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Chapter 58

*Before…

“C’mon Jenna Let’s go and actually have some fun with our daughter before my buzz wears off and my meds wipe me out. I didn’t haul my butt out of the couch and into this get up for nothing okay.”
I give her a hard squeeze and take a deep breath and nod and wipe at my eyes. (Sniff.) “Yeah, I really want to do this.”
I go with her and Hunter and Angie’s joining us with Giselle after she got her into her little one piece and we start with the wading pools with the other little kids and she scream-squeals and she’s waddle running into the water and splashing and slapping the water with that bouncy thing she does with that. “Yeeee-he-he-he!”
I’m smiling and laughing because she’s such an amazing little spaz and she is having that Omigod freak-out where she’s just blown away by the coolness of being in a pool and is hitting brain overload.
And there is no way that that can’t make you smile and have that blow all the bad stuff away.
I look at Iggy and I hug her around the shoulder.
“Thanks, thanks for her and making me a mom.”

*And Now…

It’s almost cute the scrunched up face that she makes as she tried to but on her attitude and she waves me off with that whole…yeah, yeah, yeah thing and she’s red faced which is a help since she really needs new colors in her complexion.

And she’s still pulling me into the shallow pool that Giselle is playing in and it helps, god help me it really helps because home with Tay and the other’s is certainly one thing and even though it’s way easier for me to hide things it’s still very daunting and she’s actually helping.

I’m getting bits of us back and to me these are important bits.

More important that my own pain. That’s why forgiveness is something that’s important for me.

And with Giselle being this so happy bubbling and laughing little girl and she’s just freaking out too. I mean it’s this happy spazzy amazing thing that I can’t ever remember having with here and we’re going with her as she’s checking out all the parts of the pool and meeting other kids.

Some of the older little kids sort of ignore her but there’s others there her age too with their parents and they seem to have this whole language of yees and hand slaps to the water and squealing laughs and giggles.

The she learns how to splash and splash people and other kids and she gets into a splash match with some of them and one of the mothers pulls her kid away from us and some of these other kids.

She even gives me this huffy look. “You should teach her not to splash your child is being a bully.”

“Giselle’s splashing with the other kids and they’re having a blast.”

“They’re being rough.” She is picking up her daughter who really looks like she doesn’t want to stop playing and yet she also looks like she’s used to not having fun…poor kid.

“No one’s shoving there’s no hitting and there’s no hair pulling it’s just water.”

She shoots me a dirty look and a look to some other woman that’s there who sort of looks like she might be with her and she’s looking at all of us other parents and the one with the attitude leaves with her daughter in even more of a huff.

Ingrid snerks. “Poor Muffin, first like gasp she got her hair-doo wet with like pool water and like double gasp she didn’t have people like jump to do what she says.”

I laugh and I shouldn’t but it was all very Snooty-Barbie with the impersonation that she’s doing and a few of the other parents nod and chuckle and we sort of make introductions all around as the kids are losing their minds again as Taylor and Dad have gone and joined us and they brought inflatable pool toys.

There’s like ducky tubes and floaty seals and floaty frogs to beach balls which they love too and we just sort of have this big play fest and the kids have a fun time and we actually take turns doing stuff with some of the kids needing to go pot and some of the parents getting to go coffee as we all watch them while they’re playing.

I get it and I don’t. I love my daughter and I can already sort of get the handful bit not that I mind it at all. But just to actually just be neighborly even though none of us are really neighbors but just some parents that are having fun and stuff and we’re actually kind of sort of recognized since dad’s wearing a mavericks t-shirt and people remark on that and they get all excited that we’re Taylor and Jenna.

Pardon me?

“Excuse me? I think I’m missing something Melissa?” she’s a twenty something and one of the mom’s here with us that’s beside me.

“What? You’re Taylor and Jenna your guy’s place is like online with like good reviews and my husband has gone there and come back home with your food.”

“Well I hope it was okay.” Alright I’m blushing.

“Okay, your cinnamon rolls are like in the top ten in the province and like the top three in Edmonton they blow Cinnabun out of the water.”

“Well I don’t know about all that except for the chain place, I can see homemade being better than a chain place.”

Ingrid grins. “They’re actually pretty good and I’m not a huge fan of the things in general.”

Taylor slips over and does the arm circle hug and hold and nuzzle and kiss me. “They’re better that good, they’re amazing and they were one of the only things that I could really keep down while I was in cancer treatment.”

Okay I’m seriously blushing but at the same time he’s holding me with the public very awesome from behind lover hugs and he’s doing that lean sort of dance back and forth with me even from behind.

I mean…

Yeah I mean…public, him, and married and my daughter and getting hugged and loved and held like this is just.

I can feel my self-worth actually recovering from everything.

It’s such a good feeling too like my heart grew wings or something inside my chest and it’s just this racing but not racing so incredible warmth and light inside.

And the other women are giving me these looks going from lucky me to aww that’s cute and awesome.

Of course that’s like not all that Taylor does he actually snuggles closer with me and looks at them all over my shoulder.

“No seriously, Jenna saved my life, things were really bad and I was more than alone I was in that kinda place where things with me and my cancer were like so real they became too real for too many people and she picked me up heart and soul and she gave me all the fight she had in her to get mine going and she’s never stopped since.”

“Taylor…c’mon it wasn’t just like that, it was a lot more complicated than that.”

“You’re right I mean I was really hurt and really angry at everything.”

“You weren’t that angry the night that we met?”

“Oh yes I was, I did half of that stuff that night just to prove that I had it worse than you.”

“Oh really?”

He nods and there this mischievous look there and it’s a sweet and sort of sexy thing too. “yes, really I had no idea who I was about to fall in love with and just how much you’d take all my self-pity and anger and dump it on its head.”

He kisses me and I kiss him back and there’s a few sighs and a few Awwww’s and I’m blushing again. We’re like that a little more and then Hunter is looking at her mom and then she’s looking at me and she has this pleading look. I smile and kiss Taylor one more time and then I get up out of the water.

“Alright kiddo let’s go and check out the waterslides and stuff.”

“Whoo-hoo! Cool beans!”

I…really? People say that outside of Archie comics?

I’m sort of chuckling as I go with her and to tell you the truth I’m kind of looking forward to it and everything. I mean like I said I’m from this city and I’ve never been to or done any of the stuff today.

The Step-dad, Natalie…it was sports, sports, sports be the best, get the trophies be the big hero. Be who everyone wanted.

Nope scratch that there really wasn’t a who there it was a what, Jaime was just sort of this puppet that I was wearing, a false image that insulated me from the world and myself.

I’m a little daunted actually at first because some of these things are pretty high and I’ve never done these or have been on a roller coaster or anything like that. Well I was on a Ferris wheel once when my other family went down into the states and we went to one of the state fairs in Nebraska.

I actually didn’t hate the trip they were some nice places and things to see and the scenery was nice it’s just a lot of everything from that time has such a certain slant to it.

Aaah well just water under the bridge and all of that stuff…or waterslides.

They’re fun.

Part of the scary fun is the chance that I might lose my top and stuff but that’s kinda sorta fun…there’s guys, there’s lots of guys there and I was thinking high school and younger but there’s like even some twenty somethings kinda college crowd kids there too and they’re…

They’re cute…even Hunter who’s like not really old enough for boys is watching and staring at then and sometimes at me.

“Hey Hunter aren’t they a little old for you?”

“Yeah but they’re so pretty to look at all handsome and muscly and stuff.”

“So you’re into boys?”

She nods. “Not like these guys but like my age an stuff or I kinda think y’know like but it’s kinda hard.”

“Trouble with the other kids? With the boys?”

“Kinda, not really…yeah it’s just that any guy that seems to like me doesn’t and stuff because he well like might be gay.”

“Are they mean to you?”

“Not since that time really they were like the only like serious assholes and stuff, it’s just they know, everyone knows at school ‘cause I’m out.”

“But they think that people might think that they’re gay?’

She shrugs and then she smiles. “That’s cool with me though they treat me okay and I’m sort of not really ready with being pre-op and stuff.”

“So you want to wait?” She nods.

The she has this big smile as this pair of twenty somethings go passed us in those boxing style trunks and with like black and flames d the other one is this sort of blue-grey cammo and they have some ink and work out bodies and Hunter leans to watch them more as they go by us and she watching them.

“Hunter!”

She bursts out giggling. “What I’m shopping for future potential husbands!”

I look at her and then I lean over and take a better look and they have nice guy legs and great buns along with everything else and I bite my lower lip and then look at Hunter and we both burst into giggles.

We do that for like an hour and a half use all the water slides and laugh and giggle together and watch boys and stuff and just be girls. Yeah I’m married and I’m happily married but it’s just a sister thing, a girl thing and honestly we’re both I think doing this for the first time and it’s even a bonding deal with some of the girls there too because they kind of jump into the wow does he ever have a nice ass comments.

Yes we do it too, if anything some of the girl talk is pretty…hot and spicy and Hunter is just sucking up all of the girl talk and some of it is kinda past being PG-13 which kind of makes it better really

We even do the woman helping woman thing in retrieving a top and being a body changing area for one of the girls that loses her top and a semi guy blocker when we’d get done a slide and need an adjustment when bathing suits get shifted around and sometimes wedgied.

But after that we’re both chilled and stuff despite the place being heated and the pools being kinda heated too it’s just a long time in the water but even that feel all sorts of good as we head back together and stuff and Dad and them are ready and Giselle is all floppy asleep in Iggy’s arms and stuff and I guess that Taylor’s off trying to surf.

Dad passes me a coffee and Hunter a hot chocolate and we hug and she sits down by Angie and she starts to tell her all about the time that we had up there. I get this whole inside yay-owie feeling when Angie looks at me and she’s looking at me with this whole proud mom thing.

It hits so hard how much I missed that, missed out on that and how much she means to me and stuff and I’m almost crying from how awesome that feels.

(Sniffle.) “I…I’m going to go and try to find a place to watch Taylor at and stuff.”

I’m smiling and sort of hugging myself with the towel I have around me and my coffee cup and I head off feeling so much…

I needed this, they needed this but our family needed this and I swear I can feel all of us getting closer and closer together like we’re finally becoming the family that we’ve all wanted.

I’ll take the hurts for this; I’ll take all of the hurting for this.

I get there and it’s not big waves or anything but it’s what they call a wave pool and they’re like a six foot wave or eight foot it’s hard to judge since I know nothing about the water and stuff except for like TV, but the wave flow the length of the pool before washing out at this grate at the shallow end.

Taylor’s with one of the guys that’s teaching it and I sip my coffee and watch and stuff and I set my coffee down and see him actually get up on the board and ride it out for like fifty feet or sixty feet before there’s no room. It’s way cool he stayed up the entire time and I’m not sure that I could do that and I clap and cheer whistle at him when he’s done.

“Way to go honey, do it again!”

I see the smile on his face and the happy guy wave he gives me and him and the instructor paddle back talking and stuff. I see the guy look at me and it’s that checking me out look and something else and they do the guy thing hand shake once their sitting on the boards and riding the wave thing where they really aren’t going anywhere.

It’s so that guy giving the other guy props for his girl thing.

I actually don’t mind, he’s my guy and guys have their esteem things too….and Tay’s been knocked around just as much as me and I watch and cheer as he takes another wave and gets up on his board and I cheer him on and it’s good to see him just smile, doing something just for him and just smiling.