At Your Service ✓

[Chapter Sixty-Nine] Mari

Chapter Sixty-Nine – Mari

As if we needed more surprises In our lives, we got another one a week later.

Life had just started to settle back down, we were getting comfortable with his mother being around, they were staying with us as they were closing on a house of their own that was about fifteen minutes away, so pretty close but close was good when you had kids.

She had planned on just putting a down payment on a small two bedroom home for her and Laila but Shawn wouldn't hear of that. He gave her nearly half a million and bought her a bigger four bedroom house, he said that if we had kids then she would need the extra space if she wanted them to ever stay with her.

After all these years you could see the love he had for his mother still, it didn't matter about the past, at least not much, she was sober and she was here and that's what he cared about.

We were talking about off base housing since I told him we could get married before Colling got here so we were just staying here as a temporary fix until we got married and approved which I don't think would be a problem with a family of four and his rank.

We were going through the motions of planning the wedding, I got a simple light pink dress because I didn't want to wear white on my wedding day, we found a little park, we invited about twenty people and planned it so Marla and Dan could fly back for the wedding on one of his four days breaks in the tour.

We ordered a few flowers and we found a place that will set everything up for us. I didn't care about the colors or any of that; I just didn't want a court house wedding.

We were in the middle of packing, wedding planning and baby shopping; in other words chaos, when I was the one who got the surprise in disguise of one for Shawn.

A letter came for him but it wasn't for him, it was for me.

"Hey Mari, we may have a problem." Shawn had said when he opened it and he handed it over.

"What?" I asked as I scanned through it and my heart dropped slightly.

"What does it say?" he asked me

"Mari, I don't know if I'm writing to the right person or not but when I saw your picture I swore it was you so if it's not, I'm sorry for the strange letter. It's Jared, you know, your brother. Don't worry, mom and dad don't actually look online and would kill me if they knew I was. I saw you with Shawn in a picture and I had to know if it was you Josie. I miss you and if it is you, please call me. I just turned eighteen and already left home and I was heading up to New York but if this is you I'd really like to see you. You're brother, Maybe, Jared." I read out loud.

I knew that he found the right person and I don't know how he figured out it was me, he hasn't seen me in ten years but I guess I kind of do look the same, the red hair didn't do much to make me look older.

"Are you going to call him?" he asked me and I nodded. I always regretted leaving him there and if I was in a better place in my life I would have fought for him as soon as I turned eighteen but I never would have won, I was a recovering addict with a baby with no education and no real job.

"Yes." I picked up the phone and dialed his number right then and there. Honestly I missed him but he was my limit, no more surprise family members are allowed to pop up, damn it.

If they do someone was dying or zombies existed.

"Hello." He answered

"Jared?" I asked and he paused

"Josie?" he asked me and I nodded and remembered he couldn't see me.

"It's me, how did you find me?" I asked him