“No!” I quickly yelled. “Put it on the fireplace mantel where we can appreciate it.”
He smirked.
“No one ever goes in your office, honey. Put it up here.” I moved a few of our wedding pictures, making a place for his statue.
I sat down on the couch with the baby, showing him the picture of all of us on our wedding day.
I smiled at the big grin Pete wore on his face when the picture was taken. The trip was a second honeymoon for Pete and Tammy, and sometime during that week, Tammy got pregnant. Their daughter, Madison, was six months old now.
We all joked that maybe our son and their daughter might get together one day. You never know which way the wind is going to blow. Anything is possible.
I had spent all that time worrying about what I would do with my life, only to have it all work out on its own. Wife, mother, partner, lover . . . it was all very fulfilling.
Ryan joined me and the baby in the sunroom that overlooked the lake. He propped his feet up on the coffee table and tossed the box he had in his hands onto the floor.
“Let me hold him now,” Ryan whispered, slipping his hands around our tiny baby boy. “Come here, little guy. Come to Daddy,” he crooned.
Seeing my husband so in love with his son filled me completely.
“What’s in the box?” I asked, watching the sun set over the tops of the evergreens.
Ryan chuckled. “Scripts. More scripts.”
“Well, you know, honey, you only have one Oscar. If you had two, we’d have matching bookends.”
He grinned at me. “Nah, I already have one. Maybe you should work for the second one?”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t think so. Besides, I’m not an actress.”
“But you could be, if you try. After all, you’re the one who keeps saying that anything is possible if you point yourself in the right direction.”
So he’d been paying attention.
I slid my leg down the table and kicked him in the foot.
Bonus Chapter
While I was developing the story line for Love Unrehearsed, I had the following passage in the beginning as the original dream sequence. I chose to cut it because I didn’t want to give too much away up front. I wanted Taryn’s adoption to be a surprise.
While developing Taryn’s character, I wondered what Taryn’s last memory of Joey might be that caused her to have those recurring nightmares of the “boy with the black hair” and what caused the division on her mother’s side of the family.
I have fond memories of being my father’s “beer fetcher” while he and the other men in the family played horseshoes, so this scene partially comes from my childhood. We went to the same place to have a family picnic every year and the gray cinder-block garage on the property always seemed to be a few degrees cooler than the blistering heat outside.
The little blond-haired girl sneaking ice cubes with a Barbie in one hand? That was me.
Enjoy.
Grandfather’s Fishing Shack
July 4, 1986
“Whoa! Careful there, sweetheart!”
Daddy’s big hands latched tightly under my arms and he spun me up into his arms. The big metal U
that Uncle Al threw tumbled right past Daddy’s foot and fell softly like a whisper in the grass.
“Taryn, you know better. I don’t want you to get hit with one of those horseshoes. It will hurt.” His bottom lip stuck out like a big fat worm. It looked funny. I wanted to grab it and squeeze it.
I sat perched in my daddy’s arms and watched Uncle Al make funny faces as he swung his arm, aiming for the rusty spike sticking straight up from the ground. The clanging noise was kind of frightening. I imagined that the horses that wore those big shoes had to be enormous. Like elephants. Or even bigger.
Like houses. I wished I could ride one.
“Your cheeks are red, Daddy.”
He placed a few kisses on my face. “So are yours, peanut. Mommy has to put more lotion on you.
Who do you have here? Who’s this bum?”
I waved my dolly’s arm to say “Hi.” “This is Ken. He’s my boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend, huh?” He raised his brow, giving me that one-eye look. “What happened to his pants?”
I pointed over to my tiny splash pool, where they were floating. Barbie was still in the water.
“Do I need to have a talk with him about showing his heinie in public?”
I giggled. “Can you take me in the big water now?”
“That’s two points for us,” Dad said proudly, shifting me on his hip to retrieve one of the metal U’s.
I patted his cheek. “Daddy?”
He smiled his toothy grin at me and I knew I had him. “In a minute, sweetheart. Daddy and Uncle Al need to mop up Uncle Andy and Bean Man over there first. You don’t go anywhere near that lake without Mommy or Daddy. Understand? You stay here where I can see you.”
I watched Uncle Al drink from the brown glass bottle, tilting it far into the sky to get every last drop.
“Hey, Taryn?” Uncle Al called. “Would you do me a big, big favor? Would you throw this away in the garbage and get me and your, um, daddy new bottles from the garage? You can be our special helper.”
Happiness swirled inside me as I ran. I wanted to be the best special helper in the world.
It was cooler in the big gray garage than out in the hot sun. I dug my hands into the chilly coldness of the little squares of ice in the bucket, sneaking one into my mouth like Daddy does. It made my teeth hurt but it felt wonderful on my tongue. They were like special, secret candies that turned into water. And I had a whole pile of them to enjoy.
“Hey! What are you doing in there?”
The voice shook me hard and I immediately dropped the ice cube. I had been caught. I almost wanted to cry.
Joey. I recognized him right away, although he still frightened me when he yelled. His hair was the same color as my bedroom at night and it covered his eyes, but his teeth were really white. I wondered if he knew the monsters that lived under my bed.
“You are way too young to drink, young lady,” he said sternly. Joey walked a little funny. Like one leg didn’t work right. He took the brown bottle out of my hand and put it back in the ice. I wanted to ask him if his mommy painted his fingernails black like that. I thought boys didn’t wear nail polish.
Crouching down in front of me, he pinched the wet strand of hair that hung over my eye and placed it behind my ear.
“You are so beautiful.” He sighed. His eyes crinkled with happiness. “Just like your mommy.” I beamed proudly. My mommy was beautiful.
“And look. You’re already losing some teeth. How old are you now?”
I held out my hand and spread my fingers proudly, remembering to tuck in my thumb.
Joey sat down on the floor and crossed his legs. “Wow. Four. You are getting so big and so smart. God, I wish your mommy was here to see you. She’d be so happy. You have her hair and looks, you know.”
I felt my eyes scrunch. My mommy’s hair was brown, like the crayon I used to color dirt and trees. Not sunny buttercup yellow like mine.
He leaned in closer. “Can you keep a secret? Just between us?”
Maybe Special Secret Helpers had secrets, too.
“You and I have the same-color eyes. See?” Joey’s eyes were deep blue, like the color of the sky outside behind the puffy cotton clouds.
He looked sad, which made me sad. “I wish you had a chance to see your mommy again. But unfortunately, you can’t.”
I didn’t like that. I wanted to run to her now. “Why not?”
“Because,” he exhaled, rough and hard, “your real mommy lives in heaven with the angels.”
Now I really wanted to cry. And get mad. “No she doesn’t. My mommy is over there.”
Joey was looking right in my eyes. “Listen to me. Your mommy’s name is . . . was . . . Kelcie. And she loved you very much. But . . .”
I wondered which cloud in the sky was heaven.
“Damn, I wish I had more time. I wish . . . I don’t know when I’ll get to see you again,” Joey said softly.