Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“I think that depends on a lot of factors,” she acknowledged. “Maybe Jake needs to move out and I spend some nights at his place. I can’t imagine you and Dad allowing Jake to sleep in my bedroom since I’m only seventeen.”
Seventeen. God.
“Also, I have an appointment this week to get put on the pill.”
My baby. My youngest. My daughter. My angel. I couldn’t even think beyond those facts.
“But if I left for college and brought a boy home, where would he sleep in the house if you knew we’d been sleeping together at school?”
I had to lean over and put my hands on my knees and breathe. I felt like all the air was being slowly choked out of my body, and it was ridiculous, because by the time I was seventeen, I had slept with too many boys, and men, to count. My reaction was both hypocritical and just…this was my daughter. She was one of the smartest, strongest, most thoughtful people I knew. She never did anything impetuously except run headfirst into danger. But where her heart was concerned, she was methodical. She loved Jake, and I’d watched it change about the time she turned fifteen. She looked at him differently, her eyes lingered on him, she smiled when he did when he was talking to others, and she blushed when he complimented her. Their hugs got longer and tighter, she couldn’t keep her hands off him or out of his hair, and finally, their fingers were constantly entwined. When every other word was his name and he took every opportunity to be close to her, I knew it was inevitable. And there were people who would say, seventeen is too young to have sex, but the age of consent was seventeen in Illinois. Beyond that—and I knew others would say the same about their kids—Hannah was more mature than others. I wasn’t stupid, famous last words and all that, but in her case, it was true. She always knew precisely what she wanted, and the course she would take to get it.
“I’m glad,” Kola had told me when we stood in the backyard watching them chase each other around. “Hannah’s good for him. She’ll steady him. He’s like a balloon floating all around, but she’ll hold on and keep him grounded.”
“And what does she get?” I asked my son.
“C’mon,” he scoffed, smiling at me. “She gets his heart. It’s a good one.”
And Kola knew what he was talking about. “So you’re not worried?”
“Not about them,” he said, putting his arm around me. “If you want to worry about something, you should worry about Jake and Dad installing the Santa and the reindeer on the roof this year.”
“What?”
He chuckled. “Apparently Jake’s got this cantilever thing planned where most of it won’t even be attached to the house. My concern is, did he account for snow? He says yes, but Harper thinks no.”
“What’re you saying?”
“I think either it’ll fall and take out a car in the driveway—hopefully ours and not anyone visiting—or fall in and come through the roof of your bathroom.”
“What?” I said, louder that time.
He shrugged. “I mean, I’m not an engineer, and Jake’s the one going into construction engineering, and Harper is more of a mechanical engineer, but still…if Harper says he thinks it’s gonna take out your shower, I think you should listen to him.”
“Oh dear God, we need to talk to your father.”
Kola nodded. “You see, bigger fish to fry than Hannah and Jake.”
But now, in this moment where I was staring into the big warm eyes of my daughter, all I could think was that no man would ever be worthy of her.
Did I want her to have a life and all the experiences that came with that? Of course I did. Heartbreak and happiness were both vital for growth, but still…
“I don’t need you to say okay,” she told me, “but I want you to say it.”
“I think it might be like how Dad feels about his folks,” I explained. “He knows they had sex because he exists, as well as his brother and sisters, but he doesn’t want to have to think about the big picture.”
She nodded, grinning at me. “That makes sense.”
“There could be problems, though, after that.”
“True,” she agreed, “because I’ll probably like it and I’ll want to do it a lot.”
I took in a deep breath through my nose.
“Okay, that was probably TMI.”
“Just a bit,” I agreed, still doing my breathing.
“There is a profound lack of privacy in this house.”
“Yes,” I concurred.
“Maybe Jake and I might have to move out.”
“Which neither your father nor I want.”
“I know,” she sighed, nodding. “We might have to give this all some more thought.”
I put my hand on my heart, because I was concerned that it wasn’t beating quite as well as it should have been.