Uh yeah, can we say writer's block? I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update. And without further ado, let the story continue.
After leaving Emily, Elizabeth called Sonny.
"Hi Sonny. I was able to figure out what's wrong with Emily. The only thing is, I can't tell you what it is."
"Why can't you tell me? I hope you know that because she's Jason's sister, that I care about her and I want to make sure she's alright."
"I have no doubt that you're worried about her and that you want to help her. I just can't tell you what happened to her. This is something she's going to have to tell you herself, and you're just going to have to wait until she's ready to tell you."
"If you can't tell me what it is, can you at least tell me what I can do for her until she's comfortable telling me what it is?"
"The first, and most important thing, is that you need to respect her personal space. Try to avoid touching her unless she touches you first. Secondly, you should try to include her in as many normal activities as you can. Things like watching movies with the kids, or taking them to school. You should keep her busy, but not too busy. Allow her some time for herself everyday, she's going to need that. Third, just try not to treat her like a breakable object. She's a strong young woman to have made it through this for this long. Be careful with her, but don't act as though she's fragile. If you act like you're trying to be careful, she's going to think that you see her as being weak. One thing that you could do for her that would really be special is to go buy her a diary or journal. Make sure it's simple but somewhat frilly. Just tell her that you wanted to get her something for helping to take care of the boys if she wonders what prompted the gift. That's really all I can say. I hope that helps."
"That helps alot Elizabeth. I really appreciate you calling me. I want to help her, but I'll wait until she's ready to let me help. Feel free to stop by anytime to visit. I know she'd love that."
"I will stop by again soon. Thanks for asking me to visit with her. She's lucky to have you in her life."
Sonny hangs up the phone, sits back in the seat of his limo and sighs deeply. "I don't know who did what to you Emily, but I swear I'm gonna take care of you so that you'll feel safe."
After going to check on his coffee business, Sonny makes a stop at a local book store. He looks around for a couple minutes, having no luck finding any journals. Finally he approaches a store clerk for help.
"Can I help you?"
"Yes you can. I'm wanting to purchase a journal for a young woman friend of mine. She's my best friend's sister and she's been staying with me to help me take care of my sons. I think she may have recently gone through something terrible, and I thought maybe being able to write about it might help."
The woman smiled at him warmly. "Our journals are right over here." She walked a couple aisles over and showed Sonny their collection. "Do you know what style she would want?"
"I think she would want something that's simple, but just a little on the feminine side. If you had one with a lock on it, that would be great. I have two young boys, and I wouldn't want them to be able to open it."
"Here is our best seller. It comes in lavendar, blue, back, grey and burgundy. It has a voice recognition lock on it. Key locks on most journals are just so easy to pick you know. Is this what you're looking for?"
"Yes, this will be perfect. I'll take a lavendar one." The lady picks up a lavendar journal, and starts to hand it to Sonny. "Do you have a wrapping service? I'm not very good at that myself. "We sure do, but you'll have to pay a small fee for that."
"That's fine. I'll pay whatever amount of money it takes."
The woman takes the journal over to the wrapping desk, puts it in a nice box and starts to wrap it. "Your young woman friend is going to love this. You must love her very much."
"She's my best friend's sister. She' like family to me, and I enjoy doing things to make her happy. Her brother is out of town right now, so I want to take care of her like he would if he were here."
The woman smiles and nods. She finishes wrapping the journal and swipes Sonny's card through the machine. Then she hands the journal to Sonny and smiles again as she watches him get into his limo.
"I predict that this young woman is going to mean more to him than just family when all is said and done."