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“Are you sure about this?” Jo asked, holding up the mirror looking to where Link was holding a strand of her hair, getting ready to make the first cut.
“Yes, trust me. I'm much better at cutting hair than you are,” Link said as Jo scoffed, remembering the time she tried to cut his hair. “Besides, you've seen how I keep up this beautiful hair.”
Jo rolled her eyes but pinned the towel around her shoulders and let him continue. After they deep conditioned her hair in the kitchen sink and worked out most of the tangles, Jo decided that although some of it could be saved, the majority of her ends were completely unsalvageable. So she put Luna on a play mat on the floor as Link grabbed the scissors.
Jo closed her eyes as he made the first cut. As soon as she heard the snip of the scissors, she opened one eye and looked at it in the mirror she was holding. She let out a sigh of relief as, thankfully, it didn't look too bad. As Link continued to cut, Jo looked down at Luna, she was supposed to be doing tummy time, but she had rolled over onto her back and was currently staring up at the suspended animals while playing with her toes.
“Does Lana have object permanence yet?” Link asked, catching Jo's attention as she looked at him in the mirror.
“Yeah, she’s really good at not fussing when I lose her favorite blanket. We still play peek-a-boo all the time and it's her favorite,” Jo said, looking down at Luna again as she glanced at her, and Jo put her hands over her face before pulling them back and saying peekaboo to her as Luna laughed.
“So Luna knows that just because she can't see something doesn't mean it's not there. The same thing applies to you when you drop her off at daycare. She knows that you love her, Jo. I've seen the way she looks at you, and just because you drop her off at daycare doesn't mean that Luna doesn't know that you love her.”
“Thanks,” Jo said with a sigh, looking down at Luna, who was fixated on her and smiled down at her little girl.
Luna looked over at her with a wide smile as Jo waved at her, and Luna waved her arms as well before looking back up at her toys. Jo couldn't help but smile as she stared at her daughter. Her perfect little girl was so happy. She never wanted Luna to worry about if Jo was going to pick her up from daycare. All Jo wanted was to let her daughter know that she was always loved and wanted.
“I know it's not as easy as I say it is. I’m still terrified that Scout is going to get cancer,” Link said, letting out a sigh as he picked up another strand of her hair.
“Even though I've told you a dozen times that the likelihood of that is pretty small?” Jo said, looking up at him. “By the way, how was his 1-year appointment? “
“It was great, except for the fact that we over shared with the doctor, but Scout is doing fine. He's, he's perfect,” Link said, with a smile as Jo looked back at him, but it quickly disappeared before he shook his head and picked up another strand to cut. “But I still worry, you know, I don't think that I'll ever not worry.”
“I don't think I'll ever not worry either,” Jo said, staring at Luna before looking back at him in the mirror. “And Link, you gotta stop proposing to Amelia.”
“I just want to marry her. Is that so wrong?” Link asked with a sigh, running a comb through her hair and holding up the ends before he trimmed them.
“You're pushing her to do something that she's not ready to do. Amelia has a really good reason for not wanting to marry you. She's been married before, and she loves you, and I can tell that she doesn’t want to rush into a marriage she's not ready for. I was in her position and do you know how many times I turned down Alex’s proposal? He asked me like three or four times before he decided it wasn't enough for him and we broke up for six months.”
“Didn't he also punch DeLuca and almost go to jail at the start of those six months?” Link asked, pausing to turn his head and look at her. “Also, weren't you still married to Paul and you hadn't told him yet, so technically, you couldn't have accepted the proposal even if you wanted to.”
“Yes, but that's not the point,” Jo said, waving him off with her hand as he went back to cutting her hair. “Alex was pushing me to do something I didn't want to do. Both in terms of accepting his proposal and telling him about Paul. We were only able to work things out when he accepted that. Then down the road, I realized that I wanted to marry him, and so I proposed, and we got married. I mean, he still left, but...”
Jo trailed off, she wanted to say that they were happy together, but she questioned how much of that happiness was real. She knew that Link and Amelia were different, but given her failed marriages, sometimes she felt like she had no right to be giving relationship advice. Still, she clung to what was true for her and Alex and what she saw that Link was doing with Amelia.
“Look, it doesn't matter. I still wasn't ready to marry him, but Alex decided that being with me was more important than marrying me!” Jo said, and she waited until he pulled the scissors for her to turn around and look at him. “You have the option to choose to love her and you're throwing it away! Do you think I would do that if Alex was standing in front of me right now? I wouldn't care if he brought an ex-wife and two kids with him. So long as I could have him, I would be happy. Are you telling me that so long as you have Amelia and Scout, you wouldn't be happy?”
Link looked down and away from her. She knew he wasn't quite ready to hear her words. He was still hung up on the fact that Amelia wouldn't marry him. She hoped that he would truly listen to her and Amelia, and they could work things out. Link looked back up and caught her eye again. He didn't say anything as he picked up a strand of hair by her face, measuring it out before he started cutting again.
Jo turned back around and looked down at Luna, who had rolled over onto her stomach. Luna got up on her hands and knees, she wasn't quite crawling yet, but she would hold herself up and wiggle. Jo smiled and held her hands out to encourage her to crawl. Luna got the most adorable, determined look on her face as she moved back and forth, not quite crawling. After a few minutes, she got frustrated and started to cry out, sitting back and holding out her arms for Jo to pick her up. Link let go of her hair, and Jo reached down to pick up Luna before she sat back in the chair and held Luna on her lap.
“You almost did it, Luna, you're going to be crawling before Mama knows it,” Jo said, reaching out and bopping her finger on Luna's nose as Luna almost went cross-eyed trying to watch her finger.
“She is certainly getting close. You'll have to learn how to whip your phone in time to capture it,” Link said as he ran a brush through her hair before he started cutting it again.
“What if she crawls for the first time at daycare and I don't get to see it?” Jo said, her eyes widening as she looked at Luna.
“She's not going to crawl for the first time at daycare. Nothing ever happens for the first time at daycare,” Link said with a little laugh, and she felt another chunk of her hair fall off her shoulders. “The first time she crawls for you is still the first time and she's going to remember if you were there for the real first time or not. You're still going to get to watch her grow up and do so many first, Jo. You have a whole lifetime with her. A few hours in daycare is just nothing compared to that.”
“I know,” Jo said, picking up Luna’s little pacifier with a small brown bear stuffed animal attached to it and waving it around before Luna reached out for it and Jo put the pacifier in her mouth. “It feels so different than when she was in the NICU. Back then, I would visit her whenever I could, and that felt like it was enough. I never felt like I missed anything or like I was abandoning her. Now that she's home with me, it's different, and I don't know why.”
“It's different because she's home,” Link said, pausing to hold a strand of her hair and making sure his cuts were straight.
“I've been home with her for 12 weeks and I still feel like I did the first day I got her. I've barely even unpacked. I've just been living out of boxes for three months,” Jo said as she glared over at the stack of boxes that she hadn’t unpacked yet.
“You've got a 10-month-old baby, a preemie 10-month-old baby girl, and you're doing everything on your own. So long as you keep yourself and her alive, I think you're doing pretty good,” Link said, putting a hand on her shoulder and giving it a squeeze.
“Thanks,” Jo said, looking back at him.
Jo let out a sigh as she looked around the room again. She never imagined her life turning out like this. Even with Luna, the penthouse felt big and empty at times. She was glad that Link was staying with her now. This was the first time that she had lived on her own in six years. She had never gone more than a few months without a roommate or without Alex. As she looked down at Luna, she smiled. Jo could tell she was getting sleepy as she ran her finger over her forehead and down the bridge of her little nose, and her eyes fluttered. It was a trick that Alex had taught her to get the NICU babies to sleep. She knew that even if they were still together, she would have still adopted Luna, but she always thought that Alex would be the one to make her mother or at least be with her through all of this.
“I never thought I'd be doing this alone. I thought that I'd have him with me,” Jo said, looking down at Luna. She had settled in Jo's arms, her eyes were growing heavy, and she struggled to keep them open and soon closed as she fell asleep.
“I know,” Link whispered as they both fell silent, save for the sound of the scissors cutting her hair.
“Whenever we talked about kids, he always got this big smile on his face. He made all these promises to me. He promised me that we would move into a good house in a good school district and that we would go on all of the vacations that we never got to take his kids. Disneyland, and the beach, and roller coasters, and water parks. He promised me that he would change all of the diapers after I gave birth, and I would roll my eyes, but I knew that he would do his best to keep his promises.”
Jo couldn't help but get choked up even a year later. She still grieved for the things that she lost when he left as tears collected in her eyes and a lump formed in her throat. “I adopted Luna alone, and I knew that I was going to be a single mother, but I never thought I'd do this alone.”
“You're not alone, Jo. You have me,” Link said, although he still had the left side of her hair to do. He dropped the scissors and wrapped his arms around her, putting his head on your shoulder. She leaned her head against his, letting a few tears slip out of her eyes. “I never thought I'd find the love of my life and that she wouldn't want to marry me. I never thought that I would be raising my son half the time. I don't want to be alone either, so why don't we stick together? Then we’ll never be alone.”
Jo could only nod as she closed her eyes and shuffled Luna into one arm so she could put her arm around Link as he hugged her. Jo let out a sigh as she let out her tears, although it was just a few. Every time she cried about Alex, she cried less and less. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but it was what it was. Once she pulled away from him, Link let go of her and gave her a tissue to wipe her face. He double-checked that she was okay before he went back to cutting her hair.
“So if I'm going to move in, we should probably move you and Luna into one of the bedrooms, otherwise it's just awkward,” Link said, as Jo let out a little laugh and tried not to jostle Luna too much.
“Okay, so do you want the bedroom with the fireplace or without the fireplace?”
“The guest bedroom has a fireplace?” Link paused, moving his head around to look at her as Jo nodded. “Yep, and the master bedroom has both a fireplace and this huge jacuzzi tub that can fit like two people.”
“Wow,” Link said with a shake of his head. “It's so weird that you're rich now.”
“It's super weird,” Jo said as she looked around the penthouse a little bit while trying not to move her head. She still wasn't used to it and didn't think she would ever get used to it.
“Alright, I'm all done. What do you think?” Link said as he ran a brush through their hair one last time before Jo held up the mirror to look at her hair.
It was shorter and blond, and she didn't look anything like herself, but she was happy with it. “It looks great. Thank you”
“Don't act so surprised. I told you I know how to cut hair,” Link said as he took the scissors and went to grab the broom.
“It is kind of a little surprising, though,” Jo said as she got up to go put Luna in her crib. When she put her down, Jo lingered there. She held onto the side of the crib and just watched her for an extra second.
“Hey, come help me with this?” Link said, holding out the dustpan to her, and Jo knew that he was trying to pull her away, but she let him and grabbed the dustpan to help him sweep up her hair.
Later that night, Jo laid in bed staring at Luna in her crib. She just got on her back down and was just watching to make sure she didn't wake up again. As Luna slept peacefully Jo found that she couldn't close her eyes. Some Nights the bed still felt too big and empty, no matter how many pillows she squished up against her back. Every time she reached out to feel the cold space next to her, it was just another reminder of the person who should be there.
Jo let out a huff as she reached out to her nightstand. She sat up just a little bit as she opened the drawer and pulled out the photo that she kept hidden away. It wasn't even her photo and frame. It was the one that Alex kept on his nightstand. The glass of the frame was gone and it was now held together with a little bit of duct tape after she threw across the loft, breaking it. The second she tossed it, she ran to get it and put it back together. Jo looked at the photo, it was them on their wedding day. They looked so happy and he looked so in love with her. She ran her fingers over his face, tracing the lines of his hair and the little curls in his hair. She still didn't know when that love stopped.
“I wish you were here. I wish I would have given you a baby earlier. I wish you would know and love Luna like I do,” Jo said as she let herself whisper aloud.
She could feel the tears that came up earlier in her eyes again. She took in a deep breath, and she closed her eyes as she settled, and the tears disappeared. Whenever she did that, she didn't know if she was holding in her tears or letting them go, sometimes it felt like doing a little bit of both.
She heard Luna stir and move around and saw her kick in her crib. Jo put the photo down and got up to glance at her, letting out a sigh of relief as she saw Luna was still asleep. She smiled too as she watched her little girl move in her sleep, dreaming of happy things. Her peaceful watching was interrupted by a loud snore from Link as she looked over at him. He was asleep on the couch and spread out with one leg up on the armrest and the other dangling off as he was too big for the couch.
As much as she wished that she had Alex with her, she acknowledged that her life was pretty good right now. She was surrounded by people who loved her. She had a family and a daughter whom she loved more than anything. She was pursuing a new career that she was passionate about. If she had left with him and gone to Kansas, she wouldn't have any of this. She looked back at Luna and reached out, tracing her fingers across her arm down to her hand as her little hand wrapped around Jo’s fingers.
“You are worth the heartbreak a thousand times over,” Jo said, although the tears welled up in her eyes again and this time, she let them fall on her cheeks. “I hope you hear me and I hope you know that. I love you so much, my Little Moon.”
Luna smiled in her sleep and Jo shared her smile. She squeezed Luna's hand one last time before she let her finger slip out of her grasp and went to crawl back into bed. She put the photograph away in her nightstand and moved the pillows up against her back again as she tried not to miss Alex. Instead, she watched Luna in her crib just for a moment. Her daughter would be okay in daycare and she would know that she was loved even if Jo wasn't with her all the time. Then she closed her eyes and she smiled as she fell asleep.