marissa pollack’s Reviews > Jo & Laurie > Status Update

The family broke out in applause, and then Jo and Laurie realized, dazedly, that they were not alone.
They never had been.
They were surrounded by love. Love for each other, love for their family, a love that would sustain and carry them all their lives.
Beginning now.

"It's all right, Jo. I've known it was coming; I've known it longer than either of you, I suppose. It's just-well, some small part of me must mourn it. Just for a moment. I've lost Beth. I nearly lost Amy. Today I'm losing Meg. Now I'll lose you, too."
"Except you haven't, Mama. And you won't. You'll never lose any of us."

"My dear Teddy," she said, pulling him by his waistcoat. "Don't you see? We swore it the day we met."
He touched his forehead to hers. "And every day after."
Jo closed her eyes. "Every moment of every day."
Then he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her, and she kissed him back, his soft lips warm against hers, as his arms encircled her waist and pulled her ever closer.
It was worth the wait.

And in that moment, Josephine March knew precisely what to do. And even more, she knew she was going to do it.
Risk it. Embrace it. Maybe even, one day, lose it.
Love.
It would be her honor and her pleasure to go down with this particular ship. They could be dashed together upon the rocks, only blurry, ink splotched pages to mark their watery grave.
Because it was always our story.
It just never had the right ending.

He is my person. Everyone needs a person, and he is mine.
Only he isn't mine.
He was, and now he's not.

Jo felt she understood it, even felt it now. She'd glimpsed the heart of things, the why behind every action, every decision.
The world opened itself up to her, and by extension, so did her book.
She went upstairs to the attic and lit the candles. She wrote all night, the words feverish in her mind.

As Laurie watched them, he felt the same wistful pull at his heart that he'd come to expect whenever he saw the March girls together with their mother. A feeling of longing and belonging, all tied together at once, in a way that somehow contradicted and completed itself. It didn't seem real or possible, but there it was, every time he saw the Marches.
What the word for that?
But as soon as he wondered, he knew.
Home.

She had accepted him only because her first choice had been denied. Because when you couldn't have what your heart most desired, what did it matter? After that, everyone else was just another someone to try to love.
Another wrong someone.
On that score, they were alike. *Exactly alike,* Laurie had to admit.

"It doesn't matter. I won't marry someone who's in love with another person. And neither should you."

The truth was that the fictional Theodore Laurence was as much a puzzle as the real one. She couldn't stop thinking of his words at their last parting: *I’ll treasure our friendship, no matter how far away I go.*
Don't go, she wanted to say. Not so far away. Not where I can't reach you.
Don't turn your back on life in Concord, not because of me.
You will always be my dearest friend. No wife can change that.

Jo still had Amy and Meg. She still had Mama and Hannah and her home. And she must learn to be grateful for all she had.
There were others with less, as Mama liked to remind them.
So it didn't matter that Meg would marry and leave home, that Jo could lose her best friend and ruin her career. They still had one another: Meg, Jo, and Amy. They were sisters, and they were still alive, together. It was enough.