Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“Okay,” I said after a moment, needing to breathe around the lump in my throat.
“Kola’s apartment fell through,” Hannah told her father, still leaning against him. “Someone was murdered there. It was a mob hit.”
“I doubt it was a mob hit,” he assured her, letting her go. “Now go blow your nose and wash your face and come back.”
She did as she was told, and then he rounded on me, taking off his tie.
“Yes, fine. I made her cry.”
He grunted.
“Your son will baptize his children, if he has them, for you.”
“I love the change in topic, but more importantly, his significant other, whoever that is, might have something to say about that when the time comes.”
“Unless he’s a single parent.”
“If your son is a single parent, that means he will have moved back home, so let’s not put that out in the universe, all right?”
I smiled at him as he gestured me over. I lunged at him, just as my daughter had, and he wrapped me in his arms and kissed my forehead.
“Did you tell them that the roof needs to be replaced?”
“No.”
“That at least was newsy,” he explained.
It was that.
“Did you tell them that when I took Chilly to the vet, she thinks he’s either eighteen or nineteen, and other than the fact that he’s now completely blind in one eye, is healthier than other cats half his age?”
“He sleeps a lot.”
“All cats sleep a lot.”
“True.”
“I like how when I’m not here you guys get all deep and worry about people dying––”
I leaned back to look up at his face. “How did you know we were talking about––”
“But things like the roof took hail damage, plus it’s twenty-plus years old, and the cat don’t come up. This is why you’re all so lucky to have me. I keep this family grounded.”
“You most definitely do.”
That’s it, all. Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there, and I’ll see you next month and tell you all about our roof repair.
JUNE 2023
First off, welcome to June 2023 He Said, he said. Second, happy Pride, all. Hope June is treating you well thus far. For me this month has been a bit of a roller coaster. So let me start with the fact that every now and then, the people in my life underestimate me. It doesn’t happen often, not anymore, but they think, especially the love of my life, that I can’t put things together. He also thinks, for whatever reason, that my circle of acquaintances is small. It is not.
Second to the last week in May, I was planning our annual Memorial Day party. Usually, after we get back from our local soup kitchen in the morning and visit the VA, Sam then starts prepping the grill and people start trickling in for a visit, normally staying the rest of the day. It’s one of my favorite holidays, just food and good company and story sharing. I have the usual suspects I invite. But that Thursday before, on his way out in the morning, my husband said, in passing, he’d prefer that for the holiday it just be us this year.
I looked up at him from the kitchen table where I was on my computer, checking over some Instagram postings for a client. “What does that mean?”
“What do you mean what does that mean?” he asked, stopping at the back door, squinting as though I was the one who was unclear.
“Exactly,” I said. “Define us.”
“You know, our family.”
“Define family.”
He grimaced, and I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. It was funny, or would have been, that he crossed his arms as well. But as he was acting so strange, I was concerned about him.
Quick huff of frustrated breath. “I mean, like, my folks, Dane, Aja, Dylan and Chris, Michael if he wants—but family.”
“So everyone that normally comes.”
He grimaced. “Except not Aaron.”
Okay. Now we were getting somewhere. “Why not Aaron?”
“Just…but if he’s out of town, then Duncan is certainly welcome.”
“But if he’s in town?”
“Then no.”
No. Interesting. I nodded. “What precisely did Aaron do?”
He shook his head, gave me that quick scrunch of his forehead which was supposed to be dismissive. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Are you kidding?”
“I—I just went to talk to him about something, to get some clarity, and his answers were less than satisfactory.”
“I see,” I replied, not seeing at all.
Because I knew my husband well, and knew that a direct assault on his logic was always met with resistance and a great deal of digging in, I let it drop.
The following morning, Friday, I was at Aaron’s apartment in Streeterville at seven. I said apartment, but it was the penthouse in Sutter Plaza. His grandfather named the building after himself. It was a bit over the top for me. But then again, I didn’t come from a family of billionaires, so what did I know? I suspected that one’s priorities could become terribly skewed if you weren’t careful. Aaron was fortunate, because he’d married well, and his husband always kept him grounded. So while it was a very nice place, it no longer looked at all like it did back in the day when he and I dated.