Bridge To Happiness (45 page)

Unexpectedly, unbelievably, I found there is room in a single lifetime to love again, and I know this because of the great luck that brought me two good men. I had always thought love was a once in a lifetime thing. Just once. Just him. Never anyone else. That we would grow old together, just as we had been young together.

And though my love then was for him alone, I learned the most wonderful thing: you can recreate love with someone else. It’s different. My new love is not the same as my old love had been. Though no less stronger. No less deeper.

I felt Rio walk up beside me. He placed his arm around me and kissed my ear, whispering something he loves about me. Together we stare out at the hills, the pastures, speckled yellow with mustard, and the fences, at our families, and beyond.

The breeze picked up, and a single white feather floated down from overhead. I looked up into the tree branches, where sunshine came through and touched my face.

The end

(Continue reading for more about ‘Bridge to Happiness’)

1. What makes our first real love so special?

2. Relationships between women are the most complex.
Bridge To Happiness
explores those relationships. How did March’s relationship with her mother relate to her own relationship with Molly? Whose judgment is stronger, mother or daughter?

3. March forms lifelong relationships. Her friends were her sanity. How have your friends saved your sanity over the years?

4. March and Mike had a strong marriage for a long time. What is it about these two that makes for a lasting marriage? What are the most important aspects of a good marriage?

5. Do you believe March was a good mother? Why? Why not?

6. Do you believe raising daughters is harder than raising sons? Different? Why? Why not?

7. March’s life was turned upside down in a single moment. Was her grief selfish at times? When? Was it honest? Why or why not?

8. What is the one thing you would have March do differently? Why?

9. How are Scott and Phillip, Mickey and Molly alike? How are they different? Who are they most like, March or Mike?

10. Do you believe competition in a family and between siblings is healthy? Should a mother get involved when adult siblings fight?

11. Mike died because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yet Spider told March he tried to get Mike to stay the night he was killed, which opened a haunting and painful “if only” for her. Rio chose not to tell March he took Mike to the airport. Do you believe Rio should have told her? Is the truth worth the deep wound it would make? What do you believe were Spider’s motives? Rio’s motives? Valiant or selfish? Can love exist with a secret like this?

12. March believed Molly was with Spider for the wrong reasons. Do you believe it? Should Molly have married him for the baby?

13. Do you believe March should have walked away from Rio? Would you?

14. The age difference between Rio and March was a problem for her kids. Is it a problem for you? Why? Interestingly, age was not a problem for her sons when it came to Spider and Molly. Do you believe men see age in a woman differently?

15. How were Mike and Rio alike? How were they different? Does March have a “type?” Do you believe it’s possible to have more than one great love?

Jill Barnett was born and raised in Southern California, in the kind of idyllic coastal town the Beach Boys made famous. But as a young girl she spent plenty of summers on her grandparents’ farm in Texas. Among her Southern family she was the lone native Californian. “My dad used to tease me and say I was the only prune picker in a family of cotton pickers.”

A gap in jobs in her mid-thirties sent Jill back to college and working toward her Masters degree. “I intended to finish school and teach, perhaps write college textbooks that wouldn’t bore all the enjoyment of history out of the average nineteen year old.” But the gift of a baby daughter (something Jill had been told she could never have) changed everything.

Soon she was juggling childcare and classes, motherhood, marriage and home, and found herself in the shoes of so many women, trying to be everything to everyone. “It was October and I took my daughter to a local pumpkin farm to pick a pumpkin. I stood there watching the absolute, pure delight on her two year-old face as she ran through the rows, finding each pumpkin more wonderful than the last. It was a seminal moment in my life. The ordinary world from your child’s eyes is a magical place. You see that joy in something you take for granted—if you notice at all—and suddenly you remember to stop and pay attention to life around you, to not pant through every day but pause to really take deep breaths. You find wonder all over again.”

Four days later Jill quit school to rethink her choices and concentrate on family, something she has never regretted. She was asked once if sacrificing her goals for her daughter and husband wasn’t traveling backwards. “It was never a sacrifice. It was and is enrichment. I am more of a woman for the experience.”

And Jill’s goals had only changed “not evaporated.” Always an avid reader, she had been dabbling with a novel. “Writing is very intimidating. To dabble with an idea was safer, but was also how I found my way into my first book.” Soon she was writing during downtime and almost two years to the day she quit school, she sold her first book to Pocket Books, a division of Simon and Schuster.

“We women walk such a fine line in our lives, often straddling motherhood and career, and feeling the push-pull between the two, when the truth is: we need both to be fulfilled and each one enriches the other. I discovered I had to redefine happiness away from my own expectations and guilt and especially my demands on myself. Family, love and relationships all feed my writing. My emotional response and experiences, the grittiness in life, give my work a sense of humanity.

In the years since, Jill has written thirteen novels and six short stories. There are nearly 7 million of her books in print. Her work has been published in 22 languages, audio, national and international book clubs, and large print editions, and has earned her a place on such national bestseller lists as the
New York Times
,
USA Today
,
Washington Post
,
Publishers Weekly
, Barnes and Noble and Waldenbooks —who presented Jill with the National Waldenbook Award.

Available In Ebook From Bell Bridge Books

The Days of Summer

Sentimental Journey

Wonderful

Wild

Wicked

Carried Away

Imagine

Bewitching

Dreaming

Just a Kiss Away

The Heart’s Haven