“We wanted to ask you if you would consider living with us.” I grinned, and she stared at me again, silent, as though she was waiting for me to tell her I was just fooling and not to get so excited. I didn’t contradict myself. Her eyebrows shot up.
“You’re serious?” she shrieked, and I nodded. I leaned over and hugged her on impulse. As she had gotten older, she had become less and less huggy, but she wrapped her arms around me and held me tight for a long moment as the news sank in.
“To that apartment? The one in the city?” she burbled excitedly, and I nodded.
“Yeah, we want you there with us,” I replied. “And of course, you don’t have to if you don’t—”
“Of course, I want to live with you,” she replied breathlessly. “But won’t the apartment be hard to work around? With the chair and everything?”
“Kristo is going to do everything he can to make it accessible for you,” I assured her. “And we’re going to get a caregiver, full-time, so you can go out and live how you want to.”
I could see the tears shining in her eyes, and I found myself starting to get choked up as well. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I got to live with my baby sister again after what felt like a lifetime apart from her. We sat there and both of us burst out laughing, the disbelief fading into joy. I was going to live with my husband and my sister in that apartment, and that was going to be my life. I couldn’t wait. It was going to be incredible.
“Hey, you!” Jolene exclaimed excitedly, and I turned around to find Kristo standing in the door.
“You guys ready to leave?” Kristo glanced around the room, and I could tell he was trying to get a read on how well—or otherwise—the conversation had gone. I smiled at him reassuringly.
“Yeah, we’re ready,” I told him. “And we’re good. Everything’s out there. She knows.”
“That’s amazing.” Kristo turned to Jolene with a smile that seemed set to crack his face in two, and then he jerked his head toward the door. “Come on, there’s something I want to show you outside.”
Jolene shot me a look, but I shrugged. I had no idea what he might have had out there. I wheeled Jolene down to the ground floor, where the van was meant to be waiting for her so we could take her back to the city. Instead, when we came out the doors, Kristo came to a halt next to a large black SUV.
“What’s that?” I asked. His smile widened, and he stepped inside. With a few buttons pressed, the car unfolded, displaying a ramp for Jolene and room for her chair. Kristo emerged once more, to find the two of us, open-mouthed, staring at him.
“I got a car specially made for Jolene,” he told the two of us. “So we don’t have to worry about the van anymore.”
“You’re serious.” I shook my head, and I felt the tears prick my eyes again. “Oh my god, Kristo.”
I practically leaped into his arms, Jolene laughing beside us, and he spun me around before he put me back on the ground.
“Thank you,” I murmured into his ear. He had no idea how much this meant to me. It was an indicator that he was ready for this with Jolene, truly ready, that her life and ours were going to be blended in a way I could never have dreamed before.
“Anything,” he replied softly back, and my heart sang in my chest before I pulled away.
“All right, which one of you lovebirds is going to help me with my chair?” Jolene asked excitedly, and the two of us went to help her. On the way back to the apartment, we talked about the logistics of moving her from the home down to our place, and the whole time, I had to keep reminding myself that this was real. It felt as though the ground was going to go swooping away below me at any second because there was no way life could be this perfect, no way it could run so smooth. I sat in that SUV, my fiancé driving with my sister beside me, and I felt giddy with the joy of it all. What could possibly puncture this?