October-November 2012

I stood in the kitchen of my new home and unwrapped the foil of a Dove Dark Chocolate Promise. I popped it into my mouth.

Mmmmmmmm.

As the sweet, chocolaty goodness melted in my mouth, I looked at the foil’s interior-printed “promise,” Dove’s attempt at a fortune-cookie surprise.

You are exactly where you are supposed to be, it read.

I smiled. How fitting. Yes, I was.

I sensed Jackson behind me and then felt his lips against the back of my neck. His neatly trimmed beard tickled, and I giggled. He wove his arms through mine, encircling me, and gently placed his hands on my belly.

“I love you,” he said into my hair. “I thank God every day for you.”

I loved him, too.

In fact, the more I had gotten to know Jackson, the more I knew I couldn’t live without him. So when we found the most wonderful house and property on the same busy state route where we had crossed paths that warm summer day, we knew it had to be our home.

Another case of love at first sight.

“Mom,” Jerrica said from the dining room the day we went to see it, “this house is so you.”

Sunlight streamed in through the sliding-glass door and accompanying bay window overlooking the backyard and the tree line beyond. It reminded me of the two acres between cow pastures where I had grown up.

Our home. A lovely, solid construction neatly tucked between cornfields and hills on almost three acres, beside a creek just as long. A place where I could immerse myself in nature and grow a vegetable garden and tend to flowerbeds and feed blue jays. A place where I could watch the sun set from white wicker furniture while enjoying a glass of wine on my front porch. A place where my children could crash on the sofa anytime they wanted or play whiffle ball in the backyard or throw a New Year’s Eve party. An enchanting place, our new home.

Somewhere I could feel settled and whole and normal again. I had found my heart’s desire.

I tried to hide the tears filling my eyes, but Jerr noticed. “Mom, don’t cry,” she said while laughing. “It’s such a good, happy thing.”

Jackson felt it, too.

“This is it, honey,” he told me. “It feels right.”

Not long after we moved in, with work boots on his feet and a chainsaw in his hands, Jackson carved an “A” and a “J” in two trees at the front of the property because their roots were intertwined. What a romantic.

Dream home. Dream man. Perfect.

• • •

“Let me see your teeth,” Jackson said leaning forward. “Smile.”

Smiling for Jackson was second nature by now and almost constant. We were out to eat, and I had just cracked open a crab leg with my teeth.

I bared my teeth, wondering what he might say next to get a giggle, and then I noticed him, face tilted, eyes examining my mouth.

He waved his hand in front of his own mouth, and squinted in the restaurant’s evening light intently. A look of recognition passed over his face.

“Honey, please don’t freak out,” he started, “but…”

Instinctively, I moved my hand up in front of my lips. The beautiful new tooth that replaced the one I lost in the accident had recently celebrated its first birthday in my mouth. I must have had a piece of broccoli stuck between my new front tooth and its neighbor.

“What’s wrong?” The dentist had assured me that nothing would ever loosen that implant, but I worried.

“It looks like you broke your front tooth on that crab leg,” he said.

I felt immediate hot tears behind my eyes. My breath caught and my heart raced.

I ran my tongue along the bottoms of my front teeth to see which one it was.

Oh, thank God! It was not my new front tooth.

But its front neighbor was missing a corner, a large piece, and it felt jagged and sharp.

“Oh no. What does it look like?”

I looked quickly to my left and right, worried that people would notice and see that I was fighting back tears. I had learned to be very self-conscious of my smile.

“It’s just a small piece missing; you can barely tell,” Jackson assured me. “It’ll be easy to fix, hon.”

I had to see. I grabbed my purse and reached inside for my makeup bag. I ripped the zipper back, and without even looking, found the mirror with my fingers. I held it to my mouth to see, while shrinking down into the restaurant’s booth to hide from view.

It was probably an old filling that had cracked off, which meant it really would be easy to fix, but still. It was my front tooth, and it was a pointy, nasty looking fang right now.

Memories of headlights tearing out of the darkness and slamming into my car swirled around me—shock and fear—completely blocking out Jackson and those dining around us. The feeling of the other front tooth lying on my tongue. The embarrassment I felt for the way I looked without that tooth. The feeling of the “flipper” in my mouth, even when I slept. I didn’t feel whole without my front tooth, and now half of the other one was missing.

I started to cry.

“Aimee, it’s okay.”

Jackson’s voice brought me out of my momentary trance, and I looked at him.

“Baby, it’s okay,” he said again. “It’s not that bad. Just call the dentist first thing Monday and go from there.”

He was right. I couldn’t do anything about it now, and it didn’t hurt.

We left then, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the accident. The breaking of my other front tooth had cracked open a wound that hadn’t yet healed.

And I wanted to talk to Jackson about it.

“You know,” I started, “I know there isn’t one thing I could have done differently that night. It happened out of nowhere. I couldn’t prevent it.”

I had been saying this since the accident happened. Those headlights in the line of my left peripheral vision, the almost instant impact. I could not have swerved, braked, or sped up. Nothing would have mattered.

“So why are you still beating yourself up about it, then? Why can’t you try to let it go?” Jackson asked.

“Because I’m so angry. Still.”

I wanted to find forgiveness and closure, but it was taking so long. And I had a feeling that this was another one of those things—like a broken heart—that only time could heal.

“I understand,” Jackson said gently. “But, baby, he’s dead. You’re alive. You’re well, and your life is good.”

He was right. I had thought these things, of course—my brain understood—but I always made excuses otherwise, self-pity at its finest. I had survived, I was still alive, and I had moved forward. I was also happy.

But for some reason, in someplace deep, down inside of me, my soul wouldn’t let go entirely.

Yet.