"Marie, I’m going to take a walk out back Will you please tell that daughter of mine, if she shows up while I’m out, to get a shower and to be ready to have dinner with her father and I when he gets in."
Jennifer Hart strolled out onto the rear grounds of the estate, Willow Pond; she shared with her husband, Jonathan, their daughter J.J., and Marie, their housekeeper. Roaming the house and the gardens was their third generation mutt, Freeway, nicknamed Third.
The warm California summer sun felt good on her skin after being cooped up with her writing in air conditioning all morning. She breathed deeply; taking in the earthy scents carried by the soft breezes that played across the grass. The abundant foliage danced and swayed as she passed slowly through it. She loved being out here. It was soothing, and she found it cleared her head when her writing was giving her a hard time. The article she had been working on wasn’t going as smoothly as she had planned, and a headache was coming on. The article was supposed to examine the erosion of self-esteem in adolescent females in western culture. She was having a hard time concentrating. Her thoughts kept drifting to her own experiences and what lie ahead for her young daughter.
J.J. was now twelve. This age was significant to Jennifer in that own life had changed dramatically at twelve. That was the year that her mother, Suzanne, was killed in an auto accident. Her father, Stephen Edwards, had not coped well.
During Jennifer’s early childhood, he spent a great deal of time travelling the world as an art dealer. It was the mutual understanding between he and Suzanne that mainly her mother would raise the little girl. With the sudden loss of his beloved wife, he had been left with a huge void in his life and a prepubescent daughter that he felt inadequate to raise on his own. He enrolled Jennifer in proper young ladies’ boarding school, and immersed himself in his work in the art galleries of the world. Her father called often and visited her when he could. She went home for holidays. She and her father even developed a strong bond. She knew that he loved her, but her life was never the same without her beautiful mother.
To further the resulting feelings of emptiness and confusion, shortly after that twelfth year, Jennifer rapidly transformed from a skinny, coltish redhead with freckles into a tall, curvaceous, beautiful young woman. The unruly red hair had darkened into a wavy mane of shades of auburn, minimizing the sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks.
Everywhere she went, Jennifer turned heads, but she had found it very disconcerting. Out of nowhere, boys were falling all over themselves trying to gain her attentions and affections. Never having been a boy-crazy teen, or one to seek attention, she had been totally unprepared for all of it. Her girlfriends did not understand why she did not enjoy the persistent entreaties of the young men who ventured from the neighboring boys’ school to meet her. With no one to tell her how to handle it, she had essentially avoided it by pouring herself into her studies, giving herself time to figure it all out on her own. She had focused on developing the things that she knew to be positive about herself; she was intelligent, she loved people and life, and she could write.
She had learned by trial and error, making mistakes and learning from them. When she did date, she found that the guys she tended to attract usually turned out to be superficial, attracted to her physical beauty, or her father’s money, but not to her free spirit and her need for independence. The men she was attracted to tended to be seekers of adventure and excitement, but were not appreciative of that same trait in a woman. They all seemed to want to tame her and make her be what they thought she should be. It was during these years that she had learned to distrust most men and their motives.
That is, until she had met Jonathan Hart.
Nursing her wounds after escaping her most disastrous and destructive relationship, the one with Elliott Manning, she had been in London working as a reporter. Elliott had nearly broken her spirit, and she decided to make writing her career and her life. Travelling the globe, she became quite successful, and, after Elliott, came to believe that marriage was not in her future. Certainly, there would be no children for her. She could not see or feel herself as a mother. No ties for Jennifer Edwards. There would be no need to trust anyone but herself, and nobody to or for which she had to be accountable. No guessing, and no game playing.
She was assigned to secure an interview with Jonathan Hart, the self-made millionaire. From the moment she turned on that bar stool to meet Jonathan’s crystal blue eyes, she had known immediately that this was indeed a different sort of man. Something electric immediately happened. No man had ever touched her soul with just a look. From the first time that he uttered her name, "Jennifer", she was his to do with whatever he wanted. What she had not known was that at that same moment, he had already decided that she was going to be with him for the rest of his life.
Jennifer wrapped her arms around herself and smiled quietly. She stopped and lifted her face to the sky. Closing her eyes, she allowed the sun to bathe her.
The first ten years were pure magic. They married quickly, and began an odyssey of love that carried them around the world several times and into adventures, danger, and intrigue. Jonathan encouraged her independence and her writing. She supported him in his business ventures and his seemingly insatiable need for excitement. He encouraged her to take chances and to trust him. She harnessed his restless spirit and kept him grounded.
And they made love. Wonderfully. Endlessly. Everywhere.
Jonathan’s childhood guardian, Max, had lived with them then. He had managed the estate, and looked after the two of them. It had not been easy for him. It was murder when they met. They often found themselves in tight spots due to her curiosity and his penchant for attracting danger.
It was at the beginning of that tenth year that things began to change.
She had gone out in the field to do a story about special unit that conducted emergency medical evacuations In the course of her research, she inadvertently discovered an illegal operation. In an attempt to burn the evidence that she had uncovered, the main suspect got onto the estate and into the house. He set fire to her files and to her desk. She and Jonathan had been away at the cabin to rest for the weekend. Max, who remained behind, had gone out to walk Freeway Jr.
The house burned to the ground. Almost nothing from the main house could be salvaged. All that remained intact were the things that they stored in a huge vault under the house: pictures, Jennifer’s manuscripts, some sentimental items.
The three of them rented a house at the beach until the house at Willow Pond could be rebuilt. It was there that Max had become ill. Jonathan arranged for the best doctors and treatment that his considerable money could buy, but there was little that could be done other than making him comfortable. Max called the two of them to his bedside before he had gone in for his final surgery.
"Jonathan, I just want you to know that you have been the son that I never had." He had said in his craggy voice. Illness had softened it to almost a whisper. "I couldn’a been prouder of you if you hadda been my own kid. You are what I’m leavin’ here after I’m gone to let everybody know that I been here and I done some good."
Jonathan had been unable to speak. He simply leaned over and kissed Max’s cheek.
Max then took Jennifer by both of her hands. She had felt something akin to a shock or charge flow between them just at that moment.
"Jennifer, you stick with this bum. You are the best thing that ever happened to him- to us. You and him have taken each other to a lot of places since you’ve been together, but he’s about to take you someplace you never thought you’d go. But it’s someplace you need to go. Trust me. Trust him. You two get on with the exciting business of life. You got lots more to do yet."
She and Jonathan had looked at each other questioningly, and Max just smiled and closed his eyes.
He did not make it through the surgery.
Jennifer wiped away the tears from her face as she recalled the doctor telling them that Max was gone. She resumed her slow walk, running her hands through her hair, pulling it out of her face and off her neck, securing it all again in the clamp she had earlier placed in her hair.
After the funeral, they had gone to Montreal and sailed up the St. Lawrence as Max had arranged for them before his surgery. He had left them a letter with specific instructions that he wanted them to follow.
It had been fun. They ran into some trouble and got out of it. But three months after Max’s passing, she still could not get herself together. Listless and lethargic, and having no appetite, Jennifer had attributed her symptoms to depression. Jonathan became especially concerned when she started sleeping during the day. She never took daytime naps, unless they had made love during the day. He insisted upon her seeing her doctor.
Three months after Max’s passing, during that visit to the doctor, they had been informed that her depression was actually a pregnancy that was smoothly progressing into its second trimester.
Pregnant? She was forty and Jonathan was forty-five. It couldn’t be. She knew that Jonathan had always wanted children. Her position on the subject had softened, but mostly out of her love for him. They had decided after the fifth year of their marriage that if a child came, it would be all right. Nothing had been done to prevent a pregnancy, and when none had occurred, they had accepted that they were not meant to be parents. They had gone on with their lives. Now this.
Was this the place that Jonathan was supposed to take her? The place that she needed to go, of which Max had spoken? Is this what he meant when he said that they weren’t finished with the exciting business of life? Did Max facilitate their conceiving when he had held her hands?
What?
All of that had been answered in full. Their lives had changed, but it was a totally new adventure. The baby, a little girl, had been born just as the house at Willow Pond had been completely rebuilt and refurnished. Maria, a good friend of Max, had been the housekeeper on the Thornton estate, which was next door. Maria had longed admired the Harts. They seemed so enamored of each other. Max always spoke lovingly of them and their escapades. She was especially fond of Jennifer. Such a pretty, elegant, and gracious girl, but somehow Marie could tell that for her there was even more joy to come. She knew that a baby was in that girl’s future. There was too much love between her and her handsome husband for there not to be a living legacy as testimony of that love.
When Max had become so ill, she and Max agreed that should a child ever be born to them, she would go into service with the Harts. The Thorntons spent much of the year away from home, so she was not needed as much with them. Her presence in the Hart home would allow the couple to raise their child without having to worry about running the house, the way they would have been able to do if Max had still been with them. Their arrangement had given Max great comfort in his final days. He had written a letter of recommendation for her to give to the Harts. It had not been needed. She had presented herself to them, and she had been with them ever since as a part of their home and family. She was competent and trustworthy.
Jonathan wanted their baby to be named for her mother, Jennifer Justine. Jennifer had dropped Justine for her maiden name, Edwards, after marrying Jonathan. Jennifer insisted, however, that the names be reversed to allow the child her own identity. She was finally named Justine Jennifer Hart, but had been called J.J.
"Justine Jennifer Hart." Jonathan had recited to the squirming baby lying on his outstretched legs. "Too much name for somebody so little. You’ll just be my J.J."
From the beginning, the little girl was bright, fun loving, mischievous, and adventurous. She resembled her mother, but had her father’s twinkling blue eyes. Always full of energy, she was game for anything. She traveled well, so they did not have to curtail their comings and goings much until J.J. started school. Jennifer then took writing assignments during the school year that kept her close to home. She found that being a mother opened her range of interests to new topics. Along with animal rights and conservation, she found that issues involving children intrigued her. If it became necessary for her to leave to pursue her work, Jonathan would rearrange his schedule to be at home, or Jennifer would take J.J. with her and schedule a tutor. As a result, J.J. was globally knowledgeable and like her mother, who could speak several languages, J.J., at twelve was displaying the same talent. She could speak French and Spanish fairly fluently, and was working on mastering Russian.
The depths of her feelings for this child constantly amazed her. A mother’s love was something that she had always heard of, but the experience itself was phenomenal. She had been silently terrified throughout the pregnancy that there would be no room in her heart to love anyone but Jonathan. He had been her entire world. How could anyone else fit? She had known that he desperately wanted this baby. She wanted it for him. What woman would not want his child? He was handsome, kind, generous, sensitive, sexy, wealthy, and all of the things that any woman would want in a man. Her concern was would she be a good mother to his child?
Patricia, her longtime friend and editor, had been delighted about the baby and confused by Jennifer’s ambivalence when she called her in New York to tell her of the pregnancy.
"Well I’ll be!" she exclaimed. "What the hell took you so long? If I had your sweet, sexy, handsome husband I’d have had six or seven of his babies, and be pregnant again, in all this time! You have to be the only woman in the world that would be worried about being knocked up by Jonathan Hart!"
Remembering that always made her laugh.
The nurse had placed her newborn in her arms. She had been so tired when she got the chance to look into the baby’s face. The little eyes opened and had locked on hers. She saw that they were blue like Jonathan’s. Her heart had filled as the little girl turned her head to nuzzle her bosom and curled her tiny hand around her finger.
"She recognizes her mommy, Jennifer, and she’s hungry." Doctor Kendall had said softly.
Instinctively, she moved her gown aside and placed her nipple to the baby’s mouth. The child had closed her eyes and contentedly begun to nurse. Jonathan had been standing over them. She could feel his hand in her hair and at the back of her neck. She looked up at him to gauge his reaction to watching Jennifer Edwards Hart actually nursing a baby.
Tears flowed down his beautiful face.
His heart was full, also. Jennifer Edwards Hart was nursing his baby.
"I love you." He whispered.
It was at that moment that she understood all that Max had been telling her.
J.J. was the crown jewel of their union. Jonathan adored her. It was a constant effort to keep the two of them reined in. He wanted to give her the world. Having grown up an orphan with nothing until he met Max, he tended to want to spoil J.J. The baby had been home from the hospital four weeks when he commissioned her first diamond. It was a gold bracelet with her parents’ personal logo; the two intertwined hearts with "J" engraved on each. In the middle of these two hearts was a diamond.
"That’s you", he said to his daughter, pointing to the sparkling stone.
J.J. wore that bracelet to this day.
Jennifer, having grown up a child of wealthy parents, had witnessed first hand the damage that over indulgence could cause in children. She allowed him the bracelet, but not a whole lot more. She made it her mission to ensure that J.J. grow up as close to normal as possible, but with Jonathan for her father, it was a real struggle.
On their ranch and on Jennifer’s father’s horse farm, places they visited more often since J.J.’s birth, the baby learned to ride a horse before she could walk. Jonathan often rode with the months old infant strapped to his chest. J.J. would laugh with glee. Shortly before she was one, under Jennifer’s vigorous protests, he placed J.J. on the back of a pony. J.J. picked up the reins in her tiny hands and confidently rode with her daddy walking alongside. At five she was riding off alone on that same horse to the rim rock. Now, at twelve, she was absolutely fearless.
Jennifer taught J.J. her letters, numbers, colors, and how to read. Jonathan taught her to read playing cards, racing forms, and how to read people. Jennifer wanted her to dance the ballet and take delight in the opera. J.J. preferred basketball games and racing through the skies in her father’s airplane. She excelled in all things physical and had Jonathan’s strong competitive spirit. She played baseball, basketball, tennis, soccer, golf, and to her mother’s consternation, football and poker.
She also shared her father’s talent for manipulating electronics and locks. It was by circumstance that Jennifer learned that J.J. knew how to override the security system on the estate. There had been a storm and she and J.J. found themselves locked outside of the malfunctioning massive front gates. After a slight nervous hesitation, J.J. quietly asked her mother for a nail file. Jennifer looked at the little girl and saw something in her eyes. She dug in her purse and handed the file to J.J. The girl got out, picked open the locked fuse box, and after a little maneuvering inside the box, the gates swung open. J.J. slid back into the car without a word, handing the file back to Jennifer
"Your father?" Jennifer asked driving in, looking straight ahead.
J.J. had not answered. She didn’t have to.
Jonathan often took their daughter up for rides in his Piper. It delighted J.J. that her father could fly his own airplanes. Jennifer also suspected that Jonathan and Frank, their personal pilot on the Hart Industries jet, were teaching J.J. to fly the Piper.
J.J. and Jonathan didn’t tell her everything. It was probably best.
II.
Jennifer could see Third nosing about in the brush and flowers around the gazebo. She figured that J.J. must have been sitting inside. The two were seldom far apart when they were at home. Approaching the gazebo, Jennifer could see what appeared to be two figures through the heavy lattice. Third ran up to her brushing her legs, begging to be petted. She reached down and rubbed his hairy head. Coming around to the opening of the gazebo, there to her complete surprise was J.J., engaged in a kiss with a neighbor boy, Tommy Steele.
"Ahem", she cleared her throat, stepping around to the front of the gazebo with both hands on her hips.
The children jumped apart, eyes wide with shock. Tommy secretly thanked the heavens that it wasn’t Mr. Hart, but then Mrs. Hart was no joke either. He grabbed his football and bolted from the gazebo, gingerly moving around Jennifer, without saying a word.
J.J. sat frozen to the bench, her eyes locked on her mother. Saying nothing, Jennifer crooked her finger, gesturing for the girl to come with her. They walked back toward the house, child following mother. Third following them both. J.J.’s mind was whirling, not knowing what was coming next. She felt alternately hot, cold, clammy. Her stomach was doing flips.
"Just stay calm", she said to herself watching her mother’s back as they continued through the yard. "Just wait for her and follow her lead. I am so dead…"
They reached the house. Jennifer stood aside and held the door open for J.J. She closed the door leaving Third outside whimpering. The girl looked up at her mother beseechingly. Jennifer ignored her pleading eyes and shook her head. She motioned for the girl to continue to follow her. They walked through the house and passed Marie who was watering the fresh flowers by the front door. Marie could tell that there was trouble. She peered questioningly at J.J. Lowering her head, and throwing up her hands in silent surrender, J.J. walked on past. Mother and daughter continued up the front staircase and into the master bedroom.
"Please, please, please don’t let my daddy be in there. I can’t take a double-teaming on this one", J.J. prayed silently.
Upon entering the room, she didn’t see or hear him. She did hear her mother close the door behind them. "Oh, God, please…"
Jennifer gestured for J.J. to sit down on the bench at her dressing table. J.J. sat.
Taking the thin shoulders in her hands, Jennifer turned her daughter so that she was facing the mirror. J.J. could see her own smudged face and terrified eyes.
In one quick move, Jennifer reached down at J.J.’s waist and pulled the dirty tee shirt that she had been wearing over her head leaving her undeveloped chest exposed.
"Mom!", J.J whined, quickly crossing her hands over her chest to cover her nakedness.
"Oh puh’leese", Jennifer said softly, gently pulling her daughter’s hands down to her lap. "Even if you had something other than those two dots up there, I am familiar with the territory. Besides, it’s just us."
J.J. looked into the mirror. Her mother’s eyes were fixed on her eyes.
"I just want you to watch." Jennifer said quietly.
J.J. did watch as her mother removed the scrunchee that held her messy, tousled ponytail. Jennifer picked up her hairbrush from the table and began slowly brushing and smoothing her daughter’s hair. It was thick and lush like Jonathan’s, wavy like hers. She pulled back the loose tendrils that had fallen into J.J.’s face.
"Is she mad at me?" J.J’s thoughts raced as she continued to watch her mother’s face in the mirror. "What’s she going to do to me? What are her eyes saying?"
As if she could hear her, Jennifer repeated, "Just watch."
J.J. looked at Jennifer’s face in the mirror as her mother continued to brush her hair back away from her face. J.J. noticed that Jennifer’s auburn hair was also pulled back today and held with a clip, exposing her entire face. Usually she wore it in soft curls that framed her face, fell across her forhead, and fell to her shoulders, as her father preferred it.
They both watched.
J.J. started at the top and began comparing. Her hair was red with flecks of bronze and gold. Jennifer’s was red, but a couple of shades darker. There was the same bronze and gold. They had the same hairline with the pronounced widow’s peak. They had the same high forehead. The same clearly defined dark eyebrows. J.J. stared into her mother’s honey brown almond shaped eyes with her own almond shaped blue eyes. Same cheekbones, the Edwards nose with its sprinkling of freckles, same slight cleft in the chin, and since she was too scared and confused to smile, her mother’s mouth.
"Mom, am I beginning to look like you?"
J.J. had never paid too much attention to her looks. At twelve she thought she was average looking and kind of skinny. She had focused more on what she could do. Could she be the fastest runner? Could she out play the other team? Could she ride her horse faster or better each time? Had she done her best in school? Did she make her daddy laugh or her mother smile?
She had long been aware that her parents were wealthy, important people- her father an industrialist, her mother a well-known journalist. To her, they were just her parents. The other things could be embarrassing at times, especially when her daddy drove his Bentley to drop her off or pick her up from school. To her, the less said about money, the better.
What she was more intensely aware of was that her mother was beautiful.
She had seen how people could not take their eyes off of her when she entered a room. She had watched as her father’s powerful, important businessmen friends turned stupid when her mother came around them. She had noticed how her father’s gaze sometimes fixed on his wife as if she were one of those exquisite works of art they had often taken her to see. She herself had been captivated watching her mother when she was with her dad. She seemed to almost glow. Having a beautiful mother had always been a source of pride for J.J. Right now, watching her mother’s face watch hers in the mirror, Jennifer Hart was scary beautiful.
"Do you see, J.J.?" she heard her mother ask.
"That I’m going to look like you?"
"Your blue eyes are going to make your face a lot more interesting."
"Mom?" J.J. tilted her head slightly, but still kept her eyes locked on her mother’s. "How come you got me sitting here with no shirt, as naked as a jaybird?"
Jennifer smiled and sat down next to J.J.
"Two things", she began. "First, I didn’t want to be distracted by that filthy shirt. Your dirty face is enough. Secondly, I wanted to tell you that I was just as flat as you are now when I was twelve."
Jennifer was wearing a knit top with a low cut neckline that tastefully displayed cleavage.
J.J. discreetly allowed her eyes to travel to her mother’s bosom. "For real?"
"For real."
They sat in silence for a moment, then Jennifer asked, "Do you remember when I told you about having a period?"
"Yeah," J.J. frowned. "And I’m still disgusted."
"Well, get used to the idea. It could happen any day now. When it does, mein liepchen, all of it begins to happen, and overnight you are going to be a physical beauty."
"Mom!" J.J. protested, turning red.
"It’s a fact." Jennifer stated flatly. "Not because you’re mine, but because you will be. That is a reality. It’s not a compliment."
Jennifer turned and took J.J.’s hands. She pulled the girl around so that they were facing each other. She put her finger under the small chin to make the two of them see eye to eye.
"J.J., beauty is a blessing, but it can also be a burden. When something is ugly on the outside, you don’t want much to do with it at first. You tend to move away from it. Beauty tends to draw people. They want to be with you whether they know the real you or not. Do you understand?"
J.J. nodded slightly.
"Why were you kissing Tommy out there?"
J.J. blushed again. She tried to look away, but Jennifer brought her face back around with her finger. "I want to know."
"He said that he wanted to kiss me."
"Did you want to kiss him?"
"I don’t know. Sort of….well…yes…I hadn’t ever kissed a boy."
That damned Hart need for adventure….
"What had you and Tommy been doing before he asked to kiss you?"
"We had been playing football."
Jennifer nodded knowingly, "Tackle?"
"He wasn’t supposed to. It was supposed to be touch…" J.J sounded a little confused.
Jennifer shook her head, "and so it begins" she thought to herself. "Jonathan’s whole head is going to be silver."
She took J.J.’s hands in hers again. "J.J., Tommy is your friend. He has been your friend for years. He wanted to kiss you today because you are a girl, a pretty girl. That’s what I wanted you to see in the mirror. You have a lot of blessings that will make people want to be with you. You will have to be careful that people want to be with you because of you- not your money, not your looks- just you."
J.J. surveyed Jennifer quickly.
"But didn’t my daddy like you because of your looks?"
Jennifer smiled remembering that first meeting and those blue eyes.
"Yes, and I liked his looks- at first. But that’s not what’s kept us together all of these years. We love each other because of who we are and what do for each other."
Looking deeply into J.J.’s eyes and thinking about that article that she was working on, she said, "I just want you to be a happy, fully finished person- not just a pretty face. I want you to understand that the lovely package will require that you be smart and perceptive about people and their motives. Take your time, J.J. and kiss only the people that you want to kiss. Be sure of the reasons why you want to kiss."
J.J. looked down at her mother’s hands that still held hers. "I shouldn’t have kissed Tommy. There wasn’t a right reason."
Jennifer reached out and pulled her daughter to her. She held her close, resting her chin on the top of the child’s head. It still hurt sometimes that her mother had not been able to be there for her. Pa tried, but it wasn’t the same as Mama.
"You’re a little young, yet." She said softly. "Wait a little while before the next kiss. You wanted to see what it was like. Now you know."
"Yeah well, it wasn’t all that." J.J. said quietly. "In fact, I really don’t see what all the hype over kissing boys is ."
"Good" Jennifer thought, feeling relieved.
She felt J.J. wrap her arms around her and relax. She could feel the small heart beating fast against her. J.J. had been afraid of her reaction and had been terrified for the last few minutes. She rubbed J.J.’s back and rocked her gently to calm her, the way she had when she was a baby.
She hoped this day would be a beginning in helping J.J. make the transitions that she would soon face.
"Max." She thought. "You were soooo right."
She held J.J. closer, and kissed the top of her head. She closed her eyes.
For the first time in a long time, she could clearly see her own mother’s face. She was smiling.
