but no place was immune, it seemed. The silver lining in this dark time was seeing for sure there was much more good in the world—in people—than bad. “Kath, thanks for taking the kids and for thinking to pick up dinner. For everything.”

“No problem. I wish I would have had the time to make you a real dinner, but there’s a youth group basketball game tonight. Jack stayed behind to help Hayden get ready.”

Danielle adored her sister’s stepdaughter. Hayden was thriving, active in their church and excelling at school, which was done for the summer. “She’s starting tonight?”

“Talk about excited. She’s worked so hard. I know she’s going to do well tonight as a starter.”

“Then you don’t want to miss the tip-off. You’d better be going.” Danielle laid her hand gently on her little princess’s small shoulder. Madison, chatting away, grinned up at her and kept prattling. “What time’s the game?”

“Not to worry.” Katherine swirled to the sink and turned on the tap. “I’ve got a little bit of time before I have to leave. I might as well make myself useful here. Why don’t you take your little one in to see her daddy, sit down and spend time with your family? Your whole family. Together.”

“I know. It’s almost unbelievable. I’ve been praying for this for so long, I can’t believe it’s finally here.”

“It puts a different meaning to the word blessings, doesn’t it?”

The four of them together in the same house. Danielle’s throat ached with gratitude. How very easily this moment could have never happened.

Katherine washed her hands and reached for a towel. “Oh, I can hear Tyler.”

They both strained to listen to the little boy in the neighboring room, his voice clear and sweet. “Daddy, that’s the picture where you hit your knee when you was climbin’ up the steps, and you hopped around. Your whole foot tingled so Mom had to drive until we saw the moose.”

“You remember all that?” Jonas asked in his resonant baritone.

“Yep. I remember lotza stuff. I got lotza brains.”

Danielle put her hand over her mouth to hold in the giggle.

“Go on.” Katherine’s eyes were sparkling with mirth as she dried her hands. “Get back to your husband. I’ve got it covered here.”

“I owe you. Expect retaliation when you least expect it.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful. You know how I love your lasagna.”

“I know.” One evening soon, she’d make sure to pay back Katherine for her thoughtfulness tonight, but it couldn’t be enough. Nothing could be. It had been twelve long months that her entire family had been rallying around her and pitching in with the housework and the child care. As much as she appreciated it—and she did very much—the weight of the guilt over inconveniencing them choked her. It was time to start paying back.

She put her hand on her daughter’s soft downy head and gently turned her in the direction of the living room. They went a few paces before Madison suddenly stopped chatting, wrapped one arm around Danielle’s knee and dug in her heels.

Strange. Danielle knew that the little girl hadn’t seen Jonas since their brief trip to Seattle for Christmas. “C’mon, baby, let’s go see your daddy.”

“No.” Madison dropped her phone and buried her face in her hands.

Danielle knelt down—which was awkward since Madison still had one arm tightly around her knee—and realized Jonas was watching them from the couch. Tyler was camped down beside his dad on the cushion, his feet tucked beneath him, shoes and all.

“C’mon, Madison!” Tyler called out. “Mom made the fudge cookies.”

“Fudge cookies?” Madison spread two chubby fingers to peer out and verify the truth of her big brother’s claim.

And right before supper, too, Danielle thought. “Only one, both of you, or you’ll spoil your dinner.”

It was tough being the mom, because she had to face Tyler’s groan and Madison’s gasp of distress at such news. She gently nudged her daughter forward a step. “Go on, sweetie. Tyler has a cookie for you.”

“No.” Madison removed one hand from her face, held up two fingers, reconsidered, and held up three, which meant she wanted three cookies. Her adorable little chin jutted.

Danielle knew that look. Ah, the terrible twos were such a joy. She took a breath and gathered her courage for the impending battle—knowing she’d come out unpopular in the end—and then she felt Katherine’s hand on her shoulder.

“She reminds me of someone,” Katherine said innocently. “Who could it be?”

“Not me.” Danielle started to laugh, even as she denied it. “I’m not stubborn and never have been.”

“No, not you,” Katherine agreed, laughing, as she opened the refrigerator door.

Yep, her mother had warned her this day would come. She figured the best way to deal with having a daughter just like herself was to embrace it. She unwrapped Madison from her knee. “It’s too bad you don’t want a cookie.”

“No! No! Bring me some!”

Danielle sighed and turned her back, unable to ignore the fact that her sister was silently laughing as she gathered condiments from the refrigerator.

“Just you wait,” she told Katherine as Madison’s outrage was about to start. “This is what babies turn into.”

Not that she minded, but Madison could really scream—a sound best avoided. “I’m going to have to invest in some earplugs.”

“Or something.” Katherine was still laughing.

“Hi there, Madison,” came Jonas’s deep and gentle voice from across the room. “You want a cookie?”

Danielle turned to see their daughter’s reaction. Madison’s face, red with the beginnings of a typical two-year-old tantrum, scrunched with thought. Her chin stayed up a notch, and slowly she shook her head side to side.

“No!” Madison uttered that word with impressive force. She held up four fingers.

“Suit yourself,” Jonas said, good-naturedly. “Tyler and I will eat ’em.”

Madison’s jaw dropped in surprise. She’d been startled out of her tantrum.

As Danielle knelt to retrieve Madison’s plastic pink phone, Jonas’s gaze fastened on hers. She smiled a thank-you to him, and he nodded in acknowledgment. By the time she’d handed Madison her play cell, Jonas had gone back to studying the album.

His steady baritone was warm with kindness as he asked their son, “What’s this here?”

Tyler, brimming with happiness, pointed to the picture. “That’s where we got to make a campfire. And we had to make sure we had buckets of water and dirt ready in case it went out of control, so we didn’t start a forest fire.”

“You did a good job.”

“Yep, I did. I made sure there was no forest fires! Then, after we did the s’mores—”

“Mores?” Jonas asked, and was rewarded with Tyler’s explanation of the huge s’mores they’d made together, the biggest ones in the whole world.

Danielle heard Katherine behind her.

“It’s going well,” Katherine whispered, and there was a smile in her voice as she padded by on the way to the dining room table.

It was going well. She took one last look at her husband and son, side by side on the couch, already buddies again. No matter what they’d lost, and with the remaining challenges of Jonas’s injuries still standing between them, they had a little bit of their normal family life back.

Lord, this means everything. Thank You.

Danielle straightened Madison’s pink rhinestone tiara before she opened the closest cabinet door and counted out enough plates for everyone. Madison stood in place, watching her father with wide staring eyes.

“Want to go in and see your daddy, sweetie?”

She shook her head, still staring.

Katherine returned from the dining room and took the plates. “She’s still shy around him?”

“I suppose that’ll eventually stop.” Danielle pulled out knives and forks and then closed the drawer with her hip. “Pastor Dan said to not force anything, especially with her so young, but—”

“It will be just fine. Look at Tyler.” Katherine scooped the bags of food from the counter. “He’s practically floating he’s so happy.”

“He is.” Danielle smiled across the width of the house, where Jonas had gone back to watching her again. “This is Katherine.”

“Katherine,” Jonas repeated. “The older sister.”

“Yes, that would be me.” Katherine began passing the plates around the table. “I’m not staying for very long,” she told him. “Tomorrow you’ll meet all of us. Are you ready for that?”

“Ready.” Jonas nodded once with his lopsided smile.

“We’re a scary bunch, but not dangerous.” Katherine smiled at him. “Jack, my husband, is looking forward to seeing you again.”

“Jack. Jack from up the street in Glendale.” Jonas smiled. “I was the new kid in third grade and he let me play basketball with him. I can remember going to high school and driver’s education and all kinds of things like that. But not this.” He looked around him.

Danielle saw the pain in his eyes when he turned toward her. “It’ll come, Jonas. One step at a time. I have faith you will remember everything. You just can’t push it. You’d better come to the table, both of you. Do you need help?”

“I can do it.” He put down the photo album and began to struggle with his walker.

Tyler, such a good little boy, grabbed the walker by the handle. “Let me help, Dad. I’m real strong.”

“Real strong,” Jonas agreed, kind even when pain lined his pale face. “Thanks, buddy.”

Danielle’s vision blurred and she finished setting the table. The man toiling with his walker, scooting forward one slow step at a time, reached the table exhausted.

“I’ll let myself out,” Katherine said quietly from the kitchen. “Jonas, I’m going to keep praying for you.”

“Th-thank you.” He looked weary as he eased into the chair.

When she laid her hand on his big shoulder, Danielle could feel the tension corded up like hard ropes. How difficult this had to be for him, coming to a home and a life and a family he could not remember. He was weak and wounded and not the man he was. He must have been able to see that, she realized now, seeing himself in the photo album.

A downside she hadn’t anticipated.

Aching for him, she left her hand on his shoulder and kept the contact between them. “Goodbye, Kath, and thanks again.”

Katherine glanced over her shoulder as she snagged her designer purse from the counter. “I’ll see you all tomorrow. Good night, and, Jonas, it’s so good to see you home.”

Danielle felt her husband nod in acknowledgment, but her heart was too full of emotions too complicated to sort out. Tyler was climbing into his chair at the table, and Madison was mutinously—although adorably—running after her departing aunt, then looking at her parents, who were not acknowledging her mutiny, and her lower lip stuck out farther.

“All right! Mexi-fries!” Tyler pumped his fist in victory. “I getta say grace. Can I? Please?”

“If it’s all right with your dad.” It felt fantastic to say that again, but Jonas only looked at her bewildered, as if he had no idea why it would or wouldn’t be his call. So she answered in his place. “I guess it is. Let me get Madison to the table.”

“No.” Madison looked pretty determined as she studied her father. She clutched her cell phone tightly.

“C’mon, ple-eeeeese.” Tyler was about to burst with so much excitement. “Daddy, she’s been like this a lot. I’m tryin’ to be a good big brother, but it’s hard.”

“I can see that,” Jonas said quietly with a wink.

Not willing to scoop the child up and risk a meltdown, Danielle knelt to size up the situation. “Don’t you want Mexi-fries?”

Madison bobbed her head once in a serious nod. Her tiara winked as it caught the overhead light.

“Then come to the table, princess.” Danielle held out her hand, palm up, hoping for a little toddler cooperation.

Madison turned her serious gaze to her daddy on the far side of the table. “I wanna sit by yew, Mommy.”

Over the top of their daughter’s head, she could see the hurt on Jonas’s face. As little as Madison was, she knew there was something different—much different—about the father who’d come home to them. Tyler was too excited to truly notice, but would his security be blown apart when he did?

I’ll cross that bridge when I get there, she reminded herself. Prayer, tonight, would help as it always did. With the Lord’s grace, perhaps Jonas would recover quickly enough that Tyler wouldn’t realize it. Jonas had already defied the doctor’s dim prognosis so far. Yes, she decided, steeling her spine, she would rely on her faith. God would make this right.

“I’ll scoot your chair closer to mine, how’s that?” Danielle waited for Madison to consider this. When the toddler placed her sticky little hand on hers, Danielle sighed with relief. One tantrum avoided. “Good girl. Let’s get you up. Look at Tyler. You’re making him wait.”

“Hurry, Maddy,” Tyler added, helping out. “We’re all gettin’ shorter. We need Mexi-fries now!”

A family joke, but Jonas’s forehead furrowed as if he were trying to make sense of that. She’d tell him later about the joke of how the deep-fried Tater Tots kept a person from shrinking, she thought, as she buckled Madison in.

The instant she dropped into her own seat, she could feel the exhaustion in her muscles and bones. She folded her hands and bowed her head just in time, for Tyler was already saying—or more accurately, shouting—grace.

“Thanks for the eats, Lord! God bless us every one!” Tyler, proud of himself, added, “Amen!”

“Volume, kiddo,” she reminded him after she’d added her own amen. “You don’t need to shout. God can hear you just fine.”

“Yeah, but He’s all the way up in the sky. When Uncle Spence was on the roof cleaning the gutters, remember how loud I had to talk so’s he could hear me?” Tyler helped himself to the tub of Mexi-fries. He dumped a generous portion on his plate. “The sky is really far up.”

How could she argue with that? She took the tub from him and added Mexi-fries to her and Madison’s plates, before she realized Jonas’s plate remained empty.

“I’ll help you, too,” she said quietly. “Let me get the kids dished up.”

He looked away, his eyes veiled, his face like stone. Tyler was chatting away, trying to decide from the options of tacos and nachos and burritos. Madison talked over the top of him, wanting her “taccas.”

As she unwrapped Madison’s chicken soft taco and cut it into quarters, and then helped Tyler search through the bags for the tacos that were his, she tried to keep the sadness from her heart. She’d known it would be like this. The doctors had been clear and had been warning her through the long journey of Jonas’s recovery.

Everything had changed. There were no more loving looks across the table between them, and no more knowing looks that meant they were storing up cute things the kids were doing to be talked about and laughed over afterward. There were no mutual conversations about his day at work or hers at home with the kids, the way there always used to be. There was just silence and the typical noises that came from having two small children at the table.

She hadn’t realized the depth of their love, and the importance of the meaningful bond that linked her spirit to his, until it was gone. Until there was nothing but silence between two strangers, with their children between them. That meant the love they’d shared was gone, too.

She quietly circled the table and unwrapped the two chicken burritos for Jonas and added a heap of Mexi-fries to his plate. Her footsteps echoed in the silence as she retraced the path back to her chair.

“No! No! No! No—ooooooo!” Madison’s declaration of independence rang in the main bathroom at high enough decibel levels to break city ordinances. “I kin do it!”

Danielle slumped onto the closed lid of the toilet, dripping wet from helping her daughter with her bath. The steam had frizzed her hair, and she felt wilted as she rested her face in her hands. Steam swirled around her, driven by the current from the door swinging open and a half-clad Madison pounding across the hall to her bedroom. There was a yanking sound as she dragged open the lower drawer in her little white dresser.

“Mom? Are you okay?” Tyler asked from the doorway.

She pasted a smile on her weary face and rose to her feet. “Absolutely. It’s your turn, tiger. Would you fetch a clean towel and washcloth from the laundry room for me?”

“Okay!” He ran out of the room and down the hall.

“Don’t run in the house,” she reminded him and listened for his stampede to slow a bit.

She forced her feet forward, wondering how the rest of the evening would turn out for her and Jonas. They would be alone for the first time, and she was feeling nervous about being with him. It made no sense, and she didn’t like the way she was feeling. But there it was, the hard ball of anxiety stuck in her midsection.

The evening had passed pleasantly with Tyler’s little-boy energy and Madison’s cute chatter. Jonas had sat in the living room with the kids while she’d cleaned up the kitchen. The kids were so busy and active, they’d unwittingly filled up the first half of the evening. But now, the last half was looming ahead of her and she was at a loss as to how to face it.

She turned on the bathwater and adjusted the temperature before adding Tyler’s blue-colored bubble bath to the rising water. Madison shrieked with glee across the hall, and while Danielle hesitated in the hallway wondering about Jonas, the sight of her half-dressed daughter digging out every last item from her bottom drawer took precedence. “You are troubles, bubbles.”

Madison grinned, showing off her dimples. “I want my Ella pants.”

“Sweetie, you definitely need pants.” Danielle knelt and gave the pink Cinderella pajama shirt a tug at the hem to straighten it. “You got that on all by yourself?”

“Yip.”

“You’re a good dresser.”

“Yip.”

Danielle sorted through the items on the floor, folding them as she went. No sign of the matching pajama pants, so she tried the middle drawer. There they were, right on top, in all their pink glory among the folded-up socks. She chased Madison, caught her and helped her into the ruffly pink bottoms. There. One kid almost done for the day.

First, she had to turn off the bathwater, then she began turning back Madison’s bedcovers, not sure if Madison was going to give an argument or not.

Tyler’s footsteps preceded him down the hall. He poked his head into the room. “Daddy’s sleepin’,” he said, then thundered into the bathroom.

Sleeping? She knew Jonas hadn’t made the trek down the hall to their bedroom yet. He would have had to pass by the bathroom and the kids’ rooms. Did that mean he’d fallen asleep on the couch? “Okay, prayers, cutie.”

Madison bent to her knees and steepled her little hands. Her tiara slipped forward—yes, it appeared she was still wearing it—and Danielle removed it as she knelt down beside her. She listened while Madison said her prayers and tucked her in with a kiss.

“My story, Mommy?” Madison used her puppy-dog look, rendering her completely impossible to say no to.

“Let me check on Tyler and your daddy first. You stay right there, okay, bubbles?”

“Yip.”

A quick glance into the bathroom told her that Tyler was safe and sound, covered with bubbles and busy playing with his floating fire tanker that shot water all over the tile. She reminded him to remember to wash before padding down the hallway, where she found Jonas stretched out and sound asleep on the couch.

The poor man. He had to be exhausted. Danielle hit the power off button on the TV remote and circled around to lift the warm fleece blanket off the back of the couch. He didn’t stir. She’d wake him up later, after she got both kids put to bed. For now, she shook the blanket out and gently covered him.

Help him find his way back to me, please, Lord, she prayed in the darkness. She kissed her husband’s forehead and tiptoed from the room.